Speakers

Jelle van Haaster is an award-winning writer, software programmer/developer, and speaker. He was an officer in the Royal Netherlands Army and has a diverse background in legal, military, and technical defense matters. Jelle developed an award-winning app for effectively utilizing social media during military operations in 2014, and he is the author of multiple scholarly IT-Law, IT, and military-operational publications. He is currently completing his multidisciplinary Ph.D. thesis on the future utility of military Cyber Operations during conflicts at the Netherlands Defense Academy and University of Amsterdam. In 2018 Jelle was awarded the ‘young civil servant of the year’ award.

Lieutenant colonel Matti Pitkäniitty is the head of international affairs unit at the Finnish Border Guard. He has over 20 years of work experience, working mainly at the Finnish-Russian land border. Since 2014 he has been involved in EU affairs at the Finnish Ministry of the Interior and from 2015 to 2017 he worked in Brussels as a Justice and Home Affairs Counsellor at the Finnish Permanent Representation to the EU. During last five years Pitkäniitty has participated in negotiations of all major legislative files related to border control. These files cover Entry and Exit System, ETIAS and framework for interoperability between information systems as well as other important files such as both European Border and Coast Guard regulations and security of ID-cards and residence permits. In his dual role Pitkäniitty has been promoting Finnish positions at the negotiations as well as participating in the national implementation of these files.

Maciej Popowski is Deputy Director-General in the Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations of the European Commission.

Ambassador Popowski is a Polish diplomat with 25 years of professional experience. He was director for EU affairs at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time of Poland's accession negotiations. In 2001-2008 he was Deputy Head of the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the European Union. In 2003-2008 he was Poland's first permanent representative in the EU's Political and Security Committee. He then joined the European Commission as Director in DG Development focusing on policy coherence, aid effectiveness, financing, relations with other donors and public information. In 2009 he was seconded from the European Commission to become head of cabinet of Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament. From 2011 until 2015 he was Deputy Secretary-General of the European External Action Service.

Dirk Vande Ryse is the Director of the Situational Awareness and Monitoring Division at Frontex, which contributes to the provision of reliable and comprehensive situational awareness. In this role he oversees the mobilisation and fusion of a wide range of sources of information and encourages the application of innovative approaches towards the collection of actionable intelligence, with a view of reducing the vulnerability of the external EU borders.

Having started his career at the Belgian Judicial Police, where he specialised in investigating serious crime, he has 30 years of experience in law enforcement intelligence and border security. Prior to joining Frontex, he worked at Europol, the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, where he pioneered the creation and maintenance of state-of-the-art information and change management initiatives. During his twelve years at Frontex, Dirk set up and managed the Frontex Situation Centre, as well as the command and control of real-time surveillance and crisis management.

Mr. Vande Ryse holds a bachelor’s degree in social work and a master’s in criminology. Keen on constant learning, he has developed certified qualifications in business administration and change management at master’s level and was involved in a variety of management and international senior leadership courses. He has also written a number of published scientific articles related to his field of work.

Ants Kutti is a Deputy Head of Customs Department at the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. He started his career in the Customs 14 years ago as an expert in risk analysis, at the country's biggest border crossing point in Narva on the Estonian-Russian border.

He led the implementation of the integrated customs and border control model in Narva. The model has enhanced customs risk assessment and reduced the control time as well as overall border crossing time. Ants would like to extend this working model to all Estonian border crossing points and share the best practices with his European colleagues. He is an active member in the Customs Eastern and South-Eastern Land Border Expert Team (CELBET). The aim of CELBET is to strengthen and improve operational cooperation among its members. Ants strongly believes that the CELBET project is a great example of how common interests of the Member States can be implemented through good cooperation.

Apart from being a professional customs officer, Ants is also an officer of the Estonian Defence League and regularly participates in military defence exercises. Ants holds a Master's degree (from the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences) in internal security. He is married with two sons.

Ana Cristina is currently the Director of Operational Response Division of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – Frontex. Before, since 2012, she was the Head of Joint Operations Unit (named Field Deployments Unit since February 2018).

The Operational Response Division includes a Field Deployments Unit, a Coast Guard and Law Enforcement Unit, a European Centre for Returns and a Centre of Excellence for Combating Document Fraud.

She started working for Frontex in October 2009 being seconded as Liaison Officer of the Agency in Brussels.

Ana Cristina joined the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service in November 1990. There she carried out functions as Head of Borders Division and Director of the Central Directorate for Borders. She participated in many international fora related to Border Management and chaired the Frontiers WP from the EU Council during the Portuguese Presidency in 2007.

She holds a University Degree in International Relations.

With over 25 years of policing experience and a wealth of international law enforcement expertise, Aija Kalnaja joined Frontex in June 2018 taking up the responsibilities of Director of Capacity Building Division. In her role she is leading 3 units that conduct Agency’s core business: pooling of resources, training as well as research and innovation.

Prior to joining Frontex Aija led the Training and Research Unit and later Operations Department at EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training – CEPOL. Her position entailed managing of the overall development and implementation of CEPOL’s training and learning activities.

Ms Kalnaja began her career by joining the Latvian Police in November 1993, rising through the ranks to Chief inspector by 2003, where she headed the Latvian SIRENE Bureau, managing the establishment of the national bureau.

Between 2007 and 2011, Ms Kalnaja was Latvia’s Police Attaché to the United Kingdom, acting as a strategic advisor to the Latvian government on police matters and cooperation with the United Kingdom.

Prior to joining CEPOL, Aija held the position of Deputy Chief of the Latvian Police, responsible for international cooperation and administrative affairs for the national police force. Apart from her policing career, Ms Kalnaja led the Latvian delegations to the Council of Europe and European Commission working groups.

Ms Kalnaja is a graduate of the University of Latvia, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Science.