General Eirik Kristoffersen
Chief of Defence

Born in Narvik, April 3rd 1969
Started his service in the Norwegian Army, July 1st 1988

General Eirik Kristoffersen began his tenure as Chief of Defence on August 17th 2020. As Chief of
Defence, general Kristoffersen holds full command over the Norwegian Armed Forces and is the
principal military advisor to the Norwegian Government.
General Kristoffersen joined the Norwegian Army in 1988 as a Non-Commissioned Officer candidate.
Following a year of training, he assumed his first position as a squad leader in the Engineer Battalion.
He was later admitted to the Norwegian Military Academy, graduating in 1995, before continuing his
career as an officer within the Norwegian Army.
In 2000, general Kristoffersen joined the Special Forces, where he served in different positions
ranging from patrol member to operations officer, and finally Deputy Commander of the Norwegian
Special Operations Command from 2014 to 2017. General Kristoffersen has since served as J 5/7/9 at
the Norwegian Joint Headquarters (brigadier general), Chief of the Home Guard (major general) and
Chief of the Army (major general).
In addition to the aforementioned schools, general Kristoffersen’s military education includes the
United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College (2008-2009) and the United States Army
War College (2014-2015).
General Kristoffersen’s career furthermore includes service in the United Nations Interim Forces
Lebanon (UNIFIL) as well as several tours in Afghanistan, where he took part in Operation Anaconda
and later played a key role in establishing the Norwegian mentorship of Afghan Crisis Response Unit
222. For his efforts in Afghanistan, general Kristoffersen was awarded the War Cross with Sword,
Norway’s highest-ranking military medal.
General Kristoffersen is married to Linn Therece, and has four children.

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Catherine Barnard, FBA, FLSW, FRSA is Professor of European law and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies. She is the author of EU Employment Law (Oxford, OUP, 2012, 5th ed.), The Substantive Law of the EU: The Four Freedoms, (Oxford, OUP, 2025, 8th ed), and (with Peers ed), European Union Law (Oxford, OUP, 2023, 4th ed, 5th ed due in 2026). She has also written (with Costello and Fraser Butlin), Low-Paid EU Migrant Workers: The House, the Town, the Street, (Bristol, Bristol University Press, 2024), an innovative work exploring the lives of EU migrant workers in the UK post Brexit and the issues face securing their rights which won the UACES book of the year which won UACES book of the year in 2025. She has just submitted the manuscript for Reimagining Employment Dispute Resolution (with Sarah Fraser Butlin and Maayan Menashe). She is a member of the European Commission funded European Labour Law Network (ELLN). She is also a Senior Fellow of the UK in a Changing Europe (UKCE) (http://ukandeu.ac.uk/) project (UKCE). This is an authoritative, non-partisan think-tank which does research and provides information about all aspects of Brexit.  

Catherine’s work focuses on the legal issues around migration, together with the legal and constitutional issues associated with Brexit, in particular examining the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Part of UKCE’s remit is to make that information accessible to the general public.  She has appeared on the main media channels  – BBC, ITV and Sky  – as well as some of the more specialist programmes such as Law in Action, Woman’s Hour, Question Time, Any Questions and the Briefing Room. She has also written for the Guardian and the Telegraph. She has given evidence to numerous select committees on the legal issues connected with Brexit. She has her own podcast, 2903cb, and she blogs on Brexit and related issues, mainly for the https://ukandeu.ac.uk. 

Malin Nilsson has experience as a labour and employment law practitioner, currently serving (since 2023) as General Counsel and Head of Labour Law at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. In this capacity, Malin Nilsson is responsible for strategic labour-law advocacy and engagement on legislative labour law developments in Sweden and at EU level as well as the organisation’s internal legal affairs.  

Previously, Malin Nilsson has had managerial positions responsible for Industrial Relations in different Swedish group of companies with group-level responsibility for labour law, collective bargaining, trade union relations and European Works Council as well as for providing labour-law support to the Swedish entities. Before that Malin Nilsson served as Special Adviser at the Legal Secretariat at the Swedish Ministry of Employment and as an associate at Advokatfirman Vinge 

Hadia Tajik is a Norwegian politician and lawyer with 16 years of experience as a legislator and negotiator in the Norwegian Parliament. She has served as a cabinet minister in two governments, including as Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion. In these roles, she has been closely involved in shaping Norwegian working life regulation and has driven legislative changes that tightened parts of the Working Environment Act in favour of employee rights. She brings to EELA 2026 in Oslo a practical perspective on how political priorities translate into enforceable standards, and what regulatory change means for employers, employees, and advisers in the Nordic and wider European context. Today, Tajik is Senior Counsel at Haavind, working primarily with offshore and industrial clients.

Natalie Videbaek Munkholm is Professor of labour law, PhD, at the Department of Law, SDU University of Southern Denmark. She specialises in Danish labour and employment law, European labour law, and fundamental rights at work. She is the author and co-author of numerous international and Danish publications addressing all matters relating to regulation of the workplace and industrial relations. She continually partners in Danish, Nordic, European and global research projects, currently in “VOICE – whistleblowing, freedom of expression and the managerial prerogative”, funded by the Independent Research Council of Norway, and the Horizon Europe project “INDI – Integrating diversity in social dialogue: Strengthening the EU labour market in the digital and green age”. Natalie is the National Expert (Denmark) to the European Labour Law Network (ELLN);  a Board member of the Danish Association of Labour Law; the Danish representative to the ISLSSL; appointed by the Ministry of Employment as a member of the Danish Board of Equal Treatment; and chairman of the board of the Danish Research Foundation for Labour Law. 

Tom Heys is a Pay Transparency specialist and co-lead of the Pay Transparency Directive (PTD) practice at Lewis Silkin LLP. He advises employers across the EU on the design, implementation and interpretation of pay transparency requirements, combining years of legal experience with expertise in statistical analysis of pay gaps and defensible modelling approaches. 

Tom is regularly instructed to provide expert commentary on emerging PTD developments and wider pay equity regulation, and frequently contributes media commentary and speaks at industry conferences. He is an experienced presenter on the practical and technical challenges of applying the PTD across complex workforce structures, helping employers and employee representatives understand what the data shows, and where its limits lie. 

Dr Anja Dachner is a recognized expert in complex transformation and restructuring projects, advising German and international clients on high-impact change, integration, outsourcing, and workforce transformation. She is a trusted advisor to management and social partners in navigating sensitive negotiations and complex stakeholder environments. 

Her work focuses on collective bargaining, wage negotiations, and the design of modern transformation structures. She provides strategic labor law advice across domestic and cross-border contexts and regularly represents clients before the Federal Labor Court and the European Court of Justice. 

A key focus of her practice is Equal Pay and Pay Transparency. She advises on EU Pay Transparency Directive implementation, pay equity analyses, and the development of transparent, future-proof compensation systems, contributing to the broader debate on fair and sustainable remuneration. 

Becky is General Counsel Employment-Global at Unilever based in London. Becky is a qualified solicitor in England & Wales and Ireland specialising in employment law. 

Becky is responsible for advising on employment law aspects of Global projects and policies, such as pay transparency, corporate transactions, investigations, outsourcing, restructuring, Board diversity, employee diversity data, senior executives, and AI in recruitment.  

Prior to joining Unilever in February 2021, Becky was Senior Employment Counsel at Kimberly-Clark advising on all aspects of employment law across EMEA and APAC.  

Before working at Kimberly-Clark, Becky was Employment Counsel UK & Ireland at PepsiCo. Becky spent 7 years in private practice at Gowlings and Lewis Silkin LLP, undertaking a number of in-house secondments, including Oxfam GB, Macquarie and Ford Motor Company.  

Jenna Poon is a Director and Associate General Counsel on Meta’s Global Enterprise-Wide Employment Legal team based in London. She advises on a broad range of complex employment issues, organizational change, and workforce programs across the company’s global workforce. This includes, AI in the people context, compensation & benefits, immigration, accommodations and candidate issues among others. 

Inge Hofstee is an employment lawyer in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, for more than 30 years. She specialises in employee participation law, representing both directors and works councils. Since 2010, she is also a certified mediator and combines her law practice with a mediation practice, with a focus on employment, employee participation and business mediations. Resolving a dispute between the parties by talking together and investigating what is important to all parties involved is always more satisfying for the parties than being proved right by the court. That is why over time Inge has started to focus more on mediation than on litigation in employment law. Inge publishes in the field of employee participation law, gives courses to directors, works councils and lawyers and gives lectures in this field.  

Littler’s partner Dr. Thomas Griebe, based in Hamburg, is recognised for his strategic and thoughtful approach to restructuring matters and negotiations with employee representatives. Clients, colleagues, and counterparts value his attentive listening, clear communication, and calm, solutions‑focused manner. He appreciates the complexity, patience, and fairness required in negotiations — much like on the golf course. 

Aki Arráez Ramón is the CHRO at outdoor clothing manufacturer Jack Wolfskin for 1,600 employees worldwide in the office, retail and logistics sectors. Ever since Jack Wolfskin was acquired by Chinese Anta Sporting goods in summer 2025, Aki and her HR team are driving the transformation of Jack Wolfskin from an iconic German brand into a truly global player in the sporting goods industry. Aki grew up in Japan and has worked in global roles in many countries. Her multicultural background helps her look at issues from many different perspectives. 

Sean is the Head of our international Employment, Pensions & Mobility team. Sean’s recognised as one of the UK’s leading employment lawyers. He deals with all aspects of employment work, including executive employment and termination, commercial transactions, and business transfers.​

Clients describe Sean as a commercial and innovative adviser. He has extensive experience of employment law in the context of cross border investigations, management oversight and enforcement of employer rights, and international reorganisations. He advises on collective redundancies and consultation, complex benefits issues and individual employment disputes, particularly those with an international element. In June 2026 Taylor Wessing LLP combines with leading US firm Winston & Strawn to form Winston Taylor.​

​

Senior Vice President – People Director, Energy Systems at DNV  

Kim Rolfsen is the People Director of Energy Systems. He leads a central team interacting with the global people community overseeing all elements of workforce development and strategy to create an exceptional experience for the 6,100 experts employed by Energy Systems. 

Kim has worked for DNV for almost 30 years and held several different technical and leadership positions in different parts of the world. Kim has experience across the maritime, oil & gas and now energy industries, driving business and people development and implementing strategic competence initiatives that have been instrumental in enhancing people processes and topics within DNV.  

Kim has a master’s degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). 

Jaouad Seghrouchni is an employment lawyer admitted in the Netherlands since 2015. He specialises in flexible and cross-border work arrangements, with a particular focus on platform work, the hiring of external workers, independent contractor models and the classification of working relationships, including issues regarding pseudo self-employment. Jaouad advises national and international clients on all aspects of employment law, including complex workforce structures, reorganisations, co-determination and compliance with Dutch and EU law. 

Furthermore, he regularly publishes and speaks about the future of work and is known for combining technical expertise with a pragmatic, solution-driven approach. He holds LL.M. degrees from Leiden University in the Netherlands as well as the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland (cum laude) and completed the Grotius Employment Law programme (cum laude). 

Jaouad is recognised as a “Key Lawyer” by Legal 500 EMEA for three consecutive years (2024–2026): https://www.legal500.com/rankings/ranking/c-netherlands/employment/237835-de-clercq-advocaten-notariaat 

Šárka Homfray is a Czech employment lawyer, academic researcher, and trade union leader specializing in labour law, equality, and the transformation of work in contemporary societies. She serves as Vice-Chair of the Trade Union of State Administration and Organizations and is a doctoral researcher at Charles University, where her work focuses on how trade unions adapt to ESG frameworks and changing labour markets. She is also a long time member of the Chamber of Gender Experts. 

Her professional practice and research address fragmented and non-standard forms of work, including platform labour, public sector employment, and evolving systems of employee representation. She regularly lectures, writes about, and contributes to public debates on labour rights, pay transparency, and the future of work. 

Šárka is also co-author of the award-winning book PAYGAP, based on a podcast about women at work she co-hosts. She is known for bridging legal expertise with accessible, critical commentary.  

Assistant General Counsel, Global Employment Regulatory Compliance, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Washington. 

Brian is Assistant General Counsel for Global Labor & Employment Regulatory Compliance at Microsoft Corporation, where he has spent nearly 15 years advising on employment matters at the intersection of law and technology. With 20 years of employment law experience — Brian started his legal career t Perkins Coie LLP in Seattle, and Sebris Busto James. Brian brings deep expertise to the legal challenges surrounding workplace AI, privacy and the regulation of emerging technologies in the workplace. An active member of the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law, Brian has participated on panels addressing the ethical and practical implications of generative AI and other emerging technologies. Brian holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Reed College,  Phi Beta Kappa. 

Tobias Judin is an experienced data protection lawyer, with 10+ years of experience in the field. He currently leads the International Section at the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, where his responsibilities include international cooperation, cross-border enforcement and international transfers of data. Additionally, he represents Norway in the European Data Protection Board, and he is a Co-Chair of the Global Privacy Assembly’s International Enforcement Working Group. Tobias is a lawyer, technologist and sinologist by education. 

Peter Hopkins KC is a leading/senior counsel in Northern Ireland with a broad commercial practice, with a particular specialism in employment disputes. 

He previously practised as a solicitor in London and Belfast, before being called to the Bars of Northern Ireland (2007), the Republic of Ireland (2016) and England and Wales (2017).  He ’took silk’ and became King’s Counsel in 2024. He is currently Co-Chair of the British and Irish Commercial Bar Association. 

He regularly acts for employers and employees in whistleblowing, equal pay, TUPE, discrimination and dismissal claims. He is particularly experienced in large scale group employment claims relating to holiday pay and pensions, and acted for over 3000 claimants before the UK Supreme Court in the leading case of Agnew –v- Chief Constable of the PSNI. That judgment paved the way for financial reimbursement for numerous employees in Northern Ireland dating back many years. 

Tarja has been heading Burson Finland (formerly Hill & Knowlton) since 2002. She is a trusted advisor to the top management and boards of Finnish and international organizations from family-owned businesses to multinational corporations. Tarja specializes in strategic B2B communications, crisis communications, M&A and investor relations, change management and employer branding. She has a solid track record of more than 25 years in developing and implementing strategies that deliver measurable business results.​

Tarja brings to the team a focused approach and hands-on experience of managing complex cross-cultural communications projects. She has worked for numerous clients in, for example, industrial products and services, defense, finance and insurance, energy, information technology, forestry, healthcare industry, mining and consumer goods. In addition to strategic communications advisory, Tarja regularly trains top management and board members for message delivery and presentations, media interviews, internal communications, as well as change and crisis situations.

Catherine Barnard, FBA, FLSW, FRSA is Professor of European law and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies. She is the author of EU Employment Law (Oxford, OUP, 2012, 5th ed.), The Substantive Law of the EU: The Four Freedoms, (Oxford, OUP, 2025, 8th ed), and (with Peers ed), European Union Law (Oxford, OUP, 2023, 4th ed, 5th ed due in 2026). She has also written (with Costello and Fraser Butlin), Low-Paid EU Migrant Workers: The House, the Town, the Street, (Bristol, Bristol University Press, 2024), an innovative work exploring the lives of EU migrant workers in the UK post Brexit and the issues face securing their rights which won the UACES book of the year which won UACES book of the year in 2025. She has just submitted the manuscript for Reimagining Employment Dispute Resolution (with Sarah Fraser Butlin and Maayan Menashe). She is a member of the European Commission funded European Labour Law Network (ELLN). She is also a Senior Fellow of the UK in a Changing Europe (UKCE) (http://ukandeu.ac.uk/) project (UKCE). This is an authoritative, non-partisan think-tank which does research and provides information about all aspects of Brexit.  

Catherine’s work focuses on the legal issues around migration, together with the legal and constitutional issues associated with Brexit, in particular examining the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Part of UKCE’s remit is to make that information accessible to the general public.  She has appeared on the main media channels  – BBC, ITV and Sky  – as well as some of the more specialist programmes such as Law in Action, Woman’s Hour, Question Time, Any Questions and the Briefing Room. She has also written for the Guardian and the Telegraph. She has given evidence to numerous select committees on the legal issues connected with Brexit. She has her own podcast, 2903cb, and she blogs on Brexit and related issues, mainly for the https://ukandeu.ac.uk. 

Dr. Tobias Pusch advises national and international corporations and group of companies, as well as senior and top-executives, on all matters of individual and collective labor law. He has particular experience in the fields of acquisition and restructuring of companies, formation of European Companies (Societas Europaea – SE), drafting and negotiation of collective labor agreements, works agreements as well as reconciliations of interests and social plans, complex court hearings (e.g. workplace bullying, cases of discrimination, board member liability). He also advises leading executives on drafting of contracts and exit scenarios. Based on his years of experience as a consultant for DAX-listed corporations and medium-sized businesses as well as his certificates in Business Economics (MBA, MSc), he is particularly qualified to understand the business challenges facing his clients and to develop a solution that is both creative and viable. Dr. Tobias Pusch is one of Germany’s leading Labor Law specialists. 

Assistant General Counsel, Global Employment Regulatory Compliance, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Washington. 

Brian is Assistant General Counsel for Global Labor & Employment Regulatory Compliance at Microsoft Corporation, where he has spent nearly 15 years advising on employment matters at the intersection of law and technology. With 20 years of employment law experience — Brian started his legal career t Perkins Coie LLP in Seattle, and Sebris Busto James. Brian brings deep expertise to the legal challenges surrounding workplace AI, privacy and the regulation of emerging technologies in the workplace. An active member of the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law, Brian has participated on panels addressing the ethical and practical implications of generative AI and other emerging technologies. Brian holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Reed College,  Phi Beta Kappa. 

Dr Ansgar Koene engages with policy developments around the governance and regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He works with policymakers, regulators, industry leaders and other stakeholders to support the trustworthy use of AI for the benefit of people, society and organizations. 

Ansgar chaired the IEEE 7003-2024 Standard for Algorithmic Bias Considerations working group and is a co-convener for the work on AI conformity assessment with the European standards body (CEN-CENELEC JTC21) “AI” committee. He is a trustee for the 5Rights foundation for the Rights of Young People Online, and advises on AI and Data Ethics for various NGOs and research consortia. 

Ansgar has a multi-disciplinary research background, ranging from Policy and Governance of Algorithmic Systems, data-privacy, AI Ethics, AI Standards, Robotics to Computational Neuroscience. He holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Computational Neuroscience. 

With over 25 years of professional experience, Peter Rolný has dedicated more than a decade of his career to C-level HR leadership specifically within the media and publishing industry. Currently serving as HR Director at TV Markíza, he balances high-level strategic oversight with a genuine, humble commitment to the people who power the organization. His career is distinguished by a unique versatility, having held senior executive roles within the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice, where he navigated the complexities of the public sector with a steady, human-centric hand. Peter’s expertise lies in fostering authentic cultural change and championing the Top Employer framework to ensure workplaces are as supportive as they are high-performing. Throughout his 25-year journey, he has remained a grounded leader who prioritizes clear, no-nonsense communication and the well-being of his teams, proving that even the most structured HR processes are most effective when built on a foundation of empathy and trust.