Gernot Tripcke took over the management of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) from Bernd Schäfer III in 2000 and steadily developed the league in the years that followed. He was "the pacesetter" of German ice hockey, wrote the DFL Magazine about the law graduate, who had joined the DEL as league director in 1997. Under Tripcke's leadership, ice hockey developed into the most successful indoor sport in Germany, thanks in part to a sophisticated brand and media strategy, and was able to steadily increase its revenue.

Since 2006, Josef Nehl is the CEO of the DFL's own TV production company. Before that, he played for many years as a soccer player in the Bundesliga at the highest level. He began his professional career at VfL Bochum in the 1986/87 season, where he played 32 games in his very first season and scored three goals. During the winter break of the 1991/92 season, Nehl transferred to league rivals Bayer 04 Leverkusen, where he ended his professional career in 1996. He played 201 Bundesliga games in his career, scoring 28 goals. Probably his greatest success was winning the 1992/93 DFB Cup title with Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

In October 2022, Lars Stegelmann took over the Commercial division in a leading function of the DTM umbrella organization ITR and will additionally take care of the global marketing of the race series rights in the future. In the course of his career Stegelmann has worked for many major international events - including the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the 2012 UEFA European Championship in Poland and Ukraine - and he also made a major contribution to the development of the Formula E marketing concept. Before entering the sports business, he worked as a management consultant at Roland Berger and PwC. The 49-year-old joined the ITR from Motorsport Network, where Stegelmann led global marketing as Chief Commercial Officer.

Thomas Port was appointed Managing Director of Seven.One Sports in March 2020 and has since been responsible for the operating business of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group's sports business unit.All activities of the Pro7Sat.1 Group in the sports sector are bundled and further developed in Seven.One Sports. Port is thus responsible for the marketing and expansion of a broad sports portfolio, which includes football, American football, motor sports, wrestling as well as esports & gaming and is broadcast by sports programmes such as "ran".Thomas Port can look back on many years at ProSieben, most recently as Managing Director at SevenOne Media. Before joining ProSieben, Port was Managing Director at Sport1.

Born in Düsseldorf, he worked for Siemens AG as a sales representative and project manager in the industrial business for 15 years before moving into the media industry. For more than 25 years, he has accompanied the World and European Rowing Championships and the Olympic Games as a commentator for EUROSPORT and is still active today in television broadcasts. He furthermore worked as a stadium announcer for soccer and ice hockey.From 2000 to 2010, he was honorary chairman of the International Committee and a member of the FISA Council, the international rowing federation. Since April 2011, he has been president of the Rhein Association of Sports Journalists of the Association of German Sports Journalists (VDS). In March 2019, the VDS elected him as a member of the presidium.

Mr. Carro has served as CEO of Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH since July 1, 2018. Born in Spain, he graduated from a German school in Barcelona in 1982. He then completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk at BASF in Spain and studied industrial engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. After completing his studies, he joined the former Bertelsmann AG in Gütersloh, where he spent 24 years in various positions, including the company's Executive Board. In 2015, he was appointed Chairman of the Executive Board by the Supervisory Board of the former Arvato AG. Shortly thereafter, he moved to the position of Managing Director due to internal restructuring and organized the reintegration of the AG into the Bertelsmann Group structure in 2016.

We are delighted to welcome Soenke Ziebell as a speaker at the Sports Business Conference. His responsibilities as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Infront Sports & Media AG include the management of Strategic and Corporate Finance. Infront is an international sports marketing company and its central business areas are the worldwide marketing of media and sponsorship rights for sports events as well as media production. For FIFA, the company has marketed the media rights of all major FIFA tournaments since 2007, including the 2018 World Cup and the 2022 World Cup in the Asian market.Prior to joining Infront, Ziebell was a manager at Barclays Capital.

We are more than happy to present Karsten Bentlage, Senior Vice President of Sportfive, as a speaker at the Sports Business Conference. Sportfive is one of the world's leading sports marketing agencies and marketing partner of many professional soccer clubs in Germany (e.g. Borussia Dortmund). In addition, Sportfive markets more than 70 European soccer clubs, making it the market leader in Europe. In addition to soccer, Sportfive's portfolio includes numerous other sports such as handball, basketball and winter sports, as well as golf, American soccer, Formula 1 and Esports. Prior to his career at Sportfive, Bentlage held positions including Managing Director of Lagardère Plus and Chief Growth Officer of McCann Erickson Germany.

Former German international footballer Dennis Aogo was born in Karlsruhe on January 14, 1987. He started playing soccer at the age of six and in 2002 he transferred to the Freiburg Football School and played his first Bundesliga match in 2004 at the age of 17 for SC Freiburg. A year later he scored his first goal in the Bundesliga. For the 2008-09 season, Aogo moved to Hamburger SV, where he quickly earned a permanent spot and reached the semifinals with his team in the 2009 and 2010 UEFA Cup.In 2010, the then national coach Jogi Löw called Aogo into the extended squad for the 2010 World Cup and on May 13, 2010, Aogo made his debut in the senior national team, in whose jersey he played 12 games.For the last stop of his active career, Aogo moved to Hannover 96 in 2019, ending his career after 340 Bundesliga games.