Member Profiles

Members Introduction

Ali Ben Ayed - August 2020

Ali Ben Ayed

Passionate about innovation, new analytical technics and the human interaction with technology, Ali is an entrepreneur with more than nine years of experience in data strategy and consulting. He has built solutions for various financial and healthcare institutions in a broad range of topics. In particular, he has managed several projects and teams of different sizes, containing up to 50 people, in sensitive data analytical and reporting projects between transnational institutions, such as a leading Swiss bank and the US Department of Justice. As founder of SamurAI, he continue to assist private companies and public institutions in their challenges by developing and deploying innovative solutions, using data analytics and artificial intelligence. Large experience in knowledge transfer of quantitative subjects for very diverse audiences. He is supervising all the knowledge transfer activities at SamurAI, including the deployment of 5 training courses of 40 hours each.

His previous experiences in finance have allowed him to be exposed to a wide range of topics. He conducted large data analysis on sensitive information for Swiss Private Banks by using my programming skills and supported a large international bank to achieve their stress test exercise by combining my financial modelling knowledge and my regulatory expertise. His projects were based on cross department teamwork and he developed strong interpersonal skills by dealing with various internal and stakeholders as well as leading a team of 4 junior consultant.

In addition to his professional experiences, Ali obtained a M.Sc. in Financial Engineering from the HEC Lausanne and is a certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). He also obtained in 2019 the Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Data Science & Management, which is delivered by EPFL and HEC Lausanne. He is fluent in English, French and Arabic. Moreover, he have worked in various international environments, gaining relevant interpersonal skills and sensibilities in multicultural diversity.

You can learn more about Ali by visiting his LinkedIn profile

Sandra Rowicka - August 2020

Sandra Rowicka

Since the beginning of her professional career Sandra is connected to the banking sector, working on analytics and reporting projects for Compliance and HR divisions. Currently, she works as a Senior Project Business Manager for Digital Transformation and Products Lab at Credit Suisse.

Sandra started her educational adventure with project management from post graduate studies in that field. Next, she gained a PRINCE2 certificate and her goal for this year is preparation for the PMP certificate.

On top of her professional experience with project management, Sandra had a chance to run a project for NGO organization (Business Run for approx. 3k people), what was not only great practice and challenge, but also unforgettable fun and experience.

Sandra decided to join Swiss Chapter as she believes that connection with people with various PM experiences, participation in the events and finding new activities inside the community is an even better way of learning than books (and she is a HUGE fan of books!)

Other than books, Sandra absolutely enjoys hiking and due to the current lockdown situation she discovered a new (home- based) passion – knitting

You can learn more about Sandra by visiting her LinkedIn profile

 

Magali Collot - August 2020

magali collot

Magali is a global project manager, bilingual French/English, who has become PMP certified through the new online proctored testing during COVID-19.


Magali spent over 22 years in the aviation industry working at IATA (International Air Transport Association) where she had the opportunity to hold various roles in product management and more recently in project management.
She initiates, plans, executes and monitors large-scale, complex projects of 2 to 4 years related to communication, process improvement and change management. During her last role at IATA, Magali led a cross-functional team of 15 people to drive the implementation of baggage tracking best practices within the aviation industry.


She is currently looking for a new challenge in project management or within a PMO team in Switzerland.

Magali is delighted to join the PMI Switzerland chapter to meet other project managers and exchange about latest trends and best practices.

Magali is a French national who had the opportunity to work in London, Montreal and Geneva. She has been living in Switzerland for 14 years and is thrilled to live in a tiny village above Mont-sur-Rolle in the Vaud region. Nature and the outdoors are her playground all year long and she can easily be spotted hiking, snowshoeing or skiing at her own pace with a camera nearby.

You can learn more about Magali by visiting her LinkedIn profile

Tommaso Campanella - July 2020

Tommaso Campanella

Tommaso is a Technical Project Manager with eight years of experience in various and heterogeneous sectors, the most recent of which are onboarding solutions for the retail and private banking sector.
But that was not always the case before he arrived here in Switzerland. In fact, Tommaso comes from a strong background in IT Engineering (with a master’s degree in engineering back in Italy), with a passion for Distributed systems. After a short period spent working in short term projects, Tommaso decided to move to Canada for almost a year, where he worked as a visiting researcher at the PARADISE laboratory. In that context, Tommaso discovered and proved the feasibility of new innovating target tracking protocol for vehicles in urban areas, which makes use of scalable and dynamic solutions in the realm of Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANets).

When he faced the challenge of making a choice whether to follow his passion straight away or to build a more solid and flexible career in other business sectors, Tommaso decided to follow the latter and moved to London for a couple of years. This, right before his personal life brought him here in Switzerland, in 2016.
As for now, it’s almost four years that Tommaso works in the banking sector, and his plan, together with his wife, is to dedicate their energies on entering more and more the Swiss community, since they are not planning to leave any time soon!
Joining the Swiss PMI Chapter came immediately for him because of passing the PMP exam back in January. Tommaso loves his work and what project managers and the profession itself could do for this world, and he couldn’t wait to meet the rest of the community here in Switzerland (which is of course still the case!)

To spend a few words about Tommaso’s passions, it will be unfair to say that he only loves one thing in particular: that’s not his case. Tommaso is fond of anything that makes you say it was worth doing, regardless if it was a trip in the Japanese countryside or reading what the latest news on in the field of AI research while enjoying a nice glass of whisky!

You can learn more about Tommaso by visiting his LinkedIn profile

Philip David Elford - July 2020

Philip David Elford

Philip with British/Swiss nationality is living in Kilchberg, Switzerland. He specialized in Sales and Commercial Project Management and currently working as an Assistant Country Manager for Swiss market in a Dental medical device company.

Philip joined the Swiss Chapter for networking with fellow project managers with his interest in project management and curiosity to learn. 

You can learn more about Philip by visiting his LinkedIn profile.

David Michael Collins - July 2020

David Michael Collins

David has over eight years of project management experience overseeing a broad portfolio of medium-size projects and subprojects. He has experience with methodologies such as Waterfall, Prince2 and Agile Scrum. Coming from an Engineering background, he spent most of his career in Banking and Finance.


David is an expert in Financial Markets, Derivatives, Asset Management, Business Analysis, Business Process Improvement, Process Re-engineering, and Data Analytics. He is also a certified RPA (Robotic Process Automation) professional and is passionate about Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Blockchain. He recently decided to undertake the PMP examination to become a certified Project Manager.


David has worked and lived in Brussels for most of his career and relocated to Switzerland (Basel area) in 2018. He enjoys skiing, ice-skating, windsurfing, trekking and living a healthy lifestyle.


You can learn more about David by visiting his LinkedIn profile

Katrin Hermann - June 2020

Katrin Hermann

Katrin is a Plant Scientist working in Research at Syngenta, Switzerland. She lives in Basel and has a science background (PhD). Since few years Karin is leading early stage Research projects, which has caused her interest in becoming more knowledgeable in project management. Katrin just prepared and passed the CAPM and am now preparing for PMP.

Katrin would love to get into contact & learn from other project managers and she thought joining the PMI Switzerland chapter is a great opportunity to do so.

You can learn more about Katrin by visiting her LinkedIn profile.

Adam Ungstad - June 2020

Adam Ungstad

Adam Ungstad has lead taxonomy and metadata projects for international organisations such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the international governing body of association football, FIFA.


Deeply passionate about information management across new digital channels, Adam is heavily involved in a complex, multi-year digital transformation project for the World Health Organization (WHO).


Originally from Canada, Adam also enjoys writing and publishing books. He is currently working on the second edition of a successful guidebook about lakes on Vancouver Island near Victoria, British Columbia.


Adam Ungstad earned the PMP® accreditation in March 2020.


You can learn more about Adam by visiting his LinkedIn profile

 

Marcio Santos - May 2020

Marcio Santos

As IT professional, Marcio is an experienced Project Manager, Business Analyst and Professor with experience in different industries and multicultural projects. He holds PMP credentials since 2007, SAP since 2009 and his academic background includes a specialization in IT, a MSc in Logistics and a MBA in executive management in Audencia, Nantes. He has a continuous value delivery approach and currently works for Shell as a senior IT Business Analyst.

Marcio has a non-linear academic background (it involves Electricity, Engineering, Biology, Ecology, Logistics, Information Technology and Executive Management). So he is able to connect topics involving different areas and together with that, the discipline for a continuous learning approach were the main drives that made Marcio to volunteer to the Member Journalist opportunity in the chapter.

Marcio is Brazilian and Portuguese, lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has two kids and his hobbies includes playing tennis, football, sailing, running and nature.

You can learn more about Marcio by visiting his LinkedIn profile.

 

Tunahan Kirabali - May 2020

Tunahan Kirabali

Tunahan is originally from Turkey and has been living in Switzerland since 2014. He came to Switzerland for his master's studies at EPFL and currently he is a PhD student at University Zurich working on Alzheimer’s disease.


Tunahan is currently in a career transition phase. After finishing his studies in a couple of months, he is hoping to continue his career in consulting. Tunahan joined the Swiss chapter and started to read about project management to increase the efficiency of scientific collaborations and inter-disciplinary, multi-center projects in academia.

Recently Tunahan got his CAPM certification from PMI and now looking forward to applying this knowledge in real-life projects, improving himself further and acquiring PMP certification in the following years.


You can learn more about Tunahan by visiting his LinkedIn profile.