Manuel Bickel
Wuppertal Institute | Co-Head of Research Unit Product & Consumption Systems
Expertise That Drives Impact
Speaker & Expert Committee
The Expert Committee and the speakers of the Circular Design Summit combine strategic expertise with international experience. Together, they set impulses that drive innovation and support organisations in making future-defining decisions. Based on circular principles.
Speaker
The speakers of the Circular Design Summit stand for practical transformation and entrepreneurial clarity. They demonstrate how circular design unlocks new potential for value creation, reduces risks and strengthens strategic capability. With insights from business, research and design, they offer guidance to help you drive complex change within your organisation.
How can material flows be used efficiently, and systems be designed to close loops? That’s the question Manuel Bickel explores. At the Wuppertal Institute, he researches the circular design of product and service systems. His work also focuses on sustainability assessment, resource efficiency, ecodesign, digitalisation and industrial applications.
Christian Eichenberger
Rent.Group | CEO
Christian Eichenberger demonstrates how circular business models work in practice. Through the Rent.Group, he connects the sharing economy with circular design – from event equipment to office furniture. His goal: to save resources, reduce energy consumption, and design products for multiple lifecycles.
Kristina Kölling
Tchibo | Head of Circularity & Environment
Kristina Kölling drives Tchibo’s shift towards circular business models. After years in product management, bringing more than 300 products to market, she now focuses on a key question: how can a mainstream retailer truly become circular? Through the Circular Solutions Lab, which she co-founded, she develops strategies that extend product lifecycles and connect circular design with scalable circular services.
Rob Hopkins
Keynote Speaker | Co-Founder, Transition Network & Transition Town Totnes
Rob Hopkins is one of the leading voices of the global Transition movement. In his keynote, he explores how imagination and community can lay the foundations for circular and resilient economies. As an author, speaker, and trainer, he inspires people to design the future with creativity, courage, and connection.
Leo Lübke
COR Sitzmöbel | Managing Partner
Leo Lübke stands for furniture that is part of a circular system. Under his leadership, COR designs durable pieces that can be repaired, reused, and reintegrated into material cycles. With initiatives such as COREVER, he shows how design takes responsibility and contributes to conserving resources.
Martin Pauli
Arup | Global Circular Economy Services Leader
Nikolai Pauli
Klett Liegenschaften Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH | CEO
Expert Committee
The Expert Committee shapes the Circular Design Summit with vision and commitment. It curates the programme, selects the speakers and ensures that you encounter the key trends and perspectives in circular design.
Steffen Erath
Hansgrohe | Head of Innovation & Sustainability
Steffen Erath drives innovation and sustainability at Hansgrohe. He combines practice-oriented innovation management with a clear focus on circular design to show how companies can shape the future through circular strategies and the circular economy.
Anne Farken
Designworks | Associate Director Sustainability & Creative Consulting
Anne Farken is responsible for sustainability and creative consulting at Designworks. She systematically integrates sustainability into design processes and supports companies across industries in developing new, future-oriented business models – with a clear focus on the opportunities of circular design and innovation leadership.
Karel J. Golta
Indeed Innovation | CEO
Karel J. Golta is the founder and CEO of Indeed Innovation. He stands for sustainable transformation through design. With his holistic innovation processes, he combines ecological responsibility with economic impact to implement circular design and innovation leadership as the key success factors.
Alissa Ritter
Rosenthal | Corporate Sustainability Lead
As Sustainability Manager at Rosenthal, Alissa Ritter drives the further development of the traditional porcelain manufacturer. She optimises processes in a resource-efficient way, bundles knowledge within the company and firmly anchors sustainability across all areas – with a clear link to circular design and the circular economy.