About

Afke Schaart

Afke is the Regional Lead and Vice President Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for the GSMA. Afke is responsible for all Public Policy advocacy activities, Strategic Engagement and Technology Programmes (Digital Identity, Internet of Things, Future Networks, Regulatory Modernisation and Spectrum) of the GSMA in the wider European region.
Afke is also the Vice-Chair of the Alliance of Europeans Telecoms and Automotive (EATA). The main goal is to promote the wider deployment of Connected and Automated Driving in Europe. The Alliance includes almost 40 companies, including telecom operators, vendors, automobile manufacturers and suppliers for both trucks and cars.
Before joining the GSMA, Afke led Microsoft’s EU Institutional Relations Team in Brussels, responsible for Microsoft’s engagement with the EU Institutions, Council of Europe, the OECD and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Prior to this, Afke served as a Member of Parliament in the Netherlands and was the spokesperson for Economic Affairs and Innovation, Technology and ICT for the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). Previously, she was responsible for KPN’s policy interests and governmental affairs in Europe.
She is a current board member of idate.org, the E-Society Platform, “Onvergetelijk Leven” (specialist day care for elderly people) and has been a board member of ECP-EPN, platform for public-private cooperation in the information society and a board member of the European Internet Foundation (EIF).

Laszlo Toth

Laszlo Toth is the Head of Public Policy of GSMA Europe.  Laszlo leads the public policy team in Brussels, overseeing all the advocacy activities of GSMA Europe and representing European mobile operators on a broad range of policy and regulatory matters. He works closely with members to facilitate coordinated advocacy efforts at the EU level in order to create a policy environment that maximizes the mobile industry’s ability to invest in infrastructure and drive economic growth and social development.

Laszlo started his professional career working at telecoms operators. Prior to joining GSMA in 2011, he spent nine years at the Hungarian public administration, including spells at the Ministry responsible for ICT and at the national telecoms regulator. Laszlo has an MSc. in economics and holds a degree in computer sciences.

Laszlo speaks English and Hungarian

Lars Gustafsson

Joop Hazenberg

Joop Hazenberg deals with external relations at GSMA Europe, focusing on topics like Connected Cars, Mobile for Development and renewable energy for mobile networks. He has worked for over a decade on European integration and is based in Brussels since 2013.
After a career in governmental circles in The Netherlands, Joop became a freelancer, developing projects on major shifts in society. Since 2009 he has published five books and one documentary, has given over a hundred keynote speeches at (international) conferences, had many media appearances (including BBC World) and has founded a think-tank in the Netherlands. He has a Masters degree in History and Journalism from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Noelle Knox

Noelle is a veteran business journalist with more than 25 years of experience at nine media companies. In 2015, she helped launch Politico Europe in Brussels as the technology editor. Before that, she was the editor of CFO coverage for The Wall Street Journal in New York and reported on the financial crisis whilst at the Associated Press.

Fluent in French, Noelle opened the Brussels bureau for USA Today in 2003 and reported stories from 16 countries. An active mentor throughout her career, Noelle is one of the leaders of the mentoring program for Professional Women International in Brussels. Originally from San Diego, California, she studied economics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Konstantin Savin

As a Strategic Engagement Senior Manager, Konstantin is responsible for the engagement of mobile network operators (MNOs) and related parties with GSMA programmes and activities in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.

Konstantin joined GSMA in 2011 as a Technical Consultant to support the introduction of Rich Communication Services (RCS) on a global scale. In this role, he developed and launched an accreditation framework for RCS, managed a global interoperability working group and provided technical support to GSMA RCS Test fests, known as META events. From 2016 onwards, Konstantin moved to strengthen GSMA regional activities and started to develop Mobile Connect project and Spectrum advocacy for Russia and CIS.

Prior to joining the GSMA, Konstantin spent 7 years with ZNIIS, Central Science Research Telecommunications Institute, where he was responsible for national and international projects in the field of standardization and testing for Next Generation Networks (NGN) technologies. He personally contributed to the development of national standards, ITU-T Recommendations and ETSI Technical Specifications. During his career in the R&D institute, Konstantin acted as an author and co-author of several publications on telecommunication testing methodologies.

In his career, Konstantin was also providing certified training services on telecommunication technologies and equipment of companies, such as Nortel Networks and AcmePacket (currently Oracle), delivered to the telecom specialists of the CIS region for over 10 years.

Konstantin holds an MBA “Management in Telecommunications” degree from Moscow International Higher Business School (MIRBIS, AMBA) and an Engineering degree in Telecommunications from Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics.

Konstantin speaks English and Russian.

Maria Sendin Valle

As Antitrust Counsel, Maria provides advice and counsel to other GSMA departments on all aspects of competition law and policy. Additionally, Maria follows antitrust policy and enforcement developments in the world with a particular focus in Europe and the European Union Institutions.

Before joining the GSMA in 2017, Maria worked for a Public Affairs consultancy in Brussels, where she developed and implemented public affairs, communications and public relations campaigns for clients in the technology, competition and social affairs sectors. Maria moved to Brussels in 2012 to work for the European Commission DG Competition department where she was part of the team negotiating the Common Agricultural Policy reform and investigating potential competition law infringements in the food sector. Prior to DG Competition, Maria worked as a competition and EU lawyer for an international law firm in Madrid (Spain).

Maria has a Bachelor degree in Law, a Bachelor degree in Economics and a Masters Degree in EU and Competition law by Carlos III University of Madrid.

Maria is a native Spanish speaker, is fluent in English and Italian and has good knowledge of German and French.

Maria Sotiriou

Maria’s responsibilities at the GSMA include building a strategic outreach approach to achieve the association’s policy goals as they relate to the EU, in particular to the European Parliament. She monitors regulatory matters affecting the GSMA members in the areas of artificial intelligence, electronic evidence and illegal content online and facilitates developing public policy positions on the aforementioned topics. Maria coordinates the activities of the EMF & Health Operator Expert Group and the work around the annual EMF Forum. She also supports the events management, including the Mobile Meetings Series, the MEP delegation at MWC as well as the marketing activities.
Before joining the GSMA, Maria worked for the European Young Innovators Forum, where she managed the strategic partnerships with BNP Paribas, Huawei, Deutsche Bahn, MIT Technology Review, as well as the cooperation with the EU Institutions. Prior to this role, Maria worked for HM Government of Gibraltar Representation to the EU and the European Commission’s DG CONNECT. She also acquired work experience at the national government level (Embassy of France in Athens, Embassy of Greece in London).
Maria received an MSc in European Studies from the London School of Economics (LSE), after completing her studies in Conference Interpreting in Greece and having lived in several countries, namely the UK, France, Belgium and Turkey. Maria is a Greek native speaker with excellent language skills in English, French and Italian.
 Outside of the GSMA, Maria is leading the events team of the LSE Alumni Association Belgium.