Board Members - European Sales Competition

: Timo Holopainen Ph.D., MBA
Timo is working as Principal Lecturer at Turku UAS and has over 20 years of international sales and management experience. Timo has passion for sales and he has been Sales Competition Director over 20 times, both online and onsite. He was ESC2021 Competition Director and is Chairman of the European Sales Competition Association.

: Harri Lappalainen
Harri is an internationally acknowledged development project specialist, having experience of numerous EU projects since 1990’s. Harri is one of the founding fathers of the ESC concept and has been acting as a Head Judge in several national and international sales competitions. Harri is a Senior Advisor at Turku UAS (Finland) and coordinating South-East Asian Sales Competition SEASAC project, funded by the European Commission.

: Tony Douglas DBA
A passionate B2B Sales education specialist & business consultant. Previous Associate Professor in Strategy & Sales. He leads B2B Sales & Sales Leadership Programmes in UK-based Universities. He has directed UK & European Sales Competitions. He is vice-Chair of the European Sales Competition Association.

: Myra Qiu, MSc, FHEA
Process & Quality Manager, Graduation & Examination Board, Education Board, Management Team Member and lecturer at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands.
Myra is the Competition Director of ESC23. She has extensive experiences in organising events and working in an international environment with students, lecturers and staff from 100+ nationalities.

: Dr Alexander C. Bauer
Associate Professor at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences across Europe. Alexander is the Head of Jury of ESC23. He has international sales & management experience leading global sales teams in their negotiations worldwide. He holds a PhD in International Business Management. He is also a Trainer for Presentation Skills, Rhetoric and Sales. His current research focuses is on professional sales training and sales coaching.

: Jeanet Castel MCC
Coordinator of the Sales curriculum, Senior Lecturer and Student Coach at HAN University of Applied Sciences in Arnhem and Nijmegen. She has 20+ years of experience in FMCG in field account-and sales management. “I love to help young people grow in their skills and as a person. Getting out of their comfort zone, like participating in Sales competitions, can have a big influence on that”.

: Johannes Reiterer
The Head of the Master Programme Business Development & Sales Management at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt. Johannes was the Competition Director of the first virtual ESC in 2020. His professional background is in the medical device industry. His area of expertise is sales digitalization and value selling.

: Matias Hokkanen
Bachelor of Engineering, Sales professional and appointed officer, alumni ESCA board. Matias Hokkanen is B2B Sales Director at Lingoneer Oy, with drive for customer understanding and solution sales. He got experience from Turku Sales Competition and European Sales Competition as ex-competitor, -buyer and -judge.

: Richard Lowton MBS FHEA
Richard has worked within major blue chips companies including Philips Electronics, PZ Cussons and Akzo Nobel, instigating strategic growth plans and developing additional revenue streams through forming strategic partnerships. Richard draws on his experiences of multi £m account management in leading the B2B Sales subject at the University of Portsmouth.

: Thomas Berger
Responsible for the study programme on International Technical Sales at DHBW Stuttgart. He was judge several times, and held sales competitions at the DHBW. He also conducts research on technical sales and sales competitions.

: Poul von Wowern MBA
Poul is an Associate Professor at VIA University College in Denmark, teaching sales. He is an experienced Sales Manager and has his own consulting company. More recently, Poul does international research on Value Based Selling. Taking evidence-based sales research and making it come alive and easy to use for companies and students is his passion – helping people succeed.

: Timo Rima
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Senior Lecturer at Haaga-Helia Applied Sciences in Helsinki since 2011. He has 22 year work experience in international marketing and sales for Finnish metal & technology industries. Timo has passion for learner centric pedagogical approaches as well as for practical training concepts of B2B sales.