UniCredit Longevity Economic Forum 2026

Nic Palmarini 

Director of the UK's National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA)

Prior to heading up NICA, Nic was Head of AI for Healthy Ageing at IBM Research and AI Ethics Lead and Research Manager at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, an academic-industry partnership for the responsible advancement of artificial intelligence. Trained in social studies and business communication, Nic developed a deep expertise in leading heterogeneous teams and connecting dots across disciplines to bridge academic and industrial research with real-world applications to deliver return-on-community and return-on-business, with a specific focus on longevity and the coming effects and opportunities of the demographic revolution. Having served as Director of the IBM Human Centric Solution Centre in Paris he holds a decade of experience in research on supporting older adults' autonomy and independence, leading a global team to develop Human Activity Recognition techniques dedicated to older adults based on AI applied to IoT data.

Edoardo campanella 

Director and Chief Editor of The Investment Institute by UniCredit

Besides his role at UniCredit, Edoardo is also a Research Fellow at Harvard University and author of the book Anglo Nostalgia: The Politics of Emotion in a Fractured West (Oxford University Press/Hurst). For UniCredit, he writes a biweekly newsletter on macroeconomic and geopolitical issues that is distributed to more than 30,000 subscribers across Europe. His articles have appeared, among others, in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Project Syndicate, and Financial Times. He is the authors of two narrative podcasts in Italian: one on the history of money and another on the history of capitalism. He was the lead author of the report for the Trilateral Commission, A New Spirit of Capitalism, for which he coordinated a prominent international taskforce. His latest book, The Age of Bullying, has just been released in Italian.

Udo Müller 

Founder & Co-CEO, Ströer Management SE

Udo Müller was born in 1962 in Rüdesheim. At the young age of 19, he managed his first publishing house. Following his medical degree, he founded the advertising agency Lunenburg & Partner in 1985, at the time one of Berlin's leading agencies. With the foundation of Lunenburg & Partner Mediaservice GmbH in 1987, he entered the field of out-of-home advertising. In 1990, he teamed up with Heinz W. Ströer to open up new outdoor advertising markets with Ströer City Marketing GmbH (later renamed Ströer Out-of-Home Media AG). The first success was the acquisition of extensive advertising rights in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After the company became Ströer Out-of-Home Media AG in 2002, Udo Müller advanced the growth of the company with the takeover of Deutsche Städte Medien (2004) and Deutsche Eisenbahn Reklame (2005). In 2010, he accomplished the Initial Public Offering of the company. In 2011, Müller was appointed Senator h.c. by the German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft, BVMW) as recognition for this exemplary merits for medium-sized-businesses as well as his outstanding entrepreneurial achievements. Under Udo Müller's leadership, Ströer Group became one of Europe's leading outdoor advertisement companies. In 2012, Udo Müller added online marketing to the company's portfolio. In pursuing online marketing, Müller has turned Ströer into an independent sales house with a comprehensive portfolio. In 2017, the successful expansion of the Ströer product portfolio into the field of dialogue media took place. Ströer clearly focuses on its strategic goal of being the most customer-centric media company with a vertically integrated portfolio of branding, performance and dialogue products.

Stefan Vilsmeier 

Chairman of the Administrative Board and Founder of Brainlab SE

After founding Brainlab in 1989, Stefan Vilsmeier (born 1967) served as its CEO until the end of 2024 and has been the driving force behind the company's innovation and customer focus.

A self-taught computer programmer, Vilsmeier prepared the foundation for his enterprise at the age of 17 when he wrote a bestselling book on 3D graphics. Today, Brainlab is a worldwide market leader in software-supported medical technology.

In 1989, Vilsmeier enrolled at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, to study computer programming and medical technology theory. However, his drive to develop his own computer-assisted medical technology company left little time for theory. While still in his first semester, Vilsmeier founded Brainlab GmbH from the proceeds of his book, which sold over 50,000 copies.

To realize his vision of the "hospital of the future," Vilsmeier has continuously developed solutions for more precise and less invasive treatment methods. Brainlab systems provide hospitals with the infrastructure for flexible access to and analysis of digital patient data. Brainlab makes it easier for physicians to use existing medical expertise and advanced technologies - from diagnosis to treatment - and to translate this comprehensive know-how into integrated and thus improved patient care. Hospitals and patients alike benefit from more precise and minimally invasive procedures, which are also more cost-effective than conventional procedures.

With hospitals in Asia, North America and South Africa as some of its first customers, Brainlab has been an international company from the beginning. Today, Brainlab generates more than 40 percent of its revenues in the US and has strategic partnerships with some of the world's leading healthcare companies.

Sven Stipković 

Head of Wealth Management & Private Banking Germany, UniCredit Bank GmbH

Sven Stipković is Head of Wealth Management & Private Banking Germany at UniCredit Bank GmbH, where he is responsible for the strategic development and growth of the bank's Wealth Management and Private Banking business in Germany.

Having joined UniCredit in 2006, Sven brings nearly two decades of experience across Investment Banking, Large Corporates & SME, Leasing, Retail Banking, and Wealth Management & Private Banking. Throughout his career, he has held a variety of senior leadership roles, leading business units and regional organizations across Germany and serving both corporate and private clients.

Prior to his current role, Sven served as Segment Head of Business Clients Germany and Financing Wealth Management & Private Banking, as well as Head of Region North & East Germany. He has extensive expertise in client advisory, business development, financing, and leadership across multiple client segments.

In addition to his executive responsibilities, Sven is a member of the Supervisory Board of UniCredit Invest Alternatives GmbH and the Administrative Board of Wealth Management Capital Holding GmbH.

Dr. Axel Schumacher 

Geneticist and Longevity Scientist

Dr. Axel Schumacher is a geneticist and longevity scientist. For more than 25 years, he has been researching the biological mechanisms of ageing and is one of the scientists who have laid the vital foundations for our current understanding of epigenetics and modern ageing clocks. His work combines cutting-edge research with entrepreneurial implementation and demonstrates how scientific insights can pave the way towards a longer and healthier lifespan.  

His research focuses on epigenetics, genomics and age-related diseases. Dr Schumacher was involved in the development of fundamental concepts behind modern epigenetic clocks and has published papers on epigenetic drift in Alzheimer's disease, epigenetic SNPs, single-cell epigenomics and epigenetic microarrays. His research has helped to make biological ageing processes more precisely measurable and has opened up new approaches to prevention, diagnosis and personalised therapies. 

In addition to his scientific work, Dr Schumacher has founded and built up numerous biotechnology companies. As CEO of Aerion Bioscience and AMORO, and as Chief Biotech Officer at Rejuve.Bio, he is working to translate insights from longevity research into practical applications. He has collaborated with internationally renowned pioneers in longevity research such as George Church and Aubrey de Grey.

Dr. Moritz Drefs 

Senior Medical Officer, L&H Reinsurance, Swiss Re

Dr. Moritz Drefs is Senior Medical Officer for the EMEA region at Swiss Re. A board-certified visceral and abdominal surgeon, he completed his medical training at Munich University Hospital (LMU Klinikum). With more than ten years of clinical experience, his clinical and academic work has focused on surgical oncology, liver surgery and organ transplantation. Dr. Drefs has published extensively in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals and continues to lecture at LMU Munich.

Since transitioning from clinical medicine to the insurance industry, he has been advising on underwriting and claims as well as product development across the EMEA region. He also regularly contributes to publications on a broad range of medical and societal topics, drawing on research conducted together with Swiss Re's scientific expert teams. His current work includes exploring how demographic and health trends - from increasing longevity to shifts in morbidity - are shaping the future insurance landscape.

Max Gottschalk 

Managing Partner, LONGEVITY FUND BY CLINIQUE LA PRAIRIE

Max Gottschalk is Founding Managing Partner of the Longevity Fund by Clinique La Prairie (Trinoven Capital), a Luxembourg-domiciled late-stage venture fund backing science-validated longevity companies across medical, nutrition, movement and wellbeing. He is also a Partner at Vedra Partners, the FINMA-regulated Swiss multi-family office he co-founded in 2015.

Max has spent more than thirty years building investment businesses. He began his career at Bear Stearns in New York and London (1994-98), where he became Head of Hedge Fund Sales for fixed income, before co-founding Gottex Fund Management in 1998. He led Gottex to a SIX Swiss Exchange listing in 2007 and to roughly $16 billion under management at its peak. He subsequently founded Ocean 14 Capital (2018), a blue-economy impact fund, and Hycap (2021), an energy-transition fund; his earlier funds were backed by the European Investment Fund, Nestlé, IKEA and the Walton and Li Ka-shing families, among others.

He taught Global Impact Investing at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, where he chairs the International Board, and holds a business degree from UVA. Max is based in Switzerland.

Samantha Ricciardi 

Head of EMEA, Fidelity International

Samantha joined Fidelity International as Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in March 2026. She previously served as CEO of Santander Asset Management and held senior leadership roles at BlackRock, Schroders, and Citi. Samantha is President of the European Fund and Asset Management Association and a Board member of FCC Enviro. She holds a degree in International Relations from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and a master's degree from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Stefan Kolek 

Senior Corporate Credit Strategist, UniCredit Bank GmbH

Stefan Kolek is Senior Corporate Credit Strategist at UniCredit Group in Munich. Besides focusing on European corporate credit, he provides thematic research, particularly on geoeconomics and longevity. He has more than twenty-five years' experience covering developed and emerging financial markets. He holds a Diplom in Economics from the University of Bonn, a Master of Advanced Studies in Applied History from the University of Zurich, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Halle/Saale (Germany).

Ulrike Franke 

Senior Associate Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)

Dr. Ulrike Franke is a senior associate fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in the Paris office. Her areas of focus include German and European security and defence, the future of warfare, and the impact of new technologies such as drones and AI on geopolitics and warfare. Franke has published widely on these and other topics, and regularly appears as commentator in the media. She co hosts Sicherheitshalber, a German-language podcast on security and defence, and is also a member of the French Collimateur: Le Casque et la Plume podcast team. She holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Oxford. In her thesis she studied the use of drones by Western armed forces. She also holds a BA from Sciences Po Paris and a double MA from Sciences Po Paris and the University of St. Gallen. Franke is a policy affiliate at GovAI and teaches at Sciences Po Paris.

Sam Kendall

Head of Client Solutions Germany, UniCredit Bank GmbH and Head of Advisory & Financing Solutions in Client Solutions of UniCredit S.p.A.

Sam joined UniCredit as Head of Advisory & Capital Markets in September 2021. In December 2023 he was appointed Head of Advisory & Financing Solutions, bringing together Specialised Lending and Advisory & Capital Markets. In October 2026, he assumed the additional role of Head of Client Solutions Germany and became a member of the Executive Board of HypoVereinsbank (UniCredit Bank GmbH).

Sam has 30 years of experience in investment banking. He joined UniCredit in 2021 from UBS, where he was heading the investment banking Americas division and before that the investment banking Asia Pacific division.

He was member of both the UBS Investment Bank Executive Committee which oversaw the governance of the 5,000 employees globally and on the Executive Committee of the Combined US Operations for UBS which oversaw the governance of the Investment Bank, Wealth Management and Asset Management in the Americas. He held similar regional governance roles in Asia Pacific as a member of the UBS APAC Executive Committee and Chairman of UBS Hong Kong Securities. As part of his various regional roles he has extensive experience liaising with regulators and as a member of both regional and global risk committees has a deep understanding of financial, operational and reputational risks surrounding complex global organisations.

Prior to his regional investment banking roles, Sam was the Global Head of Equity Capital Markets and held senior regional leadership roles within Equity Capital Markets across, New York, Hong Kong and London. He started his career as an equity trader and sales trader.

During the course of his career, Sam has been a keen advocate for Diversity and Inclusion both as the Chairman of the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) committee and the senior sponsor for Wellness within the Investment Bank at UBS. Sam holds a Bachelor of Arts of the University of New England, Australia.