Governance

President: Hans Zenger (European Commission)

Secretary-General: Griet Jans (Belgian Competition Authority)

Member of the Executive Committee: Yossi Spiegel (Tel Aviv University)

Member of the Executive Committee: Barbara Veronese (Oxera)

STEERING COMMITTEE

The strategic governing board of ACE is made up of representatives from Academia, Government and Business.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The day-to-day operations of ACE are governed by a three-person Executive Committee, headed by the president of ACE.

SECRETARY-GENERAL

The Secretary-General of ACE assists the Steering Committee and takes care of practical matters such as the web page, finances and elections.

STEERING COMMITTEE

The Association's steering committee is made up of representatives from Academia, Government and Business.
The current Steering Committee members are:

AGENCIES:

Hans Zenger (European Commission DG Competition) 01.01.20-31.12.24

Jenny Haydock (Competition and Markets Authority) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Marta Rocha (Portuguese Competition Authority) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Louise Kastfelt (Danish Competition and Consumer Authority) 01.01.23-31.12.24

CONSULTANTS:

Andrea Coscelli (Keystone Strategy) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Barbara Veronese (Oxera) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Oliver Latham (Charles River Associates, CRA) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Theon van Dijk (RBB Economics) 01.01.23-31.12.24

ACADEMICS:

Chiara Fumagalli (Bocconi University) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Francesco Decaloris (Bocconi University) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Otto Toivanen (Aalto University School of Business) 01.01.23-31.12.24

Yossi Spiegel (Tel Aviv University) 01.01.19-31.12.24

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Day-to-day operations of ACE are governed by a three-person Executive Committee, headed by the president of ACE. The current members of the Executive Committee are Hans Zenger, Yossi Spiegel and Barbara Veronese.

Hans Zenger is the president of ACE.

Hans is a Head of Unit at the Chief Economist Team of DG Competition (European Commission). He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Munich and an M.Sc. in economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). Before joining the Commission, Hans was a Vice President at CRA’s European Competition Practice in Brussels. He has led the economic analysis in a large number of high profile competition cases. Hans has published on antitrust economics in journals such as the International Journal of Industrial Organization, the Journal of Health Economics, and the Antitrust Law Journal.

SECRETARY-GENERAL

The ACE Executive Committee is assisted by the Secretary-General. This is currently Griet Jans.

Griet Jans is the chief economist and part of the board of the Belgian Competition Authority. She leads the Chief Economist Team, and advises both the investigation teams of the Prosecutor General and the Competition Colleges on the use of economic tools and quantitative techniques in competition cases. Griet started at the authority as the deputy chief economist and economic advisor, where she worked on several non-simplified merger cases in different sectors, such as telecom and media, basic industries, retail activities and services. Besides this, she is the Secretary-General of the Association of Competition Economics (ACE), a distinguished non-profit network that brings together competition economists working in government, academia and the private sector, and she co-organizes the yearly conference of Competition, a specialized journal for competition and competition law in Belgium. Griet is also the author of several papers on competition economics and policy. She joined the ACE organisational body as Secretary-General in 2018.

History of the ACE Presidency

Ana Sofia Rodrigues (Portuguese Competition Authority): 2020-2022
Penelope Papandropoulos (European Commission): 2018-2019
Alexis Walckiers (Belgian Competition Authority): 2016-2017
Giulio Federico (European Commission): 2014-2015
Thibault Vergé (French Competition Authority): 2012-2013
Miguel De la Mano (European Commission): 2011-2012
Peter Davis (UK Competition Commission): 2009-2011
Anne Perrot (French Competition Authority): 2006-2009
John Fingleton (Irish Competition Authority / OFT): 2003-2006

HISTORY

John Fingleton, the first President of ACE, was the founding father of ACE alongside Patrick Rey of the Toulouse School of Economics and Andrea Coscelli (who worked at private consulting firm Lexecon). John Fingleton was at the time the chair of the Irish Competition Authority before becoming the Chief Executive of the Office of Fair Trading in 2005. The second President of ACE was Anne Perrot. She was Vice-President of the Conseil de la Concurrence in France from 2004 to 2012. She organised the Toulouse, Budapest and Berlin annual conferences. After the Berlin conference, Peter Davis became President when he was the Deputy Chairman of the UK Competition Commission. When Peter Davis decided to leave UK Competition Commission on September 1 2011, Miguel de la Mano was elected as the new ACE president (He was then DG COMP's Deputy Chief Economist, and thereafter acting Chief Economist of the UK Competition Commission). At the general assembly of ACE in Paris October 26 2012, Miguel de la Mano decided that he would step down. Thibaud Vergé was appointed as the new president from that date. He was the Chief Economist of the Autorité de la Concurrence (French Competition Authority). When Thibaud Vergé left the French agency in 2013, Giulio Federico from DG COMP's Chief Economist Team became the new president in January 2014. He organised the Mannheim and Milan conferences. Alexis Walckiers (Chief Economist of the Belgian Competition Authority) took over as president from January 2016, organising the Amsterdam and Madrid conferences. Penelope Papandropoulos (DG Competition) became the new President of ACE, starting 1st January 2018. She organised the Bologna conference, celebrating the 15 years of ACE, and the Copenhagen conference, in 2019. Ana Sofia Rodrigues (Chief Economist of the Portuguese Competition Authority) started as the new President in January 1st, 2020. She organised a virtual conference during the pandemic, and organised the in-person editions in Barcelona and Lisbon. Hans Zenger (DG Competition) is appointed as the new president, starting 1st January 2023.

PAST GOVERNANCE

Job descriptions refer to the function the members were performing at the time of their mandate

Previous Steering Committee Members

Agencies:

Julie Bon (CMA – Competition and Markets Authority) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Antonio Butta (AGCM – Italian Competition Authority) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Ana Sofia Rodrigues (AdC - Portuguese Competition Authority) - 01.01.18-31.12.21

Penelope Papandropoulos (DG Competition) - 01.01.16-31.12.19

Kate Collyer (UK Competition and Markets Authority) 01.01.16-31.12.18

Lars Sørgard (Norwegian Competition Authority) 01.01.16-31.12.18

Andrea Coscelli (Competition and Markets Authority, UK) 01.01.14-31.12.16

Alexis Walckiers (Autorité Belge de la Concurrence, Belgium) 01.01.14-31.12.16

Pedro Pereira (Autoridade da Concurrencia)01.01.13-31.12.15

Giulio Federico (DG Comp - CET) 01.01.13-31.12.15

Consultants:
Adina Claici (The Brattle Group) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Kirsten Edwards-Warren (CompassLexecon) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Pierre Regibeau (CRA) - 01.01.19-31.12.21 (but replaced due to start as CE at DG Comp)

Vincent Verouden ( E-CA Economics ) - 01.01.19-31.12.21 (but replaced due to return to Public Sector)

Marc Ivaldi (Nera) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Ethel Fonseca (RBB) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Raphaël De Coninck (Charles River Associates) - 01.01.16-31.12.18

Hans Friederiszick (E-CA Economics) - 01.01.16-31.12.18

Bojana Ignjatovic (RBB Economics)- 01.01.16-31.12.18

David Spector (MAPP) - 01.01.16-31.12.18

Matthew Bennett (CRA) - 01.01.13-31.12.15

Benoît Durand (RBB) - 01.01.13-31.12.15

Lorenzo Coppi (Compass Lexecon) - 01.01.13-31.12.15

Gunnar Niels (Oxera) - 01.01.13-31.12.15

Academics:
Tomaso Duso (DIW Berlin) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

Yossi Spiegel (Tel Aviv University) - 01.01.19-31.12.21

David Martimort (Paris School of Economics) - 01.01.17-31.12.19

Markus Reisinger (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management) - 01.01.17-31.12.19

Giacomo Calzolari (University of Bologna) - 01.01.16-31.12.18

Greg Crawford (University of Zurich) - 01.01.16-31.12.18

Bruno Jullien (University of Toulouse) - 01.01.14-31.12.16

Volker Nocke (University of Mannheim) - 01.01.13-31.12.16

Natalia Fabra (Carlos III, Madrid)01.01.13-31.12.15

Chiara Fumagalli (Bocconi Universiy) 01.01.13-31.12.15

Previous Executive Committees

2019 - 2022:

Ana Sofia Rodrigues (president), Chief Economist and Head of the Bureau of Economic Studies of the Portuguese Competition Authority (AdC)
Yossi Spiegel, Full Professor at the faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University and a research fellow at the CEPR and ZEW
Adina Claici, Principal of the Brussels Office of The Brattle Group and visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges

2018 - 2019:

Penelope Papandropoulos (president)
Markus Reisinger, Professor for Industrial Organization and Microeconomics and Head of the Economics Department at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Adina Claici, Director of the Brussels Office of Copenhagen Economics and visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

2017 - 2018:

Penelope Papandropoulos (president)
Raphaël De Coninck, Vice President and Legal Representative of Charles River Associates (CRA)'s Brussels Office
Giacomo Calzolari is Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) London

2014 - 2016:

Giulio Federico (President), member of the Chief Economist Team (CET) at Directorate General for Competition (European Commission)
Lorenzo Coppi
Volker Nocke, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim

Previous Secretary-Generals

From May 2010, Lars Sørgard at the Norwegian School of Economics is Secretary of ACE.
He took over from Peter Møllgaard of the Department of Economics at the Copenhagen Business School.