Simina Lakatos has been founding president of the Ernest Lupan Institute for Circular Economy and Environment (IRCEM) since 2012. She has economic and technical knowledge, abilities and experience: she holds a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. Honours in Materials and Environment Engineering. She obtained a Doctorate in Engineering and Management in 2011 after defending her thesis on Corporate Social Responsibility.

Simina has been part of the Department of Management and Engineering Economics of UTC since 2011, where she teaches and researches the following areas: sustainable development with a focus on the circular economy, strategic management with a focus on the social economy, enterprise assessment and marketing and international management, all of which helps her to develop IRCEM. Her focus is on accelerating the transition towards circularity from the bottom up with concerted actions, developing practical and scalable solutions, organising local/regional/EU campaigns, and communicating and involving others in the dissemination of information on the circular economy and messages on sustainable development. Simina is Romanian and speaks fluent English and Italian.

In her role as Director of Programmes, Hatty leads Circle Economy’s thematic and sector-focused portfolio (textiles, finance and built environment). Having worked for over 14 years in democratic strengthening and sustainable development, Hatty has extensive international experience of working with governments and parliamentary systems to enhance their capacity for effective oversight, scrutiny and representation in the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Hatty is an experienced portfolio manager, delivering a wide range of multi-year, multi-stakeholder international development programmes in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. She has taken the lead on projects as wide ranging as enhancing the representation of women in public life in Pakistan to institutional strengthening in Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis.

Hatty has a background in project management and strategic organisational planning, with strong links across government and multilateral organisations. 

Key objectives at Circle Economy

- Build a comprehensive portfolio of sector + cross-sector programmes; working with government + industry  

- Develop multi-stakeholder projects, across government + industry, to support the circular transition at national level 

- Expand the profile and viability of Circle Economy in the Global South.

Brendan Edgerton is the Director of Circular Economy at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in Geneva, Switzerland. Since arriving at WBCSD in 2015, he has managed the delivery of the Practitioner Guide (www.CEguide.org) and the 8 Business Cases to the Circular Economy and contributed to the Environmental Priorities for Business in the Circular Economy and the CEO Guide to the Circular Economy.

Brendan also contributed to the development and launch of Factor10, WBCSD’s circular economy programme. This programme was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2018 with over 30 members, spanning 16 industries and generating over USD $1.3 trillion in annual turnover. He now manages multiple workstreams under Factor10 on circular metrics and sector deep dives.

Prior to WBCSD, Brendan’s work experience included life cycle assessment and costing at Walt Disney Imagineering, renewable and energy efficiency project identification at Office Depot and green building consulting with Green Dinosaur. Brendan has an MBA from the Yale School of Management, a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of California Santa Cruz.