Irina Schmid

Director for Strategic Program EU, Finance and Controlling Knorr-Bremse Systems for Rail Vehicles LLC (Munich, Germany)

Irina is currently leading ‎a cross-functional (Sales, IT, R&D, etc.) program in Europe with the overall goal to sustainably improve the bottom line. She has a ‎broad experience in mature and emerging markets worldwide across various industries (i.e. manufacturing, mobile phones, IT security) and is used to transfer complex situations into new business fields in a dynamic international environment based on detailed value chain knowledge with a high affinity for technology. Irina is a high profile leader, managing large, complex projects in sensitive cultural environments successfully. As a Director Business Development for Russia and CIS she has ‎successfully negotiated and established the Joint Venture for Knorr-Bremse with Russian Railways and established a services entity in Astana, Kazachstan. Now a Knorr-Bremse factory is producing brake equipment for trains in St. Petersburg, also the City where Irina was born and went to the State University. Prior to Knorr-Bremse SfS she held positions at Siemens Mobile / BenQ Mobile in Marketing, Category Product Management and SCM. She has a diploma in Business Administration from Ludwig-Maximilians University, Germany, as well as German Philology Diploma from St. Petersburg State University, Russia. In 2014 she completes the highly coveted Comprehensive Leadership Program (PLD I-IV) from Harvard Business School (HBS).