Runa Monstad is the Director of the Stavanger Region European Office. For the last 20 years, Mrs. Monstad has worked in Brussels for the EFTA Secretariat, the EU Commission and EFTA Surveillance Authority, where she has dealt with different areas of the EEA covering topics such as state aid, competition, transport and energy. For a period she also worked in a Spanish law firm in Madrid. Mrs. Monstad has a law degree from the University of Oslo, Norway and the University of Deusto, Spain

Anthony van de Ven (M) is the Head of Office in the Eindhoven Brainport EU office and in this capacity has responsibility for, among others, the European project activities, the city of Eindhoven and other partners in the Eindhoven region engage in. He has over 25 years of experience in policy advocacy and project acquisition and project management in a wide variety of European funding programmes, ranging from the various EU Structural Funds programmes to the EU Research Framework programmes. Along the years he gained valuable experience in working on advocacy initiatives and projects across EU borders, an essential skill for those engaged in EU projects. Due to his position, and the fact that he works on the broad issues of energy and climate change, urban health and well-being, digitalization in an urban context, with both the public sector as well as with business partners in the region and the knowledge organizations (TU/e and KIC INNO-ENERGY) he is able to grasp quickly the various sustainability aspects facing local authorities. As he is based in Brussels and part of an extensive network of public sector colleagues from across the EU, he is able to share knowledge quickly and easily.