Watch the webinar 'Have your say: the future of the European Pillar of Social Rights'

Speaker: Joost Korte

Joost Korte was appointed Director General for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour in 2018. Previously, he was Deputy Director-General of DG Trade and, before this role, the Dutch national served as Deputy Director-General at DG Agriculture and Rural Development Department, as well as in the Enlargement Directorate General. Joost Korte also spent several years in the Commission’s Secretariat General as Director responsible for the relations with the Council of Ministers and gained extensive experience in the Private offices of Sir Leon Brittan, Chris Patten and Danuta Hübner. A lawyer by training, he joined the Commission in 1991, following eight years of academic work on European law at the Universities of Utrecht and Edinburgh.

Speaker: Maria Jepsen

Maria Jepsen was appointed Deputy Director at Eurofound in 2019. Prior to this, she was Director of the research department at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), and assistant professor and research fellow at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). She is currently also associate professor in labour economics at ULB and external lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL). Her main research interests include gender studies, the impact of welfare states on labour supply, wages and working conditions, and more recently the European social dimension. Maria has also served as a coordinator on the European Commission tripartite advisory committee on health and safety at work. She holds a PhD in Economics and a Master’s degree in Econometrics from the Free University of Brussels (ULB).

Speaker: Paul Ginnell

Paul Ginnell has been Director of the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) Ireland since 2018 and had been Policy Officer there since 2005. Paul is a member of EAPN Europe’s policy group and coordinates the Community Platform, a network of 30 national anti-poverty and equality organisations, and the Better Europe Alliance which engages national and European decision makers on key EU policy developments. Before coming to EAPN Ireland Paul was Coordinator of Westmeath EQUAL, and the Limerick Travellers Development Group and also worked with the Irish Traveller Movement, and in overseas development in Kenya and Sudan. Paul is a qualified Community Worker and has a Masters in Applied Social Studies.

Speaker: Hans Dubois

Hans Dubois is a Research Manager at Eurofound. His research areas include household over-indebtedness, healthcare, long-term care, social benefits, retirement, and quality of the local area. Before joining Eurofound, he was Assistant Professor at Kozminski University in Warsaw. He completed a PhD in Business Administration and Management at Bocconi University in Milan with a research stay at the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kiev. Prior to this, Hans was Research Officer at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies in Madrid. He studied both Economics and Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam, with semesters at Harvard University and Universidad de Salamanca.