Transatlantic Takeoff: Hedging Headwinds With European Expansion
August 25 at 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
With tariff turmoil threatening transatlantic trade, American companies are looking for safe harbors and engines of growth globally.
Europe, with its advanced factories in sectors from metals to motors, world-leading energy and sustainability solutions, dynamic startups and cutting-edge research in life sciences and beyond, provides an attractive avenue for expansion and a healthy hedge against uncertainty.
And what better place to access this market of 450 million consumers than through the largest and most dynamic state in the continent’s largest economy?
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest state by population and output, boasts 18 million citizens and accounts for a fifth of German GDP — making its economy larger than those of Belgium, Switzerland or Sweden.
Known for cities like Duesseldorf, Cologne, Bonn, Essen and Dortmund, NRW has spotlighted Georgia, in 2021 becoming the first and only German state with an economic development office in Atlanta.
Join NRW.Global Business and Global Atlanta for an in-depth look at NRW as a platform for transatlantic takeoff, where you’ll network with peers and be inspired by stories of local startups, scaleups and established enterprises that have crossed the pond with confidence, utilizing NRW’s unrivaled workforce, strategic incentives and top universities.Â
Venue Sponsor:
Who should come: Firms in the following sectors with plans for the European market:
- Manufacturing
- Tech scaleups
- Life sciences
- Energy
- Sports Tech
- Startups, Educational Institutions and Innovation Ecosystems
…and more.
Note: This complimentary reception is targeted toward local companies in manufacturing, technology and other sectors with substantive and intentional plans for European expansion. Service providers will be vetted and only confirmed/allowed to join after the payment of a $100 entry fee.
Opening Remarks
Melanie Moltmann, Consul General of Germany
Consul General of Germany, arrived in Atlanta in September 2022. She came to the Southeast U.S. from Berlin, where she served as Deputy Head of Division, Division for Immigration Law, Visa, and Immigration Policy. Moltmann also has served as Deputy Head of Mission and Counselor for Cultural and Press Affairs in the German embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Desk Officer, Division for South East Asia and the Pacific in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin; and Deputy Head of Mission, German Embassy Yerevan, Armenia. A Russian speaker, Moltmann earned an LLM degree in Moscow between her legal studies and a three-year study program at the Court of Cassation in Schleswig, Germany. The German Consulate General in Atlanta is the official representation of the German government to the southeast of the United States. The consular district includes Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Speakers
Sander Biehn, CEO, ReadyforSocial
Sander Biehn is Founder and CEO of Ready For Social, an international marketing SaaS technology solution that let’s marketers create and direct direct their sales team’s social media activity to help them sell. Ready For Social and its international subsidiary has been serving B2B enterprise and SMBs since 2016. Prior to starting Ready For Social, Sander worked as a sales leader for AT&T for many years. Sander spent the late 1990s in Amsterdam running channel management for a joint venture of KPN and AT&T. Sander lives and works in Atlanta, GA.
Daniel Dueren, Economic Development Director, Southeast – NRW.Global Business
Dr. Kai Westerwelle, Partner, CMS
Dr. Kai Westerwelle is a partner at the international law firm CMS in their Mountain View / California representative office. For more than 30 years, Kai has been advising US companies and high-growth start-ups, first in Germany and as of 2014 in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. His expertise focuses on international tech transactions, cross-border expansions, as well as international regulations, particularly on privacy, digital, and AI. Kai is the Chairman of the Board of the German American Business Association, member of the central Executive Committee and Regional Director San Francisco/West Coast of the German American Lawyers’ Association, and elected member of the Atlantik Brücke and the American Council on Germany. He regularly speaks at international conferences, and lectures data privacy at Universities in Germany and the US.
Kiel Harkness, VP for Strategy for Europe and Americas, UPS
Kiel Harkness has over 20 years of experience in various roles at UPS and UPS Capital. He joined UPS in 1999 as an Account Executive and held a variety of positions in marketing and pricing strategy until his promotion to Business Planning Director in 2012. From 2013 to 2020, Kiel served as the Director of Revenue Management and Business Planning for UPS’s Asia Pacific region and as Marketing Director for the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Nordic Countries. In 2020, Kiel became the Head of Global Marketing and Business Intelligence for UPS Capital, followed by a position as VP of International Product and Customer Technology before he took on his current role of vice president of Strategy for UPS Europe and Americas in 2025.
Kiel attended Boston University from 1995 to 1999 and holds an MBA in Marketing from Georgia State University – J. Mack Robinson College of Business