Karen De Paoli
President
Karen De Paoli became the President of CBBA-Europe in 2023.
As a freelance sustainability transition consultant who assists companies in co-creating solutions to meet their CSR objectives, her particular focus within CBBA is to ensure that ESG is considered in European employee benefits policies.
Having built her career on the S of ESG, with more than 20 years in employee benefits consulting and project deployment for multinationals across Canada, Italy and France, Karen extended her knowledge to environmental issues by completing an Executive Master in Sustainability Transition Management at the Bologna Business School – University of Bologna.
Karen speaks regularly at conferences related to both the environmental and social sustainability issues and is a facilitator of Climate Fresk (educative and collaborative climate awareness game). Prior to joining CBBA, she was the Chairman of IEBA (International Employee Benefits Association) France, and spent over 11 years building up the community.
Karen is based in Paris and speaks English, French and Italian.
Dr. Francesco Briganti
Secretary General
Francesco Briganti has been working as a lobbyist since 2002.
At the moment, he is the CEO of Employee Benefits and Welfare Institute, a Brussels based public affairs company (www.ebwi.eu), and Chair of the Italian branch of the International Employee Benefits Association (www.IEBA.org.uk).
Francesco is currently a member of the Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group (OPSG) of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (https://eiopa.europa.eu/about-eiopa/organisation/stakeholder-groups/occupational-pensions-sg).
Between June 2016 and June 2018, he has been the Coordinator of the World Pension Alliance (WPA), a platform of the main worldwide pensions advocacy organizations (www.worldpensionalliance.org).
Until June 2016 he was the Director of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions of Social Protection (www.aeip.net).
Francesco has been serving as lobbyist in EU affairs related to insurance and employee benefits matters. He has spoken at more than 300 public events around the World, and he often delivers lectures on EU law and EU lobbying affairs at several Universities.
Francesco holds a Ph.D in EU law, focused on the legal creation of a pan-European employee benefits plan.