Joe Hinrichs serves as President & Chief Executive Officer of CSX, the largest railroad in the eastern half of the United States and Canada, based in Jacksonville, Florida. Hinrichs previously served as President of Ford Motor Company’s global automotive business, retiring in early 2020. His Ford career included roles as President of Global Operations, President of North & South America, President of Asia Pacific & Africa, Chairman & CEO of Ford China, Chairman and CEO of Ford Canada, and head of Global Manufacturing & Labor Affairs. Hinrichs was named Railroader of the Year in 2025 by Railway Age and the top Operations Executive in the global automotive industry in 2019 by Automotive News and KPMG. Prior to Ford he served as a Partner at private equity group Ryan Enterprises LLC and spent ten years at General Motors in various engineering and manufacturing leadership roles. Hinrichs currently serves on the board of Goodyear Tire Company and previously served on the boards of Rivian Automotive LLC, Ford Motor Credit Company, Ascend Wellness, GPR, and Vastera. He has an electrical engineering degree magna cum laude from the University of Dayton, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and two Honorary Doctorate degrees from Cleary University and Tiffin University.
Andrea Abt is focused on an international portfolio of non-executive and supervisory board positions in public as well as private companies in a wide range of industries, from offshore wind and oil and gas services, through energy management and gold mining to packaging, infrastructure financing and distribution in the manufacturing and building sectors.
Before her non-executive career, Andrea spent almost 30 years in international management and leadership roles in a wide variety of challenging environments in the Daimler-Benz and Siemens groups: building organizations, consolidating, turning them around in the areas of transportation (rail and aerospace), logistics, IT and more traditional manufacturing businesses. Her background includes leading teams in sales, services, as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Procurement Officer and Head of Supply Chain Management of global organizations ranging up to 9 billion € purchasing volume.
Currently, Andrea also serves on the supervisory board of the German MDAX constituent Gerresheimer AG and Cadeler A/S, a Danish services provider for offshore wind listed on the Oslo and New York Stock Exchange. Andrea holds an MBA from Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
Andrew Axelrod is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Axar Capital Management LP and is ultimately responsible for all investment, risk and business management functions. Mr. Axelrod is a member of the Executive Committee and Investment Committee at Axar. Before founding Axar, Mr. Axelrod was a Partner and Co-Head of North American Investments for Mount Kellett Capital Management, a private investment organization with over $7 billion of assets under management. Andrew joined Mount Kellett at firm inception and worked there for over 6 years. Prior to joining Mount Kellett, Andrew worked at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. and The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Andrew graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Economics from Duke University.
Patrick J. Bartels Jr. is the Managing Member of Redan Advisors LLC, a firm that provides fiduciary services, including board of director representation and strategic planning advisory services for domestic and international public and private business entities. Prior to founding Redan Advisors LLC, Mr. Bartels was a senior investment professional with 25 years of experience. His professional experience includes investing in complex financial restructurings and process-intensive situations in North America, Asia and Europe in a broad universe of industries. Mr. Bartels has served as a director on numerous public and private boards of directors with an extensive track-record of driving value-added returns for all stakeholders through governance, incentive alignment, capital markets transactions, and mergers and acquisitions.
From 2002 to December 2018, Mr. Bartels served as a Managing Principal at Monarch Alternative Capital LP, a private investment firm that focused primarily on event-driven credit opportunities. Prior to Monarch, he served as Research Analyst for high yield investments at INVESCO, where he analyzed primary and secondary debt offerings of companies in various industries. Mr. Bartels began his career at Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP, where he was a Certified Public Accountant. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Mr. Bartels received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting with a concentration in Finance from Bucknell University.
Stefan Stübing is President & Chief Executive Officer, for Exide Technologies, a global provider of stored electrical-energy solutions for Automotive and industrial markets, and is responsible for leading Automotive and Industrial operations globally. Mr. Stübing has more than 30 years of experience in leading Finance, Treasury and cost accounting teams in the battery industry. He joined Exide in 1995 through the acquisition of the CEAC group and served as Vice President Finance for the EMEA region from 2011 to 2018. Mr. Stübing held various Finance Director level roles within Exide from 1999 to 2010 leading the EMEA Automotive, Global Original Equipment and German Finance teams. Mr. Stübing holds a Finance and Accounting Degree from the Friedberg economics business school.