Competitive Intelligence International Conference - The Role of Competitive Intelligence in Protecting Businesses from Industrial Espionage

Have you ever wanted to run a successful company? Regardless of the answer you gave to this question, now you can start learning how Competitive Intelligence can help you boost your business.

The Romanian-American University invites you to attend the 3rd edition of the “Competitive Intelligence International Conference”, which will take place on 13th of May 2026, in Bucharest, Romania. The conference’s main topic is “The Role of Competitive Intelligence in Protecting Businesses from Industrial Espionage”.

In the current international competitive context, protecting trade secrets is becoming an increasingly important challenge, with preserving the confidentiality of business information being vital for companies to gain and/or to maintain a competitive advantage.

During the event, we will explore concrete ways in which companies could prevent and counter industrial espionage, through legal and ethical competitive intelligence.

This new edition of the conference is organised in collaboration with IntelligenceCompetitiv.ro.

Keynote Speakers

Razvan Grigorescu has a B.A. in Economics, he holds a M.A. in Intelligence and National Security, and a M.A. in Sociology. He lives in Bucharest, Romania, being a business consultant specialized in B2B consultancy, and a competitive intelligence professional.

Mr. Grigorescu has published articles and presented at national and international conferences, in Romania and other European countries, on competitive intelligence and other topics, including as a keynote speaker. He has presented webinars, organized workshops and conferences and has a podcast on competitive intelligence.

In 2023, Razvan Grigorescu came up with the idea of creating the “Competitive Intelligence International Conference” in Romania and took the initiative to bring it to reality.

He produces content for IntelligenceCompetitiv.ro, hosts a podcast and runs his own YouTube channel on competitive intelligence.

Amir Fleischman is an award‑winning instructor, author, and globally recognized authority in Competitive Intelligence (CI). As President of the prestigious Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows, he has played a defining role in shaping CI education worldwide. Throughout his career, Amir has pioneered innovative tools, methodologies, and initiatives that have elevated the practice of CI for both professionals and students.

As the founder and head of Cicom Global, Amir has partnered with an impressive range of organizations across the world. He has delivered keynote addresses, led sessions, and served as a panellist at major conferences throughout North America, Asia, and Europe, consistently advancing the global conversation on intelligence and strategy.

Amir’s influence extends across academia and professional practice. He is the author of Beating Competition through Web Intelligence, has served on the editorial board of Competitive Intelligence Magazine, and has published numerous articles for both scholarly and practitioner audiences.

His contributions have earned him some of the field’s highest honors, including the International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE) Instructor of the Year Award and the Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Intelligence Recognition of Excellence (IRE) Award.

Ben Gilad started as a young business academic in the field of competitive intelligence in 1982, before it was called competitive intelligence. He then helped shape the field by co-authoring the first book on organizing an intelligence function (The Business Intelligence System, AMACOM, 1988) and set up the first global institution dedicated to competitive intelligence training (www.academyci.com, since 1999). At the Academy, Ben created the first accredited certificate in the field, the CIP™, and certified over 3,000 CIPs™ around the globe. He still regrets what became of his ideas when Corporate got their hands on them (hint: AI is not CI).

Ben wrote the book on war games (literally, in 2009, Business War Games, Career Press) and has been running war games for the Fortunate 500 and training corporate managers in the art of predicting competitors’ moves for over 3 decades. Most of his clients don’t listen to him, but they keep coming back calling him “refreshingly blunt.” He believes they are masochists.

Ben was a good strategy professor (Rutgers U until 1998), a lousy junior police intelligence officer (Israel), and an old fashioned, free market economist (Ph.D. 1981, NYU). He still misses his undergrad classes at Rutgers who believed every word he said. He does not miss the MBA classes, though.

Publications: 7 books and 100+ articles and essays; most are worthless, some are original, very few are notable. His pride is a novel that has nothing to do with competitive intelligence called, There Will Be Hell To Pay (2021).

Ben writes a column on LinkedIn called The Skeptical Analyst which sums up his approach to competitive intelligence as well as life. He tries to be funny, he is often cynical, and he hates people who take themselves seriously. You can reach Ben at [email protected] or [email protected].  But the question is: Why???

Amir Fleischman, Managing Director of Cicom Global, a CI training, research and consultancy company, is internationally recognized as an open-source intelligence leader with profound knowledge of CI-related tools and techniques within the online, social media and mobile space. He has presented at numerous events and is known for his practical, enriching lectures and workshops, where he demonstrates live powerful out-of-the-box search and analytical capabilities. Amir’s book, Beating Competition through Web Intelligence outlines extensive methodologies and tools to retrieve online business information in a sophisticated manner and gain competitive advantage. Amir has been a key opinion leader and Global Executive Advisory member of Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). he was an editorial board member of Competitive Intelligence Magazine and published articles in I am SCIP and Competitive Intelligence Magazine.

Christophe BISSON, Ph.D explores and develops innovative competitive intelligence and anticipatory systems augmented by machine learning. He received international and national awards for his work and won research funds from the American NSF, EU, etc. He is the scientific director of the MSc Business Consulting and Decision Intelligence (Paris) at SKEMA and lectures as well in Raleigh and Suzhou in graduate programs. He provided training to top executives in the US, EU, ME, and Asia. Christophe created the platform ‘Stratbrain’ that combines AI and GEN AI for augmented decisions that he uses for his lectures and trainings.  Christophe is also board member of several international organizations.

Guest Speakers

Dr. Cristian Obreja is a Board Member of the SCIP’s Intelligence Center of Excellence Romania (ICoE Romania) and has over 30 years of experience in the field of intelligence, 6 of which as a consultant.

His PhD dissertation from 2008 was entitled “Management of protecting the interests of the company”. In 2009, he published the book “Protecting and promoting the interests of the company through intelligence”.

Since 2012, he has been an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași, where he has been working to train students in the field of competitive intelligence analysis.

Event Agenda

Program

to be updated

08:30 – 09:00Registration
09:00 – 09:30

WELCOME TO THE CI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

· Costel NEGRICEA, PhD Professor, Rector, Romanian-American University

· Tudor Mihai EDU, PhD Professor, Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Internationalization, Romanian-American University

· Răzvan GRIGORESCU, Business Consultant, CI Professional, SCIP Member

09:30 – 10:00

KEYNOTE SESSION

· Paul SANTILLI, CEO SCIP

10:00 – 10:30

GENERAL SESSION

Speakers presentations

· Emil HEDEȘIU, CI Professional, SCIP Member
SCIP Romania – Intelligence Center of Excellence

10:30 – 11:00Networking Break
11:00 – 12:30WORKSHOP MODULE | FOUNDATIONS OF CI
Răzvan GRIGORESCU, Business Consultant, CI Professional, SCIP Member

An Introduction to the Competitive Intelligence Cycle

12:30 – 14:00Lunch Break
14:00 – 14:30

KEYNOTE SESSION

· Jonathan CALOF, PhD Professor, University of Ottawa, UNESCO

Co-chair of Anticipatory Systems for Innovation and Venture Creation

14:30 – 15:00

GENERAL SESSION

Speakers presentations

15:30 – 16:30RESEARCH MODULE | SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON CI
16:30 – 17:30BUSINESS MODULE | EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRACTICES
17:30 – 18:00CLOSING REMARKS

 

We know that through the lectures and the workshops that will be made available to the participants during this event, as well as by accessing various scientific research and good practices examples, the conference will contribute to the growth of the competitive intelligence culture.

At the end of the conference, all the attendees will be happy that they have acquired new relevant knowledge about the field of competitive intelligence, which they will be able to use immediately in their work.

Participation is open to all interested parties, especially to students, scientific researchers, business persons and competitive intelligence professionals, with relevant experience in the field.

The conference will take place within the Romanian – American University, 1B Expoziției Bd., 1st District, Bucharest, Romania.

Registration

Register now to learn how to make use of competitive intelligence in your life and your business career!