EuropaBio worked with the following panel of industry experts to shape the 2018 conference agenda and ensure that all the most pressing issues were addressed:
After his scientific training (Ecole Normale Supérieure, PhD in Molecular Biology), Marc Delcourt turned to business creation in the field of industrial biotechnology. Marc Delcourt has co-founded the company Global Bioenergies in 2008, and serves as its CEO since then.
Marc den Hartog holds a masters in Chemistry from the University of Leiden. Marc started his career with Unilever and held several leadership positions at IOI Group’s Oils & Fats division Loders Croklaan in Sales & Marketing and Supply Chain. More recently, he worked as Senior Vice President Strategic Portfolio Management at Corbion and Vice President Asia Pacific with CSM’s Bakery division. In addition, he served as an executive board member of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Currently, Marc is Executive Vice President Biobased Innovations at Corbion.
Prof. Ludo Diels, Dr. in chemistry & biotechnology, works at the University of Antwerp, and is research manager Sustainable Chemistry for the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) in Mol, Belgium.
During 15 year he managed the Environment and Process Technology Business Unit and is now responsible for the transition toward sustainable chemistry and clean technology. He is responsible for the organisation of collaboration with the academic and industrial World and for co-financing projects. He coordinated and is involved in many international research projects. Ludo Diels is strongly involved in the set up of a biobased economy in Flanders. He is also responsible for the collaboration between VITO and India and he is managing the creation of a road map and Strategic Research Agenda for R&D on biomass and biowaste between India and Europe. He is a founding father of the Shared Research Centre on Bio-aromatics (BIORIZON) between the Netherlands and Flanders. He is also founder and Flanders coordinator of the BIG-C trilateral alliance between Flanders, the Netherlands and NordRhein Westfalia (Germany), focusing on a border denying collaboration for the chemical industry with focus on waste gases and biomass as renewable resources . He is case leader for bio-aromatics in the Vanguard Initiative, pilot Bio-economy, leading to smart specialisation of interregional collaboration.
He is the chairman of the working group FEED in the Energy and Resources PPP-SPIRE between 8 industrial sectors and the European Commission) and member of the SPIRE-BBI working group.
Joanna took on her role of Deputy Secretary-General at EuropaBio in March this year. She previously held the position of Industrial Biotechnology and Cross-Sector Strategy Director in the association. She has over fifteen years of Brussels-based experience in Public Affairs and Strategic Communications and has an academic background in Environmental Science. Prior to joining EuropaBio, Joanna worked in consultancy in the energy, environment, health and development sectors advising a broad range of Fortune 500 companies, industry associations and NGOs and has also worked for the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment.
Ian started his career with ICI, a former UK based multinational in chemicals and related sectors. In 1998, he joined DuPont and held during a period of 17 years, several leading positions within the Company. He retired from the Company in 2016 after serving 10 years as President Europe Middle East & Africa. The year after, he joined Carbios’ Board of Directors. Ian also served as a member of the Executive Committee and Board of CEFIC and of EuropaBio. He was also a member of the Foundation Board of IMD and a member of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce. Ian HUDSON graduated from Oxford University with an MA degree in French and German.
Appointed CEO of IBioIC in January 2014, Roger brings with him a wealth of experience as an international business leader and a proven track record in business turnaround, growth and leadership. His background is within the chemical and fine chemicals sectors where he spent over two decades working for industry giants such as ICI and Johnson Matthey in the UK, Australia, Germany and USA. He is also a Fellow of the IChemE. From there he focussed on using his experience to support technology based SME’s with strategy, business development and management and got the bug for leadership that clearly drives him today.
Roger sits on the steering groups/boards of Chemical Sciences Scotland, Accelerating Innovation team of the UK Chemical Growth Partnership, Skills team of the IBLF, Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, Green Growth Partnership, Scottish IB Development Board and Engineering Industrial Advisory Panel of Heriot Watt University where he is also a Guest Lecturer.
Kaya Kaplancali has an MBA degree from San Diego State University and a Ph.D. degree in Business Administration from Marmara University, Istanbul. He has over 20 years of track record in business development and entrepreneurship, 14 years of it primarily in China and Hong Kong. He has extensive international business experience working with multinational companies as well as academic research background in networked business models. Kaya has published conference papers in China, India and Japan in 2006 and 2007, in affiliation with Product Development and Management Association, based in New Jersey, USA. He regularly participates in bioplastics industry conferences as a speaker on durable consumer product applications of bioplastics. In 2009 Kaya founded Bioserie with three close friends, a Hong Kong based company focused on developing, manufacturing and marketing branded durable consumer goods made of bioplastics. His experience in managing design, product development and manufacturing processes and implications of these disciplines on branding has led him to study and understand the essence of working with geographically dispersed, multidisciplinary teams. By managing the R&D process, Kaya was able to develop an innovative manufacturing technology for injection molded bioplastic durable consumer products, which earned him and Bioserie worldwide industry recognition and innovation accolades in USA and Europe. Kaya is the bioplastics technologist in Bioserie, and he currently leads R&D, production and supply chain management efforts.
Professor Pierre Monsan earned his engineering degree in Biological Chemistry (1969) from the National Institute for Applied Sciences (INSA), University of Toulouse, France, as well as his Doctor-Engineer Degree (1971) and his PhD degree (1977). He obtained a Lecturer position in the Department of Biochemical Engineering at INSA in 1969, and was promoted Assistant Professor in 1973 and Full Professor in 1981.
He founded one of the very first French start-up companies, BioEurope, focusing on the field of Biocatalysis in 1984. In 1993, BioEurope merged with the Solabia Group. He returned to INSA to create the Gilbert Durand Bioengineering Center and to start a new research group focusing on enzyme molecular engineering with Prof. Magali Remaud-Simeon. He was appointed Professor at Ecole des Mines Paris in 1993. He was involved in the creation of BioTrade in 1996 and of GeniBio in 1998. From 1999 to 2004 he headed the Department of Biochemical Engineering at INSA. He was elected member of the French University Institute (IUF) in 2003 and re-elected in 2008.
He founded Toulouse White Biotechnology (TWB) in 2012 with a €20m grant from the French Government. He is presently Professor Emeritus at INSA and Director of TWB.
Professor Monsan has made many significant contributions to the field of enzyme engineering. His early work was on enzyme immobilization and enzyme reactor development. He elucidated the mechanism of action of glutaraldehyde, one of the most widely used reagents for enzyme covalent binding. In the late 70s, he was one of the very first researchers to use enzymes in non-aqueous media to “transform” hydrolytic enzymes into synthetic enzymes for ester, amide and glycosidic linkage synthesis. His group at INSA has made very significant contributions to the field of glucansucrases.
Professor Monsan is the author of more than 240 publications, 3 books and 65 patents. Also, he is Chairman of the French Federation of Biotechnology and a member of:
the French Academy of Technology,
the French Academy of Agriculture,
the “College of Fellows” of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE),
the Executive Board of the European Federation of Biotechnology.
Yvon Le Hénaff, graduated engineer from AgroParisTech, started his career in 1977 as a R&D Engineer. Then, he held different positions as industrial and commercial director in process engineering and contracting companies in the field of agro industry, in France and abroad (USA, Asia, Russia, Middle East, Iran …).
He was appointed General Manager of ARD in 2002. Under his management, this Research and Development company whose core business is the design and scaling up of process in plant refining, white biotechnology and green chemistry, acquired a worldwide reputation. It now operates for industrial companies and start up such as Corbion, Amyris, Global Bio Energies,… and has been founding shareholder of Soliance, producing actives ingredients out of plant for the cosmetic industry, recently taken over by Givaudan group, and of BioAmber for which it did design and scale up on its industrial demonstration plant the succinic acid production process.
He retired in July 2018 after 16 years as General Manager.
Yvon Le Hénaff is President of the Industry and Agro-resource (IAR) Cluster, Member of the UIC’s (Union of Chemical Industries) Innovation Commission and Vice President of the UIC Picardie Champagne-Ardenne.
Professor Kevin O Connor is a member of the school of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science and the Earth Institute at University College Dublin, Ireland. He is chairperson of the scientific committee for the public private partnership Biobased Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU), a member of the European Commission biobased products expert group and a previous member of European Commission committee entitled the “lead market initiative for Bio-based products (2008-2011). His research interests are integrated biorefining, Biobased chemicals, biodegradable polymers, biocatalysis and protein engineering. Professor O Connor has published over 85 international peer review articles and made of over 170 contributions (presentations and posters) at national and International conferences. He has filed 8 patents and successfully licensed 3 technologies resulting from his research work. Professor Kevin O’ Connor is the founder of Bioplastech a university spin out company endeavouring to commercialise the conversion of residues and biobased resources to biodegradable polymers.
Research Programme Director - Biotechnology Science Leader
Unilever Research and Development
Neil obtained his first degree in Biology at Portsmouth University in 1993. In his final year he majored in enzymology and this sparked the interest here and shaped his resulting career. Neil completed his PhD in Industrial Biotechnology in ’96 involving every aspect of the protein engineering cycle and this provided the opportunity to work in a number of EU labs and industry groups as part of the consortium. In Unilever Neil worked on enzymes and protein technology for the chemical businesses and the antibody company Unipath. He held project leader posts in Biorecognition and Life Sciences divisions and was part of teams making key inventions in exploitation of protein domains in industrial applications. Following sale of Unipath, he had a role in Life Sciences as science leader biotechnology with a focus on intervention technologies for a range of HPC categories and a wider range of bio based materials. Also during this time he jointly established a spin out company with Unilever Ventures for applications of biomolecules in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industry. In 2005 / 06 Neil moved to the Unilever Port Sunlight R&D lab to lead the Biotechnology expertise and science area with closer business and open innovation partner interactions and support the categories in advancing new technologies. His current teams comprise of both scientists located internally and externally with collaborators. In 2012, Neil took on the additional R&D programme director role leading Biotechnology & Biosourcing. This has the strong bias in the discovery for new biotechnologies and green chemistries for opportunities in Unilever’s portfolio. Neil is an inventor on 30+ patents and holds posts on external advisory boards in Industrial Biotechnology (European Union etc).
Babette is Business Development Director at Ginkgo Bioworks. Ginkgo Bioworks is the organism company that designs custom microbes for customers across multiple markets. They build their foundries to scale the process of organism engineering using software and hardware automation. Organism engineers at Ginkgo learn from nature to develop new organisms that replace technology with biology.
Walter Pfefferle is currently Senior Vice President New Business Development at Evonik Nutrition & Care.
Carsten Sieden was born in Hamm, Germany in 1966. He studied chemistry at the University of Münster. After obtaining his doctorate and conducting post-doctoral studies at Stanford University, Carsten started work in BASF’s Main Laboratory in 1994.
Maggie took a degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology as a mature student at the University of Leeds in the UK, followed by a PhD in Plant Science. She worked as Research Manager at a spin-out company in the early nineties and then joined the University of York to develop and manage large strategic research collaborations with industry focused on high-value compounds from plants. She helped conceive and manage a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that was successful in developing a variety of the medicinal plant, Artemisia annua that is now used in production of artemisinin for treating malaria in the developing world.
In 2014 Maggie joined with colleagues in industry, local government and academia to start the BioVale Innovation Cluster and was appointed as the CEO.
Thierry Stadler is the Chairman of the cluster Industry and Agroressources, the French Bioeconomy Cluster, since 2014. He has a Ph. D in plant biochemistry and is also graduate in project management. Then he spent three years at the University of Lille as researcher working on seaweeds and algae. Mr. Stadler organised in 1986 the first international workshop on algal biotechnology. He joined the CVG (Center of valorisation of carbohydrates) in 1987 and became CEO in 1995 (current position). In 2004, he set up a startup working on fermentation in Amiens. He became General Director of the cluster IAR in 2006 till 2014. He is chairman of the cluster since 2014. Thierry Stadler is member of SME’s and institution boards and is member of the biobased expert group at the European commission.
Tom became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Avantium in February 2006 (effective as of December 2005). In 2002, he joined the Company as Vice President of Business Development. In March 2004,
he became Vice President of Global Marketing.
Marcel van Berkel studied Chemistry and Business Administration in Utrecht, The Netherlands. He worked for more than 20 years for corporate companies like Solvay and DSM. Marcel left DSM a few years back to expedite the growth of a start-up in the bio-based chemicals industry. After completing this successfully, he started his own consultancy firm VanBerkel Consultancy. With experience in business development, business strategy, marketing & branding and business management, VanBerkel Consultancy offers support in defining and executing your business development and market strategy and can help companies expand to oversees areas.
Rob van Leen is Chief Innovation Officer and Member of the Executive Committee at Royal DSM. He leads the DSM Innovation Center, a unit that serves to accelerate and support innovation throughout DSM and to create new businesses outside the DSM’s current business scope. Rob has been with DSM since 1987 and has a PhD in Mathematics and Physics from Nijmegen University and an MSc in Biologics from Utrecht University. Rob also holds an MBA degree from Nyenrode University.
Anne Wagner holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the Polytechnical Institute of Lorraine (France) (1990), an Engineers Degree in Biotechnology (1986) and a Masters Degree in Cellular Biology (1986) from the University of Strasbourg (France).
