Advisory Board

Dirk Carrez is Bio-engineer and holds a PhD in Agricultural Sciences. Between 1990 and 1999, he has worked at SOLVAY S.A. in the research department (genetics and industrial fermentation for the enzyme and the healthcare business). In 1999, he joined FEDICHEM (the Federation of the Belgian Chemical and Life Science Industries, now Essenscia) as Director, Innovation & Product Policy and as Secretary General of BELGOBIOTECH (the Belgian Biotech Industry Association). Between 2004 and 2011, he was Director, Industrial Biotechnology at EUROPABIO (The European Association for BioIndustries), where he coordinated the activities in the area of industrial biotechnology and the “bio-based economy”, as well as horizontal issues, such as research & innovation, SMEs & access to finance, IPR, etc.
Today, he is the Managing Director of Clever Consult, and the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC).
Dirk Carrez is Vice-Chair of BIAC’s Biotechnology Committee (Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD), and was Vice-Chair of OECD’s Task Force for Industrial Biotechnology, and a member of the European Commission’s Biobased Products Expert Group.

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.

Frédéric Druck has been appointed in 2017 Secretary General of bio.be/essenscia, the federation of Belgian companies active in life sciences and biotechnology. Holder of a Master’s degree in Journalism and Communication from the Free University of Brussels, Frédéric Druck had various executive positions in several organisations and companies before joining, in 2007, BioWin, the competitiveness cluster of Wallonia dedicated to health.

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.

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.

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).

Cyrille Pauthenier created Abolis Biotechnologies in 2014 during his PhD thesis at the Institute of Systems Biology and Synthesis, hosted at the Genopole biocluster, Evry (France). Cyrille Pauthenier is the symbol of the emergence of a new generation of young entrepreneurs in biotech.

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.

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.

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).