Marcel Lubben leads the global activities of the Bio-based Chemicals & Materials group of DSM’s unit “Bio-based Products & Services” since 2012. This group – headquartered in Delft, the Netherlands - focuses on the development and commercialization of conversion technologies for chemicals production from renewable feedstock.  The frontrunner of these efforts is DSM’s involvement in bio-based succinic acid production in Reverdia, the JV between DSM and Roquette, where Marcel serves as a board member.  

Dr Lubben joined DSM in 1994. He held several positions in Research, Business Development and commerce in (bio)pharmaceuticals, before being appointed Managing Director Venturing & Licensing for DSM in 2009.

Marcel Lubben holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Gesa Behnken leads the department for “New Technologies” within Bayer MaterialScience Business Unit for Coatings, Adhesives and Specialities. Prior to this position she worked as Innovation Manager in the Corporate Development of Bayer MaterialScience being responsible for the global developments on new biobased raw materials within Bayer MaterialScience. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Hamburg on the synthesis of biodegradable polyesters and joined Bayer in 2008.

Brad is a 23 year veteran of the plastics and packaging industry after earning his degree in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Missouri-Rolla.  He spent much of his career working for major polyolefin manufacturers in Texas and Delaware where he developed polymers for use in numerous packaging applications.  He currently is the R&D Director of Sustainable Packaging and Materials Research for PepsiCo Advanced Research where his responsibilities include the development of next generation packaging materials that will have a better overall impact on the environment.  Brad currently holds eleven patents for various packaging applications and many more pending.  He has authored or co-authored several papers and published articles in the area of barrier food packaging and is currently working on the development of advanced barrier technologies for bio-based packaging.

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Mark Mleziva is a Senior Research Manager responsible for leading Kimberly-Clark’s Environmental and Sustainable Technology R&D team.  
He has worked in various roles in Research & Development and Operations with Kimberly-Clark Corporation for
more 20 years delivering technology solutions in well-known brands such as Huggies®
diapers, Pull-ups® training pants, Kleenex® tissue.
He holds 20 granted US utility patents. Mark serves on
Michigan Technological University’s Chemical Engineering Department Industrial Advisory Board and Sustainable Futures
Institute Industrial Advisory Board. He holds a Chemical Engineering degree from Michigan Technological University and a
Certificate in Business from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh.  He lives in USA, Appleton, WI with his lovely wife and two fine children.

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Tom van Aken was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Avantium in November 2005. He holds a Master's Degree in Chemistry from Utrecht University. Before joining Avantium Tom held numerous commercial positions at DSM. He worked in DSM's fine chemical and pharmaceutical product divisions in the US and the Netherlands. In 2002, he joined Avantium as Vice President of Business Development Life Sciences. In March 2004, he became Vice President of Global Marketing & Sales and member of Avantium's management team.

Babette Pettersen is the Chief Commercial Officer for BioAmber Inc., a market leader in biobased succinic acid and a pioneer in renewable chemicals. Babette was previously VP New Business Development for Performance Materials at Royal DSM. Prior to DSM, Babette was leading Marketing & Business Development in several Dow Corning Industry Groups, from Personal Care to Electronics, and in the corporate Business & Technology Incubator. Babette started her career in the Healthcare Industry, at Baxter Travenol.
Babette has a BSc in Biology from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, USA and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.  She is a member of the VIP Advisory Board of the European Women’s Professional network, and of the Advisory Board of 20-first, dedicated to exploring the economic power and potential of a more gender-balanced business world.

Ulrich Kettling is Global Director Biotechnology & Biorefineries within the Clariant Biotech & Renewables Center, München. Before he worked at Süd-Chemie AG  until Süd-Chemie was acquired by Clariant in 2011. Before joining Süd-Chemie Dr. Kettling was CSO at Direvo Biotech AG, Köln. Dr. Kettling graduated in Biotechnology at the Technical University Braunschweig and obtained his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen.

Vonnie Estes has over 20 years experience building new businesses by developing multi-million dollar partnerships and new value chains in technology intensive businesses. She has extensive, worldwide experience in biofuels, bio-based products and agriculture biotechnology.

Ms. Estes is Vice President of Corporate Development at Codexis. She joined Codexis in March 2010 to develop commercial opportunities for Codexis’ technology in bio-based chemicals and other applications.  Her current focus is developing partnerships in all parts of the value chain from feedstock, pre-treatment, and scale-up through manufacturing and off-take of bio-based products.  
Ms. Estes was previously at DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC (DDCE), where she served as Vice President Commercial Development. At DDCE, Ms. Estes formed the partnership with Genera to build a 250,000 gallon demonstration cellulosic ethanol facility in Tennessee. Prior to joining DDCE, she was at DuPont leading their commercialization program for cellulosic ethanol that resulted in forming the joint venture between DuPont and Danisco.  Prior to DuPont, Ms. Estes was at Syngenta in their relationship with Diversa and launched and managed the biofuels platform.
Before her work in bio-based products, Ms. Estes helped drive the commercialization and adoption of agricultural biotechnology.  She had roles including start-up funding and early phases of new ventures. She has also held business development positions at Monsanto and the Scotts Company.

Founded in 1996, EcoSynthetix has used green chemistry to develop two biobased technology platforms to replace petroleum-based polymers in industrial applications.  

John has led the company to successfully commercialize EcoSphere biolatex® in 7 countries as a replacement for synthetic latex binders in the coated paper and paperboard.

After his graduation in 1981 from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Chemistry, Mr. Van Leeuwen worked for 7 years in research and market development with Shell Chemicals and Monsanto.  From 1988 to 1996 he started and ran two computer companies, one of which had a successful IPO in 1995.  From 1996 until 2004 he ran Tech Inspirations, a venture capital firm.

John is a member of the Chemical Institute of Canada.

K’Lynne has over 20 years experience working within the oil and petrochemicals industry
for Amoco, BP and Innovene. During this time she has worked in a variety of roles
covering general business management, e‐commerce, supply chain optimization, HR
management, strategy development, leadership development, and organizational design
and effectiveness. Prior to her current role as CEO of Elevance, K’Lynne was the senior
vice president (SVP) of the Global Derivatives operating company within Innovene.
K’Lynne’s SVP role included P&L accountability for multiple global commodity and
specialty chemicals businesses with revenues of $3 billion and 1,100 employees across
North America, Europe and Asia. The Global Derivatives business was one of three
operating companies within BP Innovene, one of the world’s largest global petrochemical
and refining companies. K’Lynne’s background includes a master’s degree in organizational behavior from Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management and a B.S. in organizational psychology.

Christophe is co-founder and CEO of Genomatica.  Christophe holds a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego where he was a Powell Foundation and Whitaker Foundation Fellow. He received a B.S. in biomedical engineering from Duke University where he was a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellow. Christophe’s awards include an ICIS Top 40 ‘Ones to Watch’, the Top 100 Young Innovators from MIT’s Technology Review, R&D100 for the SimPheny part of the company’s technology platform, and the Distinguished Young Alumnus from Duke University’s Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School of Engineering.

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 and chairman of the board since then.

Fred leverages his unique background in the development, design, scale-up, and start-up of bioindustrial processes to help Renmatix progress quickly and efficiently. He is an expert in mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, and data mining of pilot/demonstration/production facilities. Fred leads Renmatix’s process development, operations, product quality, and engineering groups. Fred is also helping guide our strategy and modeling. A resident specialist in biochemical production, Fred started his career at Dow Chemical in production and engineering roles where, among many other responsibilities, he assisted in the start-up and optimization of the Dow AgroSciences spinosad facility in Harbor Beach, MI.
In the years since leaving Dow, Fred has held many key positions within the bioindustrial space. Fred led the research engineering effort for the lactide and polymer processes as lead engineer and research engineering leader at NatureWorks, LLC; a bioindustrial polymer company. While at NatureWorks, Fred was also engaged on the fermentation team for start-up and optimization of the world scale lactic acid and polylactide production plants. Fred was also Director of Process Development at ZeaChem, a cellulosic ethanol and biochemical company, where he was instrumental in developing a unique, high-yield cellulosic ethanol process. Most recently, Fred was Vice President of engineering at Rennovia, a chemocatalytic bioindustrial chemical company. Fred received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of North Dakota.

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Atul Thakrar is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Segetis and has served as the director of the company since 2009. Thakrar brings over 30 years of strategic and operational experience in the specialty chemicals and energy sectors. Before joining Segetis, Thakrar was with Soane Energy, a Boston-based specialty materials startup, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer from 2007 to 2009. Prior to Soane, Thakrar held positions of increasing responsibility at Cytech Industries and Rohm and Haas, including global business unit leadership for both organizations. At Cytech, from 2003 to 2006, Thakrar served as Vice President, first building the Coatings and Specialty Additives Business Unit and then leading the $760+ million Liquid Coatings and Resins business while stationed in Brussels. Thakrar was previously with Rohm and Haas for 15 years, serving in such diverse capacities as Business Director, Greater China for Coatings, Adhesives and Sealants, and Managing Director, Country Manager + India. Thakrar holds a BSc in applied chemistry from University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) and an MBA from Ivey Business School (London, Ontario).

Bob Walsh has over 30 years of global petroleum industry experience, including 26 years at Royal Dutch Shell. His Shell experience included senior manufacturing, supply, distribution and strategic planning positions in North America and Europe. From 2001 to 2005, he was Vice President Supply for Shell Europe Oil Products where he was responsible for $30 billion in annual revenue. Most recently he was the CEO and a director of Aurora Biofuels, an algae based renewable fuels start-up.  Previously he served as the President and director of LS9, a sugar based industrial biotechnology start-up.

Paul Caswell is Executive VP, for Cathay Industrial Biotech and has been with the company since the year 2000.  Cathay is a world leader in bio-based long-chain dibasic acids for use in polymers, with over 50% world market share for dodecanedioic acid. Cathay recently launched a new plant based pentane diamine for the production of a unique  new renewable polyamide 5,6, polyamide 5,10 and 5,12. Cathay also constructed a 100,000 MT per year bio-butanol facility in China, selling as drop-in chemicals to the coating markets.
 
Paul was Vice President of New Technology for the BioProducts Division of Archer Daniels Midland. and a former chairman of the New Uses Council in USA, promoting biomass products. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nebraska and an MBA from Indiana State University.  Paul and his wife, Pamela, live in Shanghai, China.

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Mike manages strategic planning and business development at Agrivida, a start-up company developing transgenic plant technology for the animal feed and biofuel industries. After completing a Ph.D. in plant molecular biology at Washington University in St. Louis Mike spent several years as a scientist with the Monsanto Company before joining Syngenta (Ciba-Geigy then Novartis) in 1995.  Mike has served as scientist, project leader, and research director, in areas of transgenic disease control, grain quality, and animal feed and industrial enzyme research.  Mike played a key role in the development of a commercial phytase enzyme for animal feed and Syngenta’s EnogenTM trait technology.

Michael Rosenberg joined OPXBIO in December 2009 as vice president of business development with more than 24 years of experience in the energy, alternative energy, and environmental industries. Prior to joining OPXBIO, Mike held a number of senior management positions at the leading hydrogen fuel cell company, Ballard Power Systems, including director - corporate development and strategy, director - business development, and business director - material handling. Mike has also held various positions in finance, corporate development, environmental project management, and engineering with Genentech, McKesson Corporation and ExxonMobil Company USA.

Dr Dilip Manuel is currently involved with Business Development activities in marketing CSIRO’s consulting and research services to the local and overseas markets. He has been with CSIRO in this role for over tewlve years.

Before joining CSIRO he was with FCT International Ltd based in Adelaide working as their Business Development Manager to market combustion technology to the local and overseas markets. One of his achievements in this role was to secure the contract for FCT International to design and build the torch and the main flame for the Sydney Olympic Games.

Prior to working at FCT International he worked as an Engineer at State Electricity Commission of Victoria in introducing new brown coal fired power generation technology and at Defence Science Technology Organisation he was involved in the development of an automation system for pilot scale gun and rocket propellant plants and also contributed to the design of a decoy hovering rocket system known as “Nulka” which is now being marketed by British Aerospace Systems. The “Nulka” decoy missile system was the last Australian missile system designed by Australian Defence Department.  

Dr Dilip Manuel has a PhD in Chemical Engineering and Diploma in Marketing.

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Nadav Dobrin is a Senior Process Engineer at Tenova Bateman Technologies with nearly 10 years of hands-on experience in Solvent Extraction. In recent years, Dobrin helped develop at Bateman the field of Bio-Based Product separation using Solvent Extraction. In his previous position, Dobrin worked as a plant manager at a PPA (Purified Phosphoric Acid) plant. He holds a M.Sc in Environmental Engineering and a B.Sc in Chemical engineering both from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

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David Berry is a Partner at Flagship Ventures, where he focuses on investing in and founding early-stage life science and sustainability ventures.  He is a founder of Flagship portfolio companies LS9, Joule Unlimited, Theracrine, Eleven Biotherapeutics, Essentient, among others.  David currently serves as founding CEO at Essentient, and previously served as founding CEO of Joule and Theracrine.  He was a Board member of Flagship portfolio company CGI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead in 2010), and currently serves as a director of Joule, Theracrine, Eleven, and Essentient.  He received his M.D. in 2005 from Harvard Medical School and was previously awarded a Ph.D. through the MIT Biological Engineering Division. He was named as a member of the MIT Corporation - its Board of Trustees - in 2006 and to the MIT Enterprise Forum Global Board in 2010. David received the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for invention and innovation in 2005, was named as the Innovator of the Year under the age of 35 by Technology Review in 2007, and been honored with over thirty other awards.

Joško Bobanović joined Sofinnova Partners  in 2010 as Partner dedicated to seed activities in green chemistry and bio-energy. Prior to joining Sofinnova he spent eight years in venture capital with iNovia Capital and its predecessor fund MSBi Capital in Montreal, Canada. While at iNovia Joško was responsible for cleantech practice at the fund, and focused on seed and early stage investments in cleantech and information technology.

Pascal joined Aster Capital, leading venture capital firm active in cleantech, in 2011 and is leading investments in the areas of advanced materials biobased materials, and energy. Aster is sponsored by large international Groups, leaders on their markets: Alstom, Solvay and Schneider Electric and by the European Investment Fund.
Prior to Aster, Pascal was CO2 Operations Director at Rhodia & Orbeo and Energy Purchasing Director at Rhodia Energy. He has been working since 2006 in the new fast growing carbon economy, in charge of developing worldwide CO2 offset projects in the Kyoto protocol frame for Rhodia and Orbeo (a pure carbon joint-venture between Rhodia and Société Générale developing market solutions to fight climate change). Pascal has over 10 years of industrial experience within the Rhodia group, where he held several positions in France and Italy such as Corporate Strategy Manager, Plant Manager and Quality Manager.
Pascal is an engineer graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris and holds a Master A. Sc. in Biotechnology from the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal in Canada.
Pascal is responsible for managing the investment of Aster Capital in Avantium.

Murray McLaughlin (McLaughlin Consultants) accepted a position with Sustainable Chemistry Alliance (SCA) as founding President and CEO in 2009 and recently added the position of Executive Director of the Bioindustrial Innovation Center in Sarnia.  Dr. McLaughlin has held various positions in the private, government and non-profit sectors such as Director of Business Development for the Canadian Light Source, President of Agri-Food Technologies, Deputy Minister of Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, and President of Ag-West Biotech Inc. He was the founder of the ABIC conferences which started in 1996. He ran a Venture Capital Fund, Foragen, for agriculture and also spent 15 years with ELANCO, division of Eli Lily in Rand D and marketing. His career has focused on bioindustrial and agricultural technologies including research, development and product management and marketing and commercialization. He has been and is a member of numerous Boards of Directors and Advisory Committees, including POS, BioAtlantech and Bioenterprise. He is a graduate of Nova Scotia Agricultural College, McGill and Cornell. He has had several recognition awards including an Honorary Doctorate Degree from NSAC/Dalhousie University.

Emmanuel began his career as an R&D Chemist at Eastman Kodak (Rochester, NY), then worked as an application chemist in coatings and inks at Sartomer (Exton, PA) (now Arkema). He joined SpecialChem in 2005, and handled several project management positions, supporting leading chemicals and materials companies on new products launches and new markets development projects.
He holds a MSc. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from ESCOM (France) and a MSc. in Finance from Sorbonne Graduate Business School (France).

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