Tom Kavassalis is vice president of strategy and alliances at the Xerox Research and Product Development Organisation. In this role, Tom ensures that Xerox has a balanced portfolio of research and technology investments supporting Xerox’s near term business strategies and creating options for the future. His alliance work is focused on partners and leveraging external innovation. Additional responsibilities in Xerox include managing Fuji Xerox technology gatekeeping, intellectual property development, and managing university affairs. In addition to his role at Xerox, Tom serves on the board of directors, as the past chairman, of the Industrial Research Institute, the authoritative source of R&D innovation leadership solutions for its member companies since 1938.

Joining Xerox in 1987 as a member of the research staff, Tom worked in the field of polymer physics and developed theories and models to explain the mechanical and rheological properties of polymeric materials and established a competence in modelling and simulation of material systems. While performing materials science research, Tom maintained a concurrent appointment as adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo. Prior to joining Xerox, Tom served as a research scientist at Ontario Hydro Research Division and as a visiting scientist at the Instituut Lorentz in the Netherlands. Tom holds a B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT. Tom currently lives in Oakville, Canada with his wife, Catherine. Away from work, his interests include his two children Nicholas and Sarah, photography, woodturning, rebuilding vintage cars, and auto-racing. He will always be a bad golfer.

Stephan is a professor in strategic management & business development at the Univer­sity of Applied Sciences, Mannheim Germany. Stephan is senior manager for strategic innovation management at BASF SE, where he focuses on supporting the organisation in developing and improving effectiveness and efficiency in planning and implementa­tion for innovation excellence. After holding positions in R&D, business development, business management, strategic planning and controlling as well as innovation manage­ment, he is dedicated to creating value with individual people and organizations as a whole in an effort to making BASF more successful at creating profitable growth from innovation in different business environments. Stephan is also a professor at the Univer­sity of Applied Sciences, where he teaches international innovation and technology and general management with focus on key principles for strategic planning and operational implementation. He is also responsible for developing a new international study program in applied engineering & management dedicated to teaching competencies anticipated for the University’s graduates in 2025 and beyond. His research is focused on how to create and operate open virtual innovation players successfully. Stephan holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from EMBL, Heidelberg and University of Ulm and a masters in physics and economics from the University of Heidelberg. He is also an honorary professor at University of Ulm, Germany.

Laura Nuhaan is passionate about innovation and the opportunities of tech. As an execu­tive digital advisor at Microsoft, she helps companies and executives take full advantage of digital opportunities. When she worked as a partner at The Andeta Group, she assisted management to redefine sales strategies and transform their sales organizations to the digital world of today. Laura worked in Silicon Valley for 10 years before returning to Europe in 2011. She has been the driving force behind several start-up companies across many industries in Europe and Silicon Valley. As founder of the first sales-focused consult­ing company in the Netherlands, she developed a wide range of methodologies such as benchmarking for sales. She is the author of various publications, such as the book Sales- Balanced Score Card and Social Selling.

Lionel is the co-inventor of many patents and applications including some blockbusters or concepts’ applications for L’Oreal. Although industrial, he has published over 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is frequently invited to give keynote presentations at many conferences and symposiums.

Miguel Lunaparra is the director of enterprise design at Capital One, where he leads the experience strategy and design for the future of capitalone.com. Miguel has over two decades of experience guiding multi-disciplinary teams to deliver design systems across devices and environments. With a background in human-centered design, information architecture, interaction design, industrial design, and experience research, Miguel’s passion lies in understanding human behavior to create value through design. With a background in both corporate and consulting environments, Miguel has worked with dozens of Fortune 500 companies across the following industries: consumer electronics, telecommunica¬tions, financial services, automotive, retail, CPG, travel, health care, and education. Miguel holds a Master of Design Degree from the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he studied the planning and management of design and innovation.

Wendy Redshaw is an innovative, dynamic senior digital leader with over 30 years’ industry experience. In her current role at RBS, Wendy is responsible for technology leadership and delivery of all physical and digital distribution, now and future, in the personal bank. Her remit includes digital channels, customer propositions and innovation delivery, customer direct experience, and voice and video. The emphasis of her work is the transformation of people as well as technology and business.

Wendy was named “CIO of the Year 2018” by Tech Leaders Awards, and “Technology Leader of the Year 2018” by Women in Data and Technology.

Arjan Rensma is an innovation excellence manager at DSM. His responsibility is to support the DSM Innovation Council, develop and execute the DSM Innovation Excellence program, and accelerate and improve the success rate of innovation in DSM. He is the Innovation Excellence lead for the Materials Sciences cluster, coordinates the DSM Innovation Learning Program, as well as the DSM Corporate Entrepreneurship program. Previously, Arjan held management & NBD roles in banking, publishing, consultancy, and research. He started his career at the Philips NatLab. Arjan is a Dutch national and holds an MSc in business science from RSM and the University of California at Berkeley. He is a member of the advisory board and guest lecturer of the Master of Innovation & Change at HS Zuyd and board member of the Interregional Platform of the Creative Industry / Creative Entrepreneurship. He has a wife and three kids and lives in Bemelen, a small village close to Maastricht.

Born in 1971, he graduated with a degree in business economics at Bocconi University in Milan, magna cum laude. After many years of working with consultancies, he joined Enel in October 2014 as chief Innnovability officer. Founder of Ars et Inventio (2003), a consulting firm focused only on innovation and creativity, he has supported many companies at designing and launching innovative products and services that have become popular worldwide. Nokia, Telecom Italia, Vodafone, Poste Italiane, Eni, GDF, Edison, the P&G Fater and Fameccanica joint-ventures, Unilever, RCS, Sole24Ore, BNP, Unicredit, and American Express are some of the firms he cooperated with. A lecturer in innovation management in Italian and Spanish universities and business schools (director of the “Programa Avanzado de Gestión de la Innovación” at Istituto de Empresa de Madrid, professor and member of the Scientific Committee of the “Master in Innovazione Strategica” at Cà Foscari), he has also authored three collections of verses and a theatrical play acted in several theatres in Italy (in Milan, Bologna, Taormina and Siracusa). Professors Henry Chesbrough of Berkeley and Mark Kramer of Harvard have written two business cases regarding his activity as chief Innovability officer at Enel. The two business cases are available on hrb.org and are used in several courses at Berkeley and Harvard.

Evonik Industries is a leading specialty chemical company with innovative solutions in diverse fields such as health, nutrition and resource efficiency. Reza Ghahary is with the innovation networks unit and is currently responsible for several “unusual innovation partnerships” between Evonik and selected companies from different industries. Reza has been active in different functions for 24 years, mainly focussed on industrial partnerships, new business development and marketing. He believes that collaboration with selected partners is one of the strategic pillars for profit and growth in companies.

Olaf Gruess has over 19 years of experience at General Mills, leading new product development (baked goods, yogurt, cereal bars, shelf stable and frozen meals) and strategic research initiatives (sodium reduction technology, taste perception), as well as roles in marketing, connected innovation and early startup evaluation.

Currently he is focussing on identifying technologies externally and developing implementation strategies for those technologies into the broader organisation. Olaf has also created and implemented a novel open innovation concept by incubating internal technologies together with potential external partners.

Olaf serves as a judge and mentor at MassChallenge, the world’s most startup-friendly accelerator and at the European Food Venture Forum; he was on the Industrial Board of the Integrative Food and Nutrition Center at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Institute for Food Technology (DIL).

Olaf received his master’s degree in nutrition and food science from the University of Bonn, Germany, and the University of Ghent, Belgium, as well as a PhD in food science from the University of Bonn, Germany.

Philipp Ringgenberg is leading Orange’s innovation and consulting division in Europe. He and his teams advise and support customers in co-innovation and co-creation programs, create ecosystems of startups and partner to support the client’s digitalisation strategy from products up to new disruptive business models.

He is an ICT professional with over 18 years of management and international business experience in consulting, sales and marketing, innovation and business development, and product management. Academically, he holds an MBA in international business and innovations management and two bachelor’s degrees – in economics and engineering.

As director at EY, Sebastian Lange is responsible for the coordination and management of large collaborative R&D projects as well as for the acquisition of public funding for innovation projects and establishment and management of larger national and European networks. He serves his clients, amongst which are large MNCs, OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in the ICT, automotive, aeronautics and manufacturing industries, with practical know-how on the development and implementation of funding strategies and helps them implement corresponding processes to support an efficient and optimised R&D strategy.

Sebastian had a leading role in establishing the European Technology Platform on Smart Systems Integration (EPoSS) and was coordinator of one of the first large-scale integrated EU projects on the internet of things. Sebastian received his PhD in physics from the University of Tübingen and graduated at EMBL and the University of Heidelberg.

Dr. Thomas Herr is EMEA head of digital innovation for CBRE and responsible for the identification and implementation of new technological solutions, the development of digital products and service offerings as well as the initiation of pilot projects in collaboration with external partners. Before taking on this role he founded and managed several real estate advisory companies, most recently VALTEQ, a German technical real estate consulting specialist that was acquired by CBRE in 2014. Thomas holds a doctorate degree in engineering and was trained as an architect. He has more than 35 years of experience in the AEC and real estate industries. On a voluntary basis, he serves as president of the Institute of the German Real Estate, a think tank linking academia, industry and politics.