John joined IBM in 1996, as part of the acquisition of Data Sciences where he was general manager of the aerospace division. John has worked at a European and global level in IBM as leader of emerging technology businesses including Pervasive Computing, Linux Services, Grid Computing and Open Source Services and extensively in the global defense, intelligence and public safety industry. John currently focuses on the business application of Blockchain, working directly with customers and through enablement of IBM practitioners and partners. John has worked on several high profile Blockchain customer projects, illustrating the transformational value of this new technology.

In his current role, Luis is in charge of the creation of new models for innovation and external collaboration at Johnson & Johnson. He orchestrates the creation of new ecosystems; inspiring engagement for collaborative innovation with established or new relationships, augmenting development capabilities to bring solutions faster to consumers. He is recognised as a builder of opportunities and partnerships; providing access to breakthrough technologies for Johnson & Johnson. He also invests his passion in innovation by enabling new business models and technologies as an Angel Investor, on advisory boards and as an entrepreneur’s coach. In the 20 years of professional experience in FMCG, Pharma, and Over The Counter; Luis held leadership positions in Novartis Pharma, Procter & Gamble, and cooperated with numerous Fortune 500 companies. He holds a MBA degree from the Metropolitan University in Caracas and a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Simón Bolívar University, and has participated in executive development programs from Harvard, MIT and Babson.

Dr. Jörg Knäblein is currently working as a technology scout within Global External Innovation & Alliances inside Drug Discovery of Bayer AG. He is responsible for identification and evaluation of new technologies, projects, or molecules from external sources (mostly academic institutions), whereas technologies in its broadest sense can be animal models, assays, cell lines, biomarker, biospecimen, etc. He is also responsible for the CoLaborator in Berlin; a research incubator to host young life sciences companies on the Bayer campus. Before he had several positions within the company, including head of microbiological chemistry department at former Schering AG, after he had started his scientific industrial career with that company as a management trainee in October 2000. Jörg has also worked for Schering’s biotech subsidiary Berlex Biosciences in San Francisco and for Hoechst in New Jersey (1995) and UK (1990). He holds two diplomas, one in biotechnology from The Society of Biotechnology Research (GBF) and another in biochemistry from Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry. Here, he also received his PhD working with Prof. Robert Huber (Nobel Prize Laureate 1988). After winning the First McKinsey Business Plan contest he founded the biotech company Proteros (with today more than 80 employees), before he took on the opportunity to work for a HighTech consultancy firm for two years – focusing on the LifeScience business of global players (i.e. Baxter, Hoechst, Elan). He serves as executive board member and scientific advisor to the European Association of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (EAPB: EAPB), and to the editorial boards of the ‘Biotechnology Journal’ (BTJ: BTJ) and the ‘European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics’ (EJPB: EJPB). Jörg is also the editor of the four-volume book ‘Modern Biopharmaceuticals – Design, Development, and Optimization’ and the follow-up ‘Modern Biopharmaceuticals – Recent Success Stories.’

Christian Saclier started his career in 1996 at Roche Consumer Health within the R&D center, where he created the packaging innovation department and its prototyping lab. Christian then joined Novartis Consumer Health in 2000 within the manufacturing & operations department, where he quickly moved into different roles with increasing responsibilities and ending up creating an interface function between manufacturing, R&D, and marketing, to accelerate introduction of innovations, optimising trade-offs between innovation, cost, and time to market. Christian then decided to broaden his impact by joining Nestlé Research in 2008, creating a front-end science & technology scouting function for the group. Christian took over a new role in 2012 as global head of industrial design at Nestlé HQ, where he revolutionised the innovation process by integrating design thinking and enabling consumer centricity and holistic prototyping. He is now involved in multiple strategic projects shaping up the future of the company, scouting emerging trends, establishing key partnerships, and developing new business models for breakthrough innovation.

Francois Dufour started working on Open Innovation inside Orange in 2010. In 2012, he launched the Orange Technocentre’s Startup Program. In 2014, he launched Hello Startup; a TV show sponsored by Orange and broadcasted on BFMTV, the #1 TV news channel in France. Thanks to Hello Startup, each week a startup CEO can reach partners, investors, and hundreds of thousands of potential customers. In 2015 François Dufour is appointed development director at Orange Technocentre. Since April 2017, he is business development and communication director of Orange Startup Ecosystem. He is also at the board of La Cité de l’Objet Connecté, a hardware accelerator based in Angers, France.

Aileen is widely recognised as a leader in the global communications industry with a successful career as an executive for industry giants such as Motorola and Alcatel, as well as over a decade in a variety of roles including chief operating officer and SVP transformation at TM Forum, the global industry association for the communications industry. Aileen provides consulting services for transformation in a digital world to a variety of companies, large and small, and has been one of the early advocates of platform business model concepts which are now gaining mainstream attention. She is an adviser to VC firms, serves on the editorial advisory board for VanillaPlus and IOTNow publications, and is a regular speaker and moderator at events globally. Aileen holds an M.B.A., and M.Sc. in computer science, and a bachelor’s degree in engineering.

Alessandro Zedda is the founder of A2Z Innovation Consulting, a small boutique consultancy firm specialised in front-end innovation projects and best practices for innovation and R&D. He previously worked as VP of R&D for Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics in USA and France where he led an R&D organisation with a few hundred researchers and engineers distributed over 3 continents. He also worked as VP of material development for Konarka Technologies in USA, as senior manager printed electronics for BASF Future Business, and as R&D director for the electronics materials business at Ciba Specialty Chemicals in Switzerland. He has held other positions always in R&D and new business development in Ciba and Ausimont in Italy.

In this role, Goran and his team are looking into extending the possibilities of 3rd party relationships while envisioning an ecosystem as an enabler of Nokia’s strategy, competitive advantage and source of innovation. Goran works with Nokia’s innovation partner and venture management unit, where he co-founded the Open Ecosystem Network; an open, multi-sided platform designed for cross-industry co-development, ideation and sourcing disruption. With 15 years of professional experience within Siemens and then Nokia, Goran had different leadership roles in IT and R&D, change management and partner management. He holds a MBA from the University of Munich, Germany and currently lives in New York City area with his wife and daughter.

Enrico Palumbo is the HR director and member of the management board of SAP (Switzerland) AG. Over the last 15 years Enrico worked in different HR roles and functions including HR business partner, centre of expertise and shared services in leadership roles, as project manager and business consultant in different industries and geographies. He lived in Germany, Czech Republic, and Italy and worked on projects in Austria, China, India, Romania, and South Africa. He is an active member of the SAP Internal Coaching pool. Enrico studied social sciences in Munich (Germany) and Venice (Italy) and completed a post-graduate program in business administration at the OU Business School in Milton Keynes (UK).