Speaker Bios: (back to Event Summary)
Pierre Meulien, PhD Executive Director, Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
Dr Pierre Meulien is Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a €5 billion PPP. From 2010-2015, Dr Meulien was President and CEO of Genome Canada, where he oversaw the launch of novel projects and networks. From 2007-2010, he was Chief Scientific Officer for Genome British Columbia. From 2002-2007, he served as founding CEO of the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre. He also worked with the French biotechnology company Transgene, and with Aventis Pasteur (now Sanofi Pasteur). He has a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh and carried out a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut Pasteur Paris.
Knut Sturmhoefel, PhD, Global Head Alliance Management, Novartis
Knut is leading the Novartis Global Alliance Management, a team of seasoned alliance professionals at Novartis Pharma, Oncology, Sandoz Biopharma, and NIBR. The team’s vision is to ensure Novartis’ partnering readiness by establishing a collaborative leadership system.
Knut joined Novartis in 2002, first in product development before taking on various roles in business development. Between 2008 and 2013, Knut managed the broad alliance portfolio of the ophthalmology and neuroscience franchises, including the highly successful alliance between Novartis and Genentech for Lucentis®. Between 2014 and 2019, Knut headed all BD&L efforts of the respiratory and ophthalmology franchises. His BD&L experience includes a wide range from identifying and assessing partnering opportunities, closing many deals of different structures and various complexity, managing long-term successful alliances across all life-cycle stages including several blockbuster products, and being responsible for portfolio management in M&A transactions.
Steve Twait, VP, Alliance and Integration Management, AstraZeneca
Steve has responsibility for AstraZeneca’s alliance and integration management (AIM) strategy and execution capabilities. Steve’s team leads the integration of all asset acquisitions, the transitions for divestments, and management of key alliances for AZ. Steve joined AZ in January 2015, after spending 26 years at Eli Lilly and Company where he was a founding member of Lilly’s Office of Alliance Management. Steve is a well published author in Pharmaceutical Executive, PLG’s Business Development & Licensing Journal, and Strategic Alliance Magazine and has been a board member and treasurer of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.
Dr. Christoph Huwe, CSAP, Director, Strategic Alliance Management, Bayer
Christoph has close to 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in different roles at Bayer (Germany), Berlex Biosciences (USA) and Schering AG (Germany). He has been responsible for alliances and consortia in Europe, the US and China for more than 10 years, covering various therapeutic areas. He is also a founding member of Bayer's Alliance Community Excellence team focusing on alliance management capability development, and has served as member of the Pharma Industry Benchmarking Forum and the EFPIA Industry Liaison Group.
Alessandro Maloberti, Director Partner Ecosystem, STMicroelectronics
Alessandro is leading the companywide Partner Ecosystem Program since 2015, he is currently based in Geneva, Switzerland.
His current in charge of for the definition and development of the technical, marketing and business relationships between STMicroelectronics and more than three hundred partners. These Partners provide complementary products and services to support customers in the usage of company’s devices in the development of their final products.
During his international career in the semiconductor industry, he has covered positions in R&D, Technology Development, Marketing, Digital Marketing, Market Development and even Corporate Communication. Alessandro holds a Master’s degree in electronics with major in semiconductor and an executive master’s in technology management.
Reza Ghahary, Director Innovation Networks, Evonik
Reza has been in different roles such as R&D, industrial partnerships, new business development and marketing during the last 25 years. He is currently leading a collaborative innovation approach, which is focused on key players in different industries and sectors. This activity is a part of Evonik’s collaborative innovation methodologies
Frank Grams, SVP Alliance Management & Head BD Europe, Everest Medicines
Frank is the SVP Global Head of Alliance Management and European Head Business Development at Everest Medicines and currently based in Paris, France.
He used to be the VP, Head of R&D Alliance Management & Transactions and later VP, Alliance Management, General Medicines, Emerging Markets and Consumer Health Care at Sanofi. During his time at Sanofi he has also been the Risk Management leader of the Strategy & Business Development group and a permanent member of the Sanofi Corporate Risk Committee. Furthermore he served as an Advisory Board member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (“ASAP”).
Prior to Sanofi he was serving Roche in a number of Business Development roles. As Executive Director, Pharma Partnering, he co-led the formation of Business Development in Asia Pacific based out of Shanghai. Before moving to China, he led the Lifecycle Management Partnering group in Basel.
Before switching to Business Development, he served in various Research positions for Roche in Switzerland and for Boehringer Mannheim in Germany. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from TU Munich (summa cum laude, MPI Biochemistry, Martinsried, lab of Nobel laureate Robert Huber).
Walid Benzarti, Director for Innovation, Research & Technology, Thales Group
Walid BENZARTI holds a Ph.D. in Microelectronics and an Executive MBA. He has been working for more than 20 years in Innovation and Scientific Research in various roles and indifferent International public Institutions, as well as private companies like Thales, ST Microelectronics, Mapper Lithography, The French Atomic Energy Commission, Korea Advanced Display Research Center, CEA-Leti, The French Embassy in Singapore... In his present position as the Director for Innovation, Research and Technology at Thales Group, he defines strategies and implements tools to boost innovation, Research & Technology from Breakthrough Technology development to business successes supporting international development and leveraging cooperation with worldwide innovative public agencies and private companies in the Land and Air Systems domains
Jacques Vermeulen, Director Future Cities, Nokia
Jacques has been Nokia’s Director Future Cities, developing strategy, solutions, partnerships and business since 2009. He is passionate about tapping into his knowledge of ICT, Smart City ecosystems, customer experience and appreciative organizational development and change to help transformations to sustainable urban development, reduce the complexity of the society we live in and offer new augmented services to city’s organizations and the people they serve.
Mark van Helvoort, Program Manager Public-Private Partnerships, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Philips
Mark is a certified project manager who is responsible for the public private partnership program within Philips Magnetic Resonance Imaging. He has participated in a large variety of public-private partnership projects in different European schemes. Currently he is leading the ITEA3 IVVES and the PENTA pAvIs project and co-leading the ITEA3 project DayTIME. He (co)authored a good number of patents, scientific and technical papers, wrote two books on EMC for large systems and complex installations and contributed a chapter to “Alianzas Inteligentes”. Mark is a Senior Member of IEEE and KIVI. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Eindhoven University of Technology.
Ard-Pieter de Man, Professor, VU Univ. Amsterdam
Ard-Pieter de Man PhD is a board room consultant and professor of Management Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in the areas of organizational forms, ecosystems, platforms, and alliances. As a consultant he advises organizations on these issues on a strategic level. He is the author of over a hundred articles and fifteen books: How to survive the organizational revolution, that helps managers make sense of new organizational forms, and the widely used Alliances: An executive guide to designing successful strategic partnership.
Stefan Walke, Global Head Alliance Management, Boehringer Ingelheim
Trained in Biochemistry, Stefan gained >20 years of health care related experience in consulting, biotech and pharma - always with a strong focus on strategy and business development. Within the Human Pharma Business Development organization at Boehringer Ingelheim, he was leading the global Contracts & Alliance Management team before taking up the newly established role as Global Head of Alliance Management in 2020 to further strengthen Boehringer’s relationship with a strongly growing portfolio of strategic external innovation partners across the globe.
Andrea Monaci, Marketing & Strategy Director IT Services, Ricoh
Andrea is the Marketing Lead for the Enterprise segment in Ricoh across Europe. He leads the Growth Plan, Targeting, Social, Account Based Marketing, and Sales Initiatives. We have grown Ricoh from 17% revenues in IT to 40% in the last circa 7 years.
He spent time in B2B Sales & Marketing in the IT, Cloud and Big Data space; before as a Business & IT Consulting Partner delivering outcomes for fortune 500 clients; and as a Senior Architect for Innovative Products. He has an Engineering Degree, an MBA, and has been awarded patents. He enjoys an early morning run in nature, a drink in the evening, and hopefully soon meeting his peers across the world again!
Michal Dunaj, Director Strategic Portfolio & EU Operations, T-Labs, Telekom Innovation Laboratories, Deutsche Telekom
Michal brings the experience from the multiverse of industry and academia, with hands-on work on exciting themes in Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs), a central go-to-point for research and exploration in the Deutsche Telekom Group. T-Labs is co-researching on future oriented topics, leveraging the opportunities generated by the cooperation with universities, research institutes, startups and industry partners
Within foundation of T-Labs Michal introduced and coordinated competence fields of R&D Roadmapping, R&D Strategy, and Technology Exploration-Technology Radar.
Michal pioneered for DT also the exploration process & trials beyond existing focus fields: Life & Computer Interfaces, New Materials for Future Telco, Inclusion Technologies / Barrierless Society.
Paolo Guglia, Innovation Manager, Fincantieri
Paolo Guglia is Innovation Manager at Fincantieri. He has been involved for over 15 years in European Research and Innovation from Project Management of EU funded projects, to definition of sectorial priorities, advocacy and R&D policymaking. He is an active member of several associations and committees in Brussels (e.g. SEA EUROPE, Hydrogen Europe, Waterborne). Serving as the Chariman of the Coordination Group of Waterborne he defined the sectorial Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, including those for the European co-Programmed Partnership “Zero Emission Waterborne Transport”. Paolo holds a degree in Electrical Engeneering, a Master from Eni Corporate University and is a fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects.
Søren Bro, Group Director, Head of Ecosystems & Partnerships, Grundfos
As Head of Ecosystems & Partnerships in Grundfos, Søren is leading a specialized team, driving global strategic partnerships and strengthening Grundfos’ position within digital ecosystems leveraging strong relationships.
The Ecosystems & Partnerships group was established within the digital organisation as a global group function in early 2018 and is today functioning beyond, but still rooted in Digital, as a key contributor in the delivery the Grundfos transformation strategy. While strengthening the core business, Grundfos establish water solutions as a new growth platform – gear-shifting Grundfos offerings portfolio and truly impact the world water and energy challenges.
Søren have built new business based on strategic alliances and partnerships since he started his career within industrial product design in 2008 and bring broad competencies to Grundfos in building corporate and start-up alliances setups.
“We pioneer solutions to the world’s water and climate challenges and improve quality of life for people”
Alistair Dixon, Head of Alliance & Integration Management, UCB
Alistair currently heads the Alliance & Integration Management group at UCB Pharma, having previously held senior alliance director roles at GSK and Takeda. Alistair has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, during which time he has gained a broad range of experience on projects that span from early stage discovery through to late stage development, approval and launch. Alistair holds a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge.
Julie Little CA-AM, RTTP, Associate Director Strategic Alliances, Commercial Partnerships Cancer Research UK
Julie is Associate Director Strategic Alliances at Commercial Partnerships, Cancer Research UK, the world’s leading charity dedicated to cancer research. Julie leads the team responsible for a portfolio of alliances in Europe, US and Japan focused on translating exciting discoveries to ultimately improve patient outcomes. Since joining CRUK in 2012 she has played major roles in establishing alliances with Merck Healthcare KGaA, the CRUK-AstraZeneca Antibody Alliance Laboratory, and more recently the partnership with Abcam.
Before moving into business development Julie spent 25 years as a research scientist with Unilever and then Genzyme where she led the antibody phage display team developing therapeutic antibodies including anti-idiotypic antibodies to aid clinical trials of the now approved multiple sclerosis antibody, Lemtrada.
Annick De Swaef, CEO, Belgian Road Research Center
Annick De Swaef is CEO of Belgian Road Research Center. She joined BRRC in 2017, bringing more than 20 years of management experience in the public sector and consulting industry.
Previously, De Swaef founded Consensa Consulting in 2009, a Belgian based company specialized in strategic partnerships and alliances. Prior to that, she spent 7 years at the Public Administration of the Brussels Capital region, where she held a variety of management roles from leading a team of road contract managers to implementing organizational change programs.
Annick De Swaef graduated from Ghent University in 1995, earning her master’s degree in construction engineering. She is passionate about guiding organizations on their journey to build and operate successful long term business collaborations. She’s been an active member of ASAP and a strong advocate for the added value of the ASAP community and best practices for business leaders.