Jordi Ràfols is the founder and CEO of Innoget.com, one of the largest online open innovation networks. He has more than 20 years of experience working on open innovation and technology transfer, and internet business. He has been directly involved in hundreds of open innovation projects in a wide range of different industries and has worked with several international companies in the evaluation, development, and deployment of their open innovation programs. 

As part of the Catalan national program “Startup Catalonia,” he acted as a business coach for technology-based startups, helping them to develop and implement their strategy and accelerate business growth. He has been a managing partner at Science2Society.eu, one of the largest EU-funded projects in the field of technology transfer and open innovation aimed at developing new processes to enhance industry-academia collaboration. 

Jordi holds an MBA at ESADE Business School and a corporate finance degree at IE (Instituto de Empresa in Madrid) and has been involved in corporate venture and valuation projects. As an innovation conference speaker, he has shared his view on open innovation and collaborative R&D and innovation ecosystems in many international and cross-industries events in Berlin, London, Edinburgh, Boston, Paris, Singapore, and Barcelona. He has also given lectures to MBA program alumni at ESADE Business School on online open innovation business models.

Carlos, Sngular’s Chief Innovation Officer, is highly experienced in developing new business models, products, and services using the latest digital technologies. Carlos, who joined Sngular in 2010, leads a multidisciplinary team dedicated to providing end-to-end innovation support, from value propositions and PoC development, to roll-out strategies. Drawing on his experience managing Agile teams, Carlos also helps companies transform, adopting Agile methodologies to work more rapidly and efficiently. Previously, as Business Development Director for Sngular, he facilitated the company’s entry into new industries, including retail, distribution, and hospitality which contributed to Sngular’s growth in Spain and beyond.

Carlos earned his computer engineering and MBA degrees from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and is a regular contributor and professor of innovation and digital strategy at this university. He is also an active mentor with Technovation Challenge, a global initiative to attract girls and women aged 9-18 years of age to STEM careers, and is an active keynote speaker and blogger.

Andy is a former CTO at a billion-dollar FTSE 250 multinational manufacturer with over 30 years’ experience in delivering business growth through new technologies all over the world. He is the founder of TTIP Consulting, the Strategic Innovation Company, and author of the books ‘Transforming Technology into Profit’ and ‘Cracking the Innovation Code.’ Andy is a regular speaker at conferences, events, and business schools on the subject of ‘How to Unlock Innovation in Business.’

Andy is going to talk to us about what he has learned over 30 years in business about the Barriers to Successful R&D Commercialisation and how to overcome them.

After graduating in industrial engineering and innovation management, Shéhérazade Benzerga has taken several positions to support the Digital Transformation of traditional industry companies and NGO’s. She worked in several fields like IT, transport, and logistics, as well as strategy and corporate functions. In her current position, she is responsible for developing and implementing the digital transformation strategy and the innovations linked to this process for the legal, compliance, and integrity board of management.

As Orange Startups Studio Founder, Nicolas entices Orange employees to engage as intrapreneurs, bring their ideas to life within Orange business, and be the change they want to see. Nicolas is equally a passionate expert for innovation centers exploring new business, and a dashing booster of "bottom-up" or "local" innovation over Orange footprint in Africa and the Middle-East.

International speaker (TEDx), delivering Google Academy Masterclasses, and Tech/Business Schools, laureate of the ISPIM Prize for innovation management, Nicolas is Writer of RapidInnovation.fr and The Intrapreneurs' Factor.

Miguel Arias, proud dad, entrepreneur, and angel investor, has over 17 years of experience building technology-based startups with a global reach.

Miguel had founded startups before and helped others grow in a variety of roles. He is a skilled generalist that understands technology as well as people-matters. His expertise encompasses tasks and challenges, from the vision and strategy definition to product management, with a special dedication to startup funding and investor relations.

As Global Entrepreneurship Director at Telefonica, he is responsible for leading the new stage in Telefónica's open innovation strategy; this is committed to seeking out and developing technological solutions to complement internal R&D while creating an improved connection with international entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Previously as COO at CARTO, he led the sales, financial, and operational efforts from its Madrid, NY, DC, London, and Tartu offices, directing the company's growth and scaling-up.

Trying to enhance the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem, he co-founded Chamberi Valley, the main Madrid-based association for startups with over 1 million € revenue or 1 million € in investment.

Prior to launching the Innovation lab for Nissan Europe, Ivan worked as Director of the Nissan Future Lab in the Silicon Valley. There, he helped Nissan establish and participate in two venture funds. He was also the representative of Renault & Nissan at the World Economic Forum on a research project related to the Future of Self Driving in cities. Additionally, Ivan has held various positions for Nissan within Sales & Marketing, Corporate Strategy, and Business Transformation in France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and Hong Kong. Prior to Nissan, he worked for a Strategy Consulting firm as well as for a Fast Moving Consumer Goods company. Ivan holds an MBA from Insead and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University and Waseda University (Japan). He also completed the executive program at Singularity University. Today, Ivan focuses on fostering innovation for businesses around the world while delivering tangible impact and supporting the culture.

Graham has three decades of innovation experience from academic leadership and consulting for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Following his Ph. D. at Imperial College London, a native of North Wales was awarded a NATO fellowship and moved to Harvard University, where he worked with Nobel Laureate E. J. Corey. His independent academic career spanned 25 years and generated >$100 million in external funding and 165 peer-reviewed publications in the fields of drug discovery, drug delivery, process technology, regulatory science, and medical devices. He has held a number of leadership roles in the academy, including pro-vice-chancellor, vice provost, and institute director, and has experience in technology transfer, licensing, and public-private partnership development. He has been a regular consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry and was an advisor to the FDA in the development of the biosimilars approval pathway. Graham has also been instrumental in establishing and advising a large number of technology-based startup companies, including Auspex Pharma, which was acquired in 2015 for $3.5B. Graham joined Novartis from Tufts University Medical Center, where he was Professor of Medicine and Director of Translational Research and Director of Research Partnerships at their Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). The CTSI network involves Tufts, MIT, Brandeis and Northeastern Universities, and 35 additional clinical and corporate partners with over 1,200 active clinical trials and annual revenues of >$6 Billion. Graham established their innovation program in biomarkers, medical devices, and sensors, and was a key driver for the CTSI mentoring system. Graham sits on several advisory and editorial boards and has been the recipient of numerous awards for scientific and technological development. He was awarded the DSc in 2006 for contributions to medicinal chemistry.

Dr. Austin Kozman is a senior director of R&D at PepsiCo, leading the external innovation (XI) team. The XI team is an upstream, externally facing department within PepsiCo R&D. We actively scout for, identify, and develop strategic partnerships with external collaborators. Our goal is to locate key external insights, business models, and technical unlocks and new capabilities that, when partnered with PepsiCo’s robust internal R&D expertise, will yield disruptive innovation in our core products and/or new and emerging products.

PepsiCo is currently exploring novel technology spaces that can dramatically impact their portfolio of foods and beverages. They’re interested in improving all facets of their supply chain — from raw material inputs all the way to the consumer consumption — and identifying global efficiencies in areas including crop science, ingredients, processing, packaging, equipment, distribution/fleet, retail, and ecommerce. They’re also committed to sustainability for our planet and our communities.

Austin has worked as a thermal engineer for over 25 years. Austin received his BSME from the University of Texas at Austin and his master’s of engineering and PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Austin has three issued US patents and six currently pending (3 issued UK patents). In 1999, Austin was selected as the Young Engineer of the Year by the North Texas Electronic Packaging Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In 2010, Austin was elevated to Fellow status in ASME. Austin is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas.

Alexandre Bastos has more than 20 years in the food industry, including mature and high growth markets. He has solid experience in food tech, venturing, entrepreneurship, strategy development, and digital transformation, and also has a corporate cross-functional and multi-cultural background. Alexandre is a top global consultant in the petrol and oil industries.

Tim Scanlon is Group Vice President, Customer Experience Innovation, and works at ABB’s worldwide headquarters on the Digital ABB Team. He leads a new global Customer Innovation (CX) team launching design-led digital innovation capabilities that help customers unlock new business value by exploring and co-creating digitalization solutions. Tim is relentlessly customer-focused. His passion is design-driven CX innovation and experience transformation. He helps businesses create digital solutions at the confluence of design, business, and emerging technology. He collaborates fluidly across diverse functions and cultures worldwide and takes an entrepreneurial lean start-up approach to help teams look for, understand, and make what’s next. Prior to joining ABB, Tim was with Autodesk software, where he founded the Total Experience + Analytics initiative, launched several new experience design teams helping shape Autodesk’s new cloud and mobile design, engineering, PLM, and manufacturing SaaS and PaaS offerings. Experience design played a mission-critical role in successfully transitioning Autodesk from a perpetual license to a subscription. Tim’s professional experience spans an early stage to Fortune 50 businesses, including GE, SDRC (UGS/Siemens PLM), Westinghouse, and Rockwell Automation. He holds a BA degree in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon University and studied Strategic Marketing Management at Harvard Business School. Tim was adjunct faculty at Oregon Health & Sciences MBA Program teaching “Pioneering Innovation” and at Carnegie Mellon University School of Design teaching “Professional Practice.”

Prior to joining Airbus, Christian Lindener worked as Managing Director for Wayra Germany, a technology innovation hub. In this role, he oversaw the organization's strategic direction, a selection of startups, and young technology corporations for integration into the Telefonicà investment portfolio. As an independent tech consultant, he has created and advised more than 20 incubator and accelerator programs. As Director of TechFounders, a high-tech hardware accelerator based in Munich, he was responsible for developing more than 50 high-tech startups. Lindener has co-founded several companies, one of which, a virtual reality startup that was sold to the Booking online agency in 2014. He recently co-launched D3 Technologies AG, an open digital operations platform for the urban air mobility market. Lindener was born in Brazil and grew up in Mexico. He studied international business administration and economics at the Leopold-Franzens University in Innsbruck, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Barcelona.

Ferran works at Philip Morris International, as Fast Forward (FFWD) Lead, a proprietary Lean Enterprise transformation program. FFWD is an ecosystem to make Philip Morris shift its way of working and culture from brand-centric, embedding design thinking, rapid experimentation and data-driven decisions into their employees’ DNA. Previously Ferran launched 3 ventures (Finance, Baby memories and Telemedicine) and was the Managing Partner at IdeaFoster, an innovation consultancy firm supporting corporations work in the innovation territory.

Electronic Engineer and Master in Sustainable Development and Corporate Responsibility. Aranzazu  has been driving innovation and change in big organizations for almost 10 years in companies such as Ferrovial, Maersk and now Sacyr. She worked nurturing an innovation culture and establishing stronger organizational innovation capabilities by enhancing the open innovation model and turning ideas coming from the open innovation ecosystem, but also from employees, into business.

Alain Bindels studied at Stanford University and is a trained agile coach (design thinking, scrum) with experience in human- and patient-centric design of health care and has been working more than 10 years at Roche in different roles.

He has extensive innovation management experience (setting up an innovation lab, innovation programs, open innovation, crowdsourcing, knowledge management, and innovation culture). He is also leading an innovation network at Roche to support the business to innovate and run innovation workshops to solve business challenges.

Alain is currently setting up an innovation and agility program to build new capabilities in the organization to support the organizational transformation. This program focusses on agile ways of working, including rapid prototyping and co-creation with customers. This program supports the company’s transformation to move the organization to a more self-organized organization.

Catalyst. Engineer. Designer. Gregory has made a career of producing work that startles, gets the job done, and continually pushes boundaries in a broad range of fields that encompass the artistic as well as the practical and scientific. He is the creator of the iGNITE Convergence Program in design, engineering and finance for innovation and new product development having been delivered to 1000’s globally since it’s creation in 2005; founder of iGNITIATE, an innovation strategy and industrial design firm specializing in disruptive design — the art and science of creating new and innovative products and services that can transform a product category, shake up a market, and ensure global firms’ continued growth; and also the co-founder of the international, Elle Decor and Architectural Digest, award-winning design brand gregorysung. Polletta is a true 21st-century Renaissance man whose R&D, start-ups and designs span many fields, including furniture, lighting, objects, nanotechnology, architecture ( where he and his team designed the worlds 1st moving pin facade system, TOPIADE for the Louis Vuitton Architecture Dept in 2006 ), medical device technology, computer memory devices, mobile phones, software, and consumer product packaging. He and his team have brought high-tech R&D, design ( such as REUTPALA for the World Retail Congress and presented to Alberto Alessi as a lifetime achievement award ) to bear for such clients as Guzzini, Roche Bobois, Fujitsu, Louis-Vuitton, Pfizer and many others. Prior to iGNITIATE, Gregory worked at the legendary Xerox PARC Labs, the American Management System Center for Advanced Technology, DARPA / Lawrence Livermore National Labs and may ohers. Gregory was named the 2014 most inspirational professor at France’s Grande Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées ENPC PhD Engineering and MBA program; a professor at the ENPC Paris Tech d.school; Parsons School of Design, Paris; the Royal College of Art, London; the Lucerne School of Art and Design, Switzerland and many other universities globally on the topics of design, industrial design, strategic management, R&D methods, leadership, entrepreneurship, new product development and innovation.

Tim is a change practitioner in the area of innovation and excellence based on 10 years in consulting firms and 10 years in multinational corporations. In many projects, he successfully introduced human-centric leadership, cross-silo relationships, and meaningful purposes. He is working with teams to accelerate innovation, collaboration, and agility; as a result, improving their motivation and excellence in today’s dynamic and competitive business environment. He is pushing the idea of People Excellence.

His work is based on intrinsic motivation, and he is passionate about positive leadership that drives extraordinary results. He is regarded as an inspiring facilitator and coach for the people side of the business. Peers appreciate his persistence, entrepreneurship, and creativity. Originally from Switzerland, he has been working for the better part of his career in the Asian region.

Aly Madhavji is the Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund which invests in and venture builds top-tier startups. He is a Limited Partner on Loyal VC and Draper Goren Holm. Aly consults organizations on emerging technologies such as INSEAD and the UN on solutions to help alleviate poverty. He is a Senior Blockchain Fellow at INSEAD and was recognized as a “Blockchain 100” Global Leader by Lattice80. He is an internationally acclaimed author, publishing three books and a monthly columnist for the leading blockchain magazine.

Aly serves as a board member of CryptoStar Corp. (TSXV: CSTR) and has served on various advisory boards including the University of Toronto’s Governing Council, which manages a $2.5B budget. He is a mentor with Chinaccelerator, an elite accelerator program operated by the venture fund SOSV with $700M+ AUM and the Mobile Only Accelerator (MOX).

Aly holds a Master of Global Affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar from Tsinghua University, a Master of Business Administration from INSEAD (Singapore and France), and a Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction from the University of Toronto.

Vitaly Mzokov is Head of Innovation Hub at Kaspersky, responsible for developing and maintaining the innovations management process that fosters collaboration between the Company and brilliant minds and break-through projects inside and outside. Vitaly and his team are focused on identifying new trends and discovering new markets, scouting for best-in-class startups and technological alliances, and integrating them into Kaspersky business to create a win-win experience for everyone and convert it into efficient business models. 

Prior to this role, Vitaly was Head of Verification at Kaspersky’s Growth Center, where he participated in the development of new products and services of the company and was responsible for the business modeling and launching of several new projects that involve emerging technologies, like blockchain. 

Having joined Kaspersky in 2014 as Global Presales Manager, it took only one year for Vitaly to be promoted to Solution Business Lead. In that role, Vitaly was managing the Hybrid Cloud Security solution demonstrating 2-digit growth for the respective area of the business over 2.5 years.