Kevin Longworth began his journey in the plastics industry over 15 years ago as an injection moulding process engineer for the Aliaxis Group in the UK. In his next role at the British Plastics Federation he worked on developing the innovation capabilities of UK polymer companies by securing funding from the European Union to create a raft of projects with EU partners on themes such as sustainability and recycling as well as enhanced processing and analytical techniques for polymers. Since April 2009, he has worked for IHS Markit and is currently the associate director for polyolefins in the EMEA region. IHS Markit are the leaders in market intelligence to the polymer industry and in his current role, Kevin develops the regional view for polyolefins in terms of supply, demand, pricing and trade. IHS Markit provides a comprehensive view of the polymer supply chain from energy through to the final plastics pellet and Kevin works with stakeholders at every step of the value chain to develop a comprehensive overview of the market trends and outlook.

Ingo Maier received a plastic engineering degree from Darmstadt, University of Applied Sci­ence with a specialisation in injection moulding and elastomer/polyurethane technology in cooperation with Woodbridge, Ontario. He started his career in the automotive industry 20 years ago, working for Siemens VDO producing cluster instruments and complex plastic high precision parts. Ingo has been working since 2007 in Proseat at various positions such as project engineer for EPP and PUR Automotive market including a production ramp in Italy for PUR Automotive business. He was selected to support the new production operation and JV discussion with Foamline for new seat systems production in St. Petersburg, Russia, as operations engineer. In 2009, he reorganized and restarted the engineering plastics business for Toray Industries in Europe especially for automotive by new business fields. In 2016, he was appointed in his new role to expand the super engineering plastic business in Europe for a new compound plant.

Romain Hubert graduated from RWTH Aachen University in 1993 with a PhD in mechanical engineering. He joined the sustainable transport division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in February 2002. He worked in the areas of active and passive safety of road vehicles and on their environmental performances. He ensured the secretariat servicing to all six expert groups of the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29). Since 2011, he has provided secretariat servicing to the Working Party on General Safety Provisions (GRSG), the expert group in charge of the UN regulations on safety glazing.

Markus Franzen graduated from RWTH Aachen University in 2003 with a degree in mechani­cal engineering. From 2003-05 he worked at the Institut für Kraftfahrwesen (ika) Aachen, focussing on crash simulations and physical testing. Since 2005 he has worked at Ford R&A Europe on the vehicle interior technologies team. He works on fracture modelling and advanced crash simulation for thermoplastics and thermosets including material and component testing. His current position responsibilities include research engineer and global single point of contact regarding thermoplastic crash simulation questions.

Semih Ertürk was born in 1977 in Bursa. He graduated from Ege University in 2001 as a chemical engineer. He has been working in the automotive research and development area for 12 years. He is a senior technical specialist for plastic materials at Fiat Chrysler Auto Turkey. He does interior, exterior, under hood and under body plastic material activities for produced cars in Turkey. His competencies include self-pigmented (opaque and metallic) plastic materials, which allow for paint elimination, weight reduction methods (glass bubble filled polymer, chemical and physical foaming process, etc.), and thermoplastic composite materials for metal replacement. He also follows India project activities in plastic materials for FCA. He has a great, young and very passionate team at FCA R&D Turkey. His last proj­ect, the Egea family of automobiles, was named the Best Car of Europe in 2016 by AutoBest.

Daniel Tyrkas is the director of automotive solutions at the regional headquarter EMEA of Mitsubishi Chemical. He drives collaboration, innovation, and solutions across all business units of Mitsubishi Chemical EMEA to meet customers’ needs across multiple automotive segments and material classes. Daniel received his master’s in mechanical engineering/Dipl.-Ing. from the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. His studies focused on plastics, composites, processing, manufacturing, and design engineering. Previously, Daniel worked as business development manager automotive at the carbon fiber and composites division of Mitsubishi Chemical, focussing on materials and processes that enable high volume manufacturing of CFRP-composite parts. Before joining Mitsubishi Chemical, Daniel has held various technical and commercial positions within the plastics/composites/automotive industry ranging from technology consulting to sales and marketing director, engineering, application, and business development, contributing to the success of companies like Altran, General Electric Plastics and SABIC. Daniel has gathered more than 19 years of experience in composites and other high-performance materials and components, mainly in the automotive industry.

Dr. Marko Marinkovic studied electrical engineering in Serbia and Germany. In 2006, he obtained his master’s degree from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and in 2013 he received a PhD degree from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. Since 2012, he has worked at Evonik Industries AG on various projects. From 2012-2015 he worked as a research scientist on the material development of metal-oxide precursors for applications in the electronic industry. From 2015-17, he worked as a project manager on implementa­tion of various materials in display industry, in close cooperation with customers in Taiwan, China and Japan. Most recently, in 2018, he joined the high performance polymers division as a technical marketing manager for e-mobility. His responsibilities include the new busi­ness development and global customer support.

Dr. Thomas Neumeyer has been leading the polymers division at Neue Materialien Bayreuth GmbH since 2015. Before that he was a scientific staff member at the department of polymer engineering at the University of Bayreuth (department head: Prof. Dr. Volker Altstädt), where he also headed the group thermosets and composites. In 2015 he finalised his PhD thesis entitled “Structure-Property Relationships of Novel, Flame-Retarded Prepreg Resins for Ap­plications in Aircraft Interiors”. Since July 2016, he has also been managing director of an in­dustrial network for expanded polypropylene foams (EPP), called “EPP-Forum e.V.”. Thomas is currently a lecturer at the University of Bayreuth, teaching in the field of polymer composites.

Elena Rodriguez has a degree in chemistry (University of Santiago de Compostela) and a PhD in materials engineering (University Carlos III of Madrid) for the development of modi­fied polymers with different nano and micron particles, focussed on dispersion, viscosity, processability and characterisation. She has more than 15 years of experience in polymeric and composites materials, characterisation and development of new composites and joining technologies, with a special focus on plastic and composites welding, adhesive bonding and hybrid composite-steel solutions. She has been leading national and international research projects related with polymers and composites in AIMEN since 2006 in the Technology Cen­ter AIMEN. Currently she is the head of advanced materials and represents AIMEN in several platforms on materials and associations.

Vedran Muha studied chemical engineering at the University of Technology in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Since 2011, he has been working within the chemical industry. He joined DuPont’s engineering plastics division in 2014 in Germany and has supported automotive Tier 1s in developing new applications in various segments. Since 2018, Vedran has been the ap­plication leader within EMEA for all automotive battery systems. The current automotive environment with the accelerating momentum to change towards electric cars is driving his passion to support innovative customers in this area. His role includes engineering and technical support to customers who are active in developing either applications for battery systems or full battery packs.

Friedbert Schmitt received a degree in aerospace engineering at RWTH Aachen University. He previously worked for Schefenacker AG and freeglass GmbH & Co. KG in Schwaikheim, Germany, developing plastic glazing for the automotive industry. In ZAT Automobiltechnik and Robust Plastics GmbH, he was a managing director, responsible for polymer processing with four sites and 500 employees. Now Friedbert is a managing director for Weber Fibertech.

Marco Bernsdorf was born in 1981 in Nordhausen, Germany. He started his career in the automotive industry 13 years ago, working as design, analysis and manufacturing department leader for composites on various projects for Formula 1 and DTM at Becker Carbon GmbH. At Die Wethje Kunststofftechnik GmbH he was in charge of establishing high-volume manufac­turing and cost optimisation on processes for several German OEMs as well as leading cus­tomer projects. Marco joined Cytec (later Solvay) in 2012 to develop business and engineering support in Germany. During that time his project ‘BMW M4 GTS composite bonnet’ won the SPE process innovation award at the ACCE 2016 in Detroit. In his current role as business development manager for Lotte Chemical, Marco is supporting European customer needs in terms of long and endless fibre PP and PA compounds, as well as TPE and TPO materials for interior, exterior and crash relevant components. He holds a Dipl.-Ing. from the Technische Universität Dresden focussed on lightweight design and fibre reinforced composites.

Yann Bernard is a product manager for the IMTEC® product range and holds a mechanical engineering degree. He’s been working for Böllhoff Group since 2008.

Nicolas started his career in the automotive industry 20 years ago, working for ma­jor Tier 1 and chemical companies (Electricfil Industrie/Unifil Electronic/Sintertech/ Federal Mogul) in France, Turkey and Brazil. He held various increasing positions in project management and sales and marketing. Nicolas was appointed by Solvay En­gineering Plastics in 2007 to develop the thermal management segment. He became application development manager in 2009 prior to holding the position of automotive business development manager for EMEA in 2011. In 2016, Nicolas took the posi­tion of global e-mobility leader to develop the emerging market of electric vehicles, hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles. In November 2018, Nicolas was appointed automotive sales development manager by Solvay Specialty Polymers to develop e-mobility and automotive market with innovative solutions based on ultra-polymers, high perfor­mance polymers and fluoropolymers.