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Cristina Vasconcelos, Chief Marketing Officer of Lactogal Produtos Alimentares SA, Portugal
Cristina Vasconcelos is the Chief Marketing Executive of Lactogal - the Portuguese leading dairy company based in Porto. Cristina joined the sector in 1992 in Proleite, a cooperative that will lead the creation of Lactogal 4 years later along with other 2 cooperatives, Agros and Lacticoop. Since then has held several senior positions in marketing and within the teams contributed for a major development of the company brands.
Lactogal has 6 production units across Portugal and Spain and owns a portfolio of 14 well-known brands that includes Mimosa as “Most Chosen Brand” (according to Kantar Brand Footprint), Matinal, Vigor, Agros. The group is also present in the non-dairy drinks.
The company is focused in developing is leading role in dairy sector, securing competitiveness through sustainable milk production, innovation and working to deliver high quality natural healthy food.”
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Saskia van Battum, Associate Analyst - Dairy for Rabobank, Netherlands
Saskia is a dairy analyst in the global RaboResearch Food & Agribusiness team. She is based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The RaboReserach Food & Agribusiness team is charged with analysing developments in food and agricultural markets and industries, and advising the bank and its clients on strategic implications for their businesses. Comprised of a network of some 90 analysts, spread across every major production and consumption region of the world, the team is a central component of the bank’s capacity for informed credit decision making, product development, advisory services, and strategic client partnerships.
Saskia’s focus is predominantly on the dairy sector in Europe, but she is also responsible for Rabobank’s Global Dairy Top 20 and the World Dairy Map. Saskia has over 15 years of experience in the dairy sector. Before joining the research department, she worked as an IT information specialist within Rabobank.
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Anne Wong-Erven, Insight & Advisory Director for Zenith Global Ltd
Anne Wong-Erven is Insight & Advisory Director at Zenith Global, responsible for leading the Insights & Advisory team. Anne has experience undertaking market opportunity assessments, route-to-market and channel distribution analysis, new product development and M&A studies.
Prior to joining Zenith Global in 2015, Anne had ten years of experience within the Canadian and UK food and drink industry in supply chain and strategic purchasing, and account management roles.
Anne holds an MBA degree from the University of Bath and Honours Business Administration degree from the Western University, Ivey Business School.
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Naima Boutroy, Packaging Expert for Sidel
Naima Boutroy is Global Packaging Technical support at Sidel. Based in France, she has led Packaging development projects since 2007: within her global responsibilities, a specific focus is placed on solutions for sensitive products, such as packaging and preform performance evaluation, barrier packaging solutions, recycling.
Having worked for Sidel since 1986, Naima has held various positions including R&D Project Manager and Manager of Liquid Package Interaction (LPI) laboratory. A French national, she holds a Ph.D. in Physics, and a Master Degree in Chemistry & Physics.
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Pierre Therville, Sales Development Manager for Cama Group
Pierre Therville, was born in Lyon, France. He Graduated in 1984 as a Process Engineer and subsequently began his career as PRUD’HOMME - Multi-products representative. Over the last 30 years Pierre has worked within different Packaging companies including Serac as Area Manager and Cama Group, in charge of the French subsidiary. Since 2017, Pierre has been responsible for Dairy Business Development within Cama.
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Jayen Mehta, Senior General Manager – Planning & Maketing at Amul, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, India
Jayen is Senior General Manager (Planning & Marketing) at Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (Amul) - India's largest food products marketing organisation. Amul is a cooperative federation of 3.6 million milk producers with annual milk volume of more than 8 billion litres. It is ranked the 9th largest dairy company in the world. The annual sales turnover of the Amul brand is US$ 6.5 billion.
Jayen has been associated with Amul for the last 28 years. He has rich experience in domestic and international marketing of the entire range of Amul dairy products. He has also served as Incharge Managing Director of Amul Dairy, Anand from April-September 2018.
He has a good understanding of brand building, product management, advertising, corporate planning, supply chain management, exports and social media, and was awarded the Marketing Man of the Year 2018 Award by Ahmedabad Management Association.
Jayen is a graduate in business administration (with Gold medal from Sardar Patel University) and has done post graduation in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).
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Richard Walton, General Manager - Patents and Licensing for Meiji, Japan
Richard Walton works as General Manager - Patens and Licensing at Meiji Co Ltd. He has extensive experience in R&D and with patents related to dairy, functional foods and beverages, medical foods and pharmaceuticals. He is also responsible for international research collaborations and R&D related information technology.
During the course of his studies, he obtained a BA in Chemistry from Hendrix College (USA) in 1985 and subsequently a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Duke University (USA) in 1990. He was a Japan Science and Technology Agency Fellow at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) from 1991 to 1993, before joining Meiji. In addition to internal research planning and support activities, Richard has chaired multi-company working groups on intellectual property in Japan and led research collaborations with international partners. He is a member of the IDF Standing Committee on Marketing and led the organization committee for the marketing conference at the 2013 IDF World Dairy Summit in Yokohama.
Richard has given numerous international presentations on food R&D in Japan and Japanese food claims at events such as IDF Summits, ILSI conferences, InnoBev, Dairy Innovation and the World Dairy Congress.
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Christoph Thünemann, Group Director - Communications and Marketing for Bericap Holding
Christoph joined BERICAP in 2017 as Group Director Communications and Marketing. Among other things, he is responsible for and supports dialog as well as the transfer of product and company information between BERICAP and customers in more than 100 countries around the world.
Christoph gained some experience in Communications, Marketing as well as in Packaging over many years. He began his career in the HAVI Group, offering paper and packing sourcing as well as total distribution & logistics services to customers such as McDonald’s, IKEA, BP, OMV, Compass Group and many others. He moved on to Siegwerk - a world-leading supplier of printing ink for packaging and publications and to Klöckner Pentaplast - global leading producer of innovative rigid films. Also in these “packaging value chain partner-companies” he was responsible for Communications and Marketing.
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Tanja Virtanen-Leppä, Head of Packaging Development for Valio, Finland
As Head of Packaging Development at Valio, Tanja is responsible for strategic packaging development including technology roadmaps and coordination of packaging development between business units and market areas. Tanja’s area of expertise lies within packaging related project portfolio management and developing new technologies guided by customer and consumer insight.
She has held various product and business development positions since the 1990s in several companies along the packaging value chain with both suppliers and FMCG brand owners, especially in food applications. Tanja has an M. Sci. in Chemical Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology and postgraduate studies in both Marketing and Design Business Management.
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Ola Elmqvist, EVP Processing Solutions and Equipment, Tetra Pak
Ola Elmqvist is Executive Vice President, Processing Solutions & Equipment at Tetra Pak and is based in Lund, Sweden.
During his almost 30 years at Tetra Pak, Ola has held a number of senior management positions, including Vice President Business Unit Liquid Food, Vice President Supply Chain Operations in Greater China and NE Asia & Oceania, Managing Director Tetra Pak South Eastern Europe and Cluster Leader Technical Service Europe & Central Asia.
Ola started his career at the Lund Tetra Pak factory in 1990 as Production Management Trainee and has a master’s degree in Electronic & Electrical Engineering from the Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden.
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Dr Yun Zhanyou, Assistant President of Yili Group, China
Dr. Yun Zhanyou got his PhD from Osaka University and has rich experience in food and dairy R&D. Now he is Assistant President of Yili Group, member of IDF Standing Committee on Dairy Science and Technology, member of the Technological Committee of Chinese Dairy Industry Association, standing member of the council of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology.
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Tiên Phan Minh, Executive Marketing Director of Vinamilk, Vietnam
Phan Minh Tiên is Executive Marketing Director of Vinamilk - a top 50 global dairy company. He has over 20 years of experience in product innovation & brand development at Unilever, Samsung and Vinamilk. Since joining Vinamilk in 2014, Vinamilk has grown to become the Number 1 FMCG brand in Vietnam.
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Julie Smolyansky, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lifeway Foods
Julie Smolyansky became the youngest female CEO of a publicly held firm when she took over Lifeway Foods at the age of 27 in 2002. Since then, Julie has continued the company’s growth trajectory with creative product development and marketing, bringing an Eastern European product into the U.S. mainstream and boosting annual company revenues to over $100 million in 2018 from $12 million when she took over. Under her leadership, the company has expanded distribution throughout the United States, Mexico, the UK, and Ireland as well as portions of Central and South America and the Caribbean. She has been named to Fortune Business ‘40 under 40,’ Fortune’s 55 Most Influential Women on Twitter and Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 1000.
She is a graduate with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Julie is an emeritus member of the United Nations Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council and was part of the 2015 class of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. She has produced several documentaries, including “The Homestretch,” “Honor Diaries" and “The Hunting Ground.” In 2013 Julie co‐founded a non‐profit, Test400k, an organization dedicated to advocating ending the backlog of 400,000 untested rape kits in the United States. She released her first book, The Kefir Cookbook: An Ancient Healing Superfood for Modern Life, Recipes from My Family Table and Around the World in March of 2018. She lives in Chicago and is the mother of two girls.
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Fernando Zaldívar, Managing Director of IRI, Spain
Fernando joined IRI after more than twenty years of experience in the FMCG industry, with a broad international background. He spent more than 16 years in L'Oreal, where he held several senior leadership positions including Managing Director in Poland, Commercial Director for Europe and Commercial Director in Spain, as well as several commercial positions in our country. Later he was part of the Alfaparf Executive Management Team, where he became the Export Director of the Professional Skin Care line, as well as Retail Development Director. Focused on transforming IRI's vision into reality, Fernando manages IRI Spain inspiring his team to help their clients to grow. He has a degree on Business Administration from both ICADE and the European Business School FH Reutilingen of Germany. After that, he completed his training with an International MBA at the IE Business School of Madrid.
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Zoe Kavanagh, Chief Executive of National Dairy Council, Ireland and Chairman of International Milk Promotion Group for International Dairy Federation
Zoë Kavanagh has headed up the National Dairy Council since 2011 where she has been instrumental in marketing and promoting the Irish dairy category at home and abroad. As a marketing agency the NDC works to promote a positive image of the dairy category to Irish consumers driving the message of quality and taste. Zoë is well networked across the global dairy industry and sits on the boards of the European Milk Forum (EMF), International Milk Promotion Group (IMP) and is very involved with the Global Dairy Platform (GDP). She regularly represents the Irish Dairy industry at conferences and events in Ireland and abroad.
A seasoned marketer, Zoë previously worked with PepsiCo for over 16 years including a period as General Manager (Ireland-Beverages) for almost 4 years; International Account Manager for foodservice (responsible for 13 European markets); and International Customer Operations Manager. Her further FMCG credentials included marketing well-known global brands like 7Up and Gatorade. Kavanagh holds a BAgSc degree from UCD (Agriculture & Food Engineering).
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Stephen Mancey, Chief Commercial Officer – Europe and SE Asia for Logoplaste
Stephen is currently CCO of Logoplaste Europe and South east Asia, at Logoplaste a world leading packaging company. He has spent 43 years in the Plastics Industry at senior levels and is a Polymer Engineer by profession. Previously he was COO leading technical teams across 65 plants in USA, Europe, South America and SEA. Stephen has vast experiences from working at director level with large companies during the past 20 years.
Stephen sits in the British Plastics Federation Council and was voted one of the top 50 most influential leaders in the plastics Industry in 2016. He contributes/works on 4 committees; Education, Brexit, Packaging and Sustainability. He is a Member of the American Society of Plastics Engineers and the American Institute of packaging. As well as the UK leading Institute of Materials. He has a passion to help and supports education for apprenticeship training and development of senior management teams globally.
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Joana Maricato, Market Research Manager for New Nutrition Business
New Nutrition Business is a global company that since 1995 has specialised in primary research and analysis of developments in the health, food and nutrition industry. New Nutrition Business provides practical and useable insights for food and beverage, ingredient and dietary supplement companies around the world.
The focus of Joana Maricato is on identifying the best strategies for commercializing nutrition science and advising on how to translate market trends into opportunities. Her experience on consumer and market research helps clients to create new products with health benefits. In recent years she has been involved in several projects with major food and beverage companies, resulting in entries in new market segments, implementation of insights toolkits, re-branding, brand portfolio expansion and acquisitions.
A graduate in biological sciences, Joana also studied marketing and business during her Master’s in Health Food Innovation Management in Maastricht University and her studies in the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
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Jaime Martin, Founding Partner and Chief Executive of Lantern, Spain
Jaime is a recognized expert in strategy, innovation and trends, as well as a regular speaker at worldwide industry forums. He and his team at the strategy consultancy Lantern (www.lantern.es) have helped leading food companies such as Campofrio Food Group, Calidad Pascual, Nestlé, Pescanova or Schweppes Suntory accelerate their growth and unlock opportunities for innovation.
Prior to founding Lantern, Jaime launched the Iberian office of Millward Brown Optimor, the strategic consultancy of WPP. Previously, Jaime was head of brand strategy at Interbrand's Madrid office. During his eight year tenure in the US, he was part of Bank of America Private Equity in Chicago, where he led investment projects in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. He started his career as an investment banking analyst.
Jaime holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from Saint Louis University and an MBA from UCLA – Anderson School of Management. He loves cooking, singing, history books, traveling and meeting inspiring people.
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Thomas Kützemeier, Editor in Chief of FOOD-Lab International, Germany
- 1987-2007 CEO, German Dairy Association, Consultant to the International Dairy Federation, Advisor/member to the Codex Alimentarius Commission and diverse Codex Committees of FAO/WHO on behalf of the German Federal Government
- 2008 Consultant to FAO, Rome during the preparations for the Rio+20 process
- 2011 Founder of the CongressFair „InterLabTec“ on Food Analytics, Munich
- 2012 Consultant with „Kölnmesse“ (Cologne Trade Fair) to incorporate the InterLabTec into the Anuga FoodTec, implemented 2015
- 2011 Founder and Editor-in Chief FOOD-Lab (German Print)
- 2012 Founder and Editor-in-Chief eFOOD-Lab International (English online)
- 2018 Editor-in-Chief and publisher of FOOD-Lab and e-FOOD-Lab International
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Donna Berry, Editor of Dairy & Food Communications, United States
Donna Berry is the owner of Dairy & Food Communications, a company that specializes in business-to-business writing, speaking and consulting projects in the dairy, beverage and food industries. She has a Bachelors Degree in Food Science from the University of Illinois and product development industry experience with Kraft Foods. She has been writing for the dairy trade since 1993; she opened her own business in 2000.
Donna has been tracking consumer behaviors and food trends, with an emphasis on dairy, for more than 25 years. She currently writes for numerous trade publications, including Food Business News, Meat & Poultry, Baking & Snack, Culinology and Pet Food Processing. Until February 2012, she had been the ingredient technology editor and new products trend tracker for Dairy Foods magazine.
After 18 years on Dairy Foods, she decided it was time to share her knowledge via other publications and media channels. Almost immediately she started her own website, aptly named BerryOnDairy.com, which includes an email newsletter called Daily Dose of Dairy that focuses on innovations in dairy products and related beverages.
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Monica Massey, Executive Vice President of Dairy Farmers of America, United States
As DFA’s executive vice president, chief of staff and chief innovation officer, Monica is responsible for a wide range of duties related to the overall success of DFA. Monica entered the dairy industry nearly 30 years ago and joined DFA’s headquarters in 2006 as vice president of corporate communications and member relations. She currently serves on DFA’s crisis preparedness team, strategic planning and policy committee. She also leads the Cooperative’s innovation efforts, including its partnership with the Sprint Accelerator and DFA’s investments in ag tech and dairy food start-ups. In addition, she serves on a number of industry committees and boards, including Global Dairy Platform’s marketing committee, as chair of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy’s communications committee and on the board of directors for the Center for Food Integrity. She also works closely with the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy on crisis communications strategies.INSERT
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Andrei Garbuz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Yaar Bar Ltd, United Kingdom
Andrei Garbuz is Founder and CEO of YAAR Bar Limited. After graduating from the School of Oriental and African Studies and St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Andrei worked as Investment Manager and technology entrepreneur at JP Morgan Chase, VTB, and Green Park Medical where he focused on consumer health technology transfer opportunities in South East Asia. In 2017, Andrei decided to shift his focus to the dairy industry and started working on developing Quark snack products and the YAAR brand. YAAR Bar Limited is a privately owned UK company that aims to promote, and own, the quark category in the UK and across selected international markets.
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Dr Mudar Mannah, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Happy Cheeze GmbH, Germany
It was during a short trip round the world travelling through Asia and Australia in 2011 that Mudar realised: “There are other ways to live my life!” So, while he was still pursuing his career as an orthopaedic surgeon, he began to develop good cheese alternatives, which he had searched for in vain in the market place. “The few products that were on the market consisted mainly of fillers and binders, and didn’t taste a bit like cheese. I simply thought: “There has to be a better way to do this!“
Without more ado, Mudar came up with formulations for a cheese alternative on the basis of fermented cashew kernels and in 2012 founded his first company, Happy Cheeze GmbH. What he had managed to create not only looked like cheese but also tasted and smelled like cheese – and totally without animal ingredients. In February 2017, Happy Cheeze opened a new production factory in Cuxhaven - where the company is headquartered - where over 100,000 cheese alternatives can be manufactured every month and sent out to foodies all over the world. Led by Mudar, the company continues to rely on traditional production methods and loving artisanal manufacture to produce Happy Cashew – and you can taste this with every bite!
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Wouter Staal, Founder of Yoghurt Barn, Netherlands
Wouter Staal is the Chief Yoghurt Officer at food-retailer Yoghurt Barn. Originated in Utrecht, The Netherlands in 2012, the company now has 15 locations nationwide and has strong international ambitions, starting with the opening of its Barn at Schiphol Airport this July. As a lunchroom restaurant, Yoghurt Barn brings organic yoghurt out of home and partners with Arla. Where the Dutch eat most yoghurt per capita in the world, globally there were no retail concepts centered around a yoghurt experience. As Scale-up of the year 2019 and Best Coffee & Lunchroom 2019, the family-run company proves that yoghurt has endless possibilities.
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Sean Folkson, Chief Executive Officer of Nightfood, United States
Nightfood founder Sean Folkson brings an outsider’s perspective to the industry. Unhealthy nighttime snacking, and the resulting negative impact on sleep, is a phenomenon now seen throughout the developed world. By launching Nightfood ice cream, Folkson’s mission is to give consumers a better, healthier, more sleep-friendly option.
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