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Luc Adriaenssens
Sr. Vice President of Technology
CommScope

Luc Adriaenssens is Senior Vice President of Technology in the CTO Office at CommScope. He is focused on long-range strategic growth plans including incremental investments to drive organic growth and acquisitions. He is also the business lead on intellectual property management. During his 25 years in the telecommunications business, he has held positions in product management and positions of increasing responsibility in R&D, including heading up CommScope Enterprise Labs. He holds BSEE, MSEE and MBA degrees from Georgia Tech, U.C. Berkeley and Purdue respectively. He also holds 36 US and foreign patents which have grossed tens of millions of dollars in royalties.

Iain Ansell
Vice President, Consumer
Sagentia

Iain Ansell is SVP Consumer at global product development company Sagentia and is responsible for consumer client business development and project delivery. With a background in product development Iain has significant experience working across consumer products, medical devices and industrial systems, helping companies to bring new and innovative products to market.

Iain is 'hands on' and practically minded having originally trained as a toolmaker, and ultimately gaining a masters in Manufacturing Engineering and Management. Over a 25 year career he has contributed to and led numerous developments of products ranging from high volume devices and systems with a consumable revenue model, to high value systems, all within highly pressured commercial environments. Key skills are design for low cost/manufacture, programme management and introduction to manufacture.

Iain has always taken pride in developing complex projects under time and cost pressure, meeting and exceeding the expectations of his clients.
 

Case Study

Helder Antunes
Sr. Director of Corporate Technology Strategy
Office of the CTO
Cisco Systems

Helder F. Antunes is a results-driven technologist and business Executive with more than 28 years of experience in leading product and solutions development.

Helder, currently has the role of Senior Director, Corporate Technology Group, CTG, where as a 17-year Cisco veteran, he is currently working closely with various academic institutions and technology partners in order to advance innovation with concepts such as "Fog Computing" a key initiative within Cisco's "Internet of Things" strategy. Part of his charter is to also support Cisco's M&A technical due diligence.

With a background in both network security and the automotive industry, he raced cars for many years and designed some of the early data acquisition systems for race cars. Helder was born on the island of Terceira (Azores, Portuguese Territory) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

As a leader, Helder has earned a reputation for exceeding expected results through relentless and methodical execution and building exceptional teams to identify solutions that address complex global challenges.
Outside of Cisco, Antunes is also a General Partner at Pereira Ventures and a counselor to the Regional Government of the Azores, Portugal.

Antunes has received many awards for his work at Cisco and with the Portuguese government and is a much sought after speaker in various innovation, IoT and Security related topics.

• 2012 COTEC Portuguese Diaspora Entrepreneurial Innovation Award

• 2008 CIO 100 Award

• 2004 Cisco Pioneer Award in Technological Innovation

• 2003 Cisco Teamwork of the Year Award

Carlos Barroso
Senior Vice President, Global R&D
Campbell Soup Company

Carlos J. Barroso joined Campbell as Senior Vice President-Global Research & Development (R&D) in July, 2013. He reports to Denise Morrison, President and Chief Executive Officer, is a member of the Campbell Leadership Team and heads the Global R&D Leadership Team.

He is responsible for leading Campbell's 500 R&D employees worldwide, focusing on accelerating innovation and new product development to strengthen the company's core businesses and expand into higher growth spaces, including new consumer segments, categories and geographies.

Carlos brings more than 20 years of global R&D expertise in food and consumer packaged goods to Campbell. Most recently, he was President of CJB and Associates, his own R&D consulting practice in Dallas, where he worked with many Fortune 100 clients to help solve a broad range of product and innovation challenges.

Before that, Carlos was Senior Vice President of R&D at PepsiCo, where he oversaw all R&D efforts for PepsiCo Foods, including Frito-Lay North America and Quaker Foods and Snacks, a $27 billion business with more than 800 R&D associates. He played a key role in driving the company's international growth by leading global new product development and sharing product technology collaboratively across regions.

He also directed major long-term innovation plans including crafting a blueprint for leveraging Open Innovation, led quality improvement initiatives to drive growth, and created a leadership training program to build the pipeline for future managers and to foster international cross-training.

Carlos previously worked in R&D at Procter & Gamble (P&G), where he held roles of increasing responsibility in the company's paper and coffee divisions in the US, Italy and France.

An inductee of Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, Carlos is a member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the American Chemists Society (ACE). He has published articles and presented at conferences worldwide on topics including Open Innovation and Globalization. In addition, his significant expertise in flavor science has resulted in two patents.

Carlos earned his bachelor's of science degree in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, where he previously served as Chair of the External Advisory Board for the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Workshop

Lee Benson
CEO
Able Group of Companies

Lee Benson attended Arizona State University and left to pursue a career in music throughout the 80's and 90's. Along the way Lee started an aerospace business to provide aftermarket maintenance solutions for aircraft operators worldwide. While building the business, Lee developed a cloud-based business management operating system to improve his aerospace business by connecting employees to strategy and culture. The results have been better than 20% compounded annual growth on average to $68m in sales and hundreds of employees. Today, Lee's aerospace business safely saves aircraft operators tens of millions each year on their maintenance costs.

In 2011, Lee founded Execute to Win (ETW) based on his business management operating system. ETW's cloud-based operating system connects every employee to strategy and culture, tracks your top talent and how they are deployed throughout the organization, continually lets employees know what's expected and where they stand, and lets managers see with unparalleled transparency what and how employees are doing. When using this system there are no surprises for managers or employees. In ETW's first two years of operation they have over 100 satisfied customers. ETW is easy to deploy and even easier to use. ETW is designed for use in any organization of any size -- Public, Private, Non-Profit and Government.

ETW's Mission is connecting employees to strategy and culture to drive sustainable winning results. ETW is a business management operating system that was designed to quickly improve business results in many ways.

• Connect all employees to strategy.
• Connect Culture to measurably improved business results.
• Gives managers a tool to manage more effectively in less than half the time.
• Develops all employees 100% of the time to bring more value for every dollar of payroll invested.
• Lets employees know where they stand and what's expected 100% of the time.
• Used by senior leadership team to manage and drive strategy.
• Easy to deploy and even easier to use.
• Creates an ongoing continuous conversation about better results.

ETW has over 100 satisfied customers in its first two years in business. In the past 6 months the number of clients have doubled and the growth rate is accelerating.
 

Thomas E. Carson
President & Chief Executive Officer
Axion Health, Inc.

Thomas Carson is the President and CEO of Axion Health in Denver Colorado. He was recruited in 2012 to lead the next stage of growth for this innovative employee well-being IT company. Axion sells web-based software that companies use to manage health, safety, wellness and engagement programs for their employees. Axion's ReadySet 4(C) software supports efficient program workflow and eases regulatory compliance reporting, and delivers a user-friendly on-line portal that allows employees access to their own employee health records. ReadySet 4(C) is used by selected government agencies and some of the world's leading organizations to manage programs that protect their employees' health and well-being.

Prior to joining Axion Health, Mr. Carson formed MD-IT, a medical documentation vendor that grew from the kitchen table to become the largest ambulatory-focused provider of documentation services and software in the country serving nearly 8,000 physicians. Prior to MD-IT, Mr. Carson served as the Chief Financial Officer of Access Graphics, a computer products distribution company that grew to $1.6 billion world-wide revenues in eight years before GE acquired the company in 1997. During that time, he also lived in The Netherlands for a year and a half to start and grow the European operations, which eventually contributed over $200M to revenues. Mr. Carson also currently serves as a Director of MIQS, an EMR provider focused on the dialysis market.

Mr. Carson is a proud graduate of the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Accountancy and attended the University of Michigan Executive Extension on Managing International Operations.

Case Study

Cindy Conner
Senior Market Manager
Battelle

Cindy Conner, Ph.D., is a Senior Market Manager for Battelle in the Consumer, Industrial and Medical Products business lines. She has diverse industrial experience and works with customers to identify needs and align them with solutions. Dr. Conner's expertise includes product and application development with an emphasis on advanced materials.

Dr. Conner has more than 30 years of industrial experience in sales, marketing, technical service, manufacturing, and research and development of advanced materials. Her work focuses on new product commercialization and leadership of cross-functional teams, generating new revenue for Battelle year over year. She has extensive experience in identifying global market needs, translating customer requirements into product attributes, combining technical and commercial analysis, working with diverse functions and cultures, and developing and implementing business strategies.

Prior to joining Battelle, Dr. Conner was responsible for product development and technical marketing with The Dow Chemical Company, PQ Corporation, and OM Group. She holds a B.S and Ph.D. in Ceramic Engineering from The Ohio State University.

Case Study

Surendra K. Chawla
Senior Director, External Science & Technology Programs
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Dr. Surendra Chawla is the Senior Director of External Science & Technology Programs at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. He is responsible for identifying, assessing, internalization, and ultimate commercialization of emerging science and technologies for transformational growth of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

Prior to his current position, Surendra was the Director of Corporate Tire Research. His responsibilities included providing the technical knowledge, know-how, and services necessary for the corporation's Innovation Centers to produce superior products and processes in order to meet corporate business goals. The technology portfolios, he was responsible for, include Materials Science, Tire Physics, Computational Mechanics & Modeling, and Information Technology. The nature of the work ranged from basic research to application development for product performance prediction and improvement, and included extensive partnership with external technology centers.

Surendra has held several technical positions in the Goodyear RDE&Q organization. He joined the Goodyear Research Division in 1978 as a Senior Physicist. Four years later, he was transferred to Tire Technology as a Senior Development Engineer in the Tire Vehicle & Engineering Technology department. He returned to Research as a Senior Research Engineer in Tire Reinforcement & Science and was promoted to Associate Scientist in 1986. In 1989, he was named Section Head for Advance Fiber Processing, and later in 1993 assumed the responsibilities of Reinforcement Evaluation Laboratory and Fabric Processing. In 1997, Surendra was named Manager for Tire Modeling & Integration, and then two years later assumed the responsibilities of Tire Mechanics & Manufacturing Science. From 2001 to 2003, he was Director of Tire Physics & Computational Mechanics. He is one of the co-founders of the Goodyear Institute of Technology (GIT) -- the educational forum for tire related technologies.

Surendra holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, a M.S. in Industrial & Systems Engineering also from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from India.

Surendra has held a position of Adjunct Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Akron since 1985. He is member of the Tire Society, and Society of Experimental Mechanics. He is also a member of the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) representing Goodyear.

Workshop

Dan Christensen
Global Group Counsel of IT, Privacy & Security
Intel Corporation

Dan currently serves as Global Group Counsel of IT, Privacy & Security at Intel Corporation. From 2010-2012, Dan was seconded from Intel to serve as Chief Privacy Officer and Assistant General Counsel for a large private equity consortium of healthcare, finance, and technology businesses in Los Angeles, California. From 2000-2010, Dan provided privacy/security, transactional, IP, and M/A legal support at Intel across several industries including healthcare, technology, and telecom. Dan was also sent to Europe, Russia, Middle East, and Africa for three years to hire and lead a team supporting Intel's businesses in those regions. Prior to Intel, Dan worked in telecom/energy legal and compliance for The Williams Companies, another Fortune 500 company. Dan served a federal clerkship (Tenth Circuit District Court) and labored for a short period with a law firm. Dan has a MBA from the University of Oxford (UK), a Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah, and a double BA from BYU. Dan is also CIPP/US and CIPP/IT certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Workshop

Karen Dickinson
Polsinelli PC

With a background in negotiating multimillion-dollar global contracts, Karen Dickinson has a passionf or trechnology and international business and quickly becomes a trusted advisor to clients of all sizes, both domestic and international.  For each matter, Karen utilizes her past experience as a supply chain management executive at a Fortune 100 company and her own experience as an entrepreneur.

Karen acts as outside general counsel for United States companies and for companies investing in the United States from other countries.  She negotiates technology transactions from simple software licenses to complicated research and development agreements.

She has extensive experience advising on joint ventures and alliances, product distribution, intellectual property protection, and ant-counterfeiting strategies, as well as aspects of website development, online contracting and privacy policies.

Karen is chair of the Arizona District Export Council and a member of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council International Leadership Committee. After graduating from law school, she clerked for Judge Mary Schroeder, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She was a Fulbright Scholar during her career, studying European Union law at the University College London and working with a global law firm in London.

Kevin Fuller
Vice President
Global Product Marketing
Nu Skin

Kevin is a 20 year marketing veteran, with nearly all of those years spent in the direct selling industry. His primary passion is developing and launching powerful anti-aging products, and has launched over 100 products during his career. Fuller joined Nu Skin in 2005, and has been instrumental in driving the company's growth through innovation in both its personal care and supplement categories, including the development and launch of the ageLOC brand. He holds a bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Utah and an MBA from Brigham Young University.
 

Eapen George
Former VP, R&D and Innovation
PepsiCo

Eapen's passion is to innovate at the intersection of science and art in order to make the consumer's heart sing.

By leveraging his passion for food and flavors, Eapen championed a flavor development process to create locally relevant and distinctly authentic flavors. He focuses on growing innovation platforms and leveraging local relevance through understanding cultural rituals. PepsiCo embraced this approach as a global strategy for growing the International foods business.

Eapen understands that with the right story, we can create powerful sensory signatures for core brands. He has a network of world-class chefs, wine sommeliers, flavor scientists and food anthropologists. Together Eapen and his team bring about transformational changes in designing the overall taste experience. That coupled with the technology to deliver the flavor makes for a powerful combination.

Eapen is the former V.P., R&D for Innovation for PepsiCo(16 yrs). Eapen's work on developing breakthrough flavors helped build consistent double digit growth for PepsiCo International. During Eapen's work with the Doritos brand he sequenced music and flavor notes to offer a memorable sensory experience. The popular hip pop band Black Eyed Peas gave life to a viral campaign and became a powerful consumer engagement platform. This helped Doritos take off beyond its home markets of USA and Mexico to new territories across Brazil, Turkey, Australia. Lays became the number one food brand.

He was also heading the open innovation for PepsiCo corporate R&D to discover new ingredients to reduce salt and deliver great taste on H&W portfolio.

Prior to PepsiCo, Eapen was V.P. Business Development Asia for McCormick.
 

Workshop

Evan Gilbert
Polsinelli PC

Evan Gilbert concentrates his practice on corporate and securities law, representing clients in matters relating to corporate finance, SEC compliance, mergers, acquisitions, and a wide variety of other commercial transactions. Evan has significant experience representing private and publicly held foreign and domestic companies, as well as international and domestic investment banks, in private placements and public equity and debt offerings. He routinely advises clients regarding the periodic reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance requirements, and the listing standards of the NYSE and Nasdaq. He also assists clients with the corporate formation process, corporate governance matters, and limited liability, limited partnership and joint venture agreements.

Jim Glasheen
General Partner
Technology Partners

Jim has been with Technology Partners since 2002. Jim leads the firm's efforts in Consumer Medicine, investing in both medical device and biopharmaceutical companies.

He serves on the boards of ElCelyx, Essentialis, ForSight VISION5, Revance Therapeutics (RVNC), Transcend Medical, and TRIA Beauty, while also having led Technology Partners' investment in companies that have since been acquired: Iomai (IOMI - acquired by Intercell AG), Cadence Pharmaceuticals (CADX - acquired by Mallinkrodt), Incline Therapeutics (acquired by The Medicines Company - MDCO). Jim is also an advisor to the Lester Center at University of California, Berkeley and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Washington, DC.

Previously, Jim was Managing Director at CIT Venture Capital, leading the group's effort in Life Science investing. Also, Jim was a leader within McKinsey & Company's Pharmaceutical and Medical Products Practice. Jim earned a BS from Duke University and an MA and a PhD from Harvard University in biology. He was a Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellow at Universitaet des Saarlandes, Germany and a post-doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley. Jim has published several research papers and had his research highlighted in major media outlets including: Nature, The New York Times, Scientific American, and CNN.

Matthew Hamilton, PhD
Chief Operating Officer
Wellspring

Dr. Matthew Hamilton began his professional career in 1997 as a Materials Engineer, working at multiple applied-research labs and a specialty coating company that he co-founded. He also served as Industry Liaison at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was responsible for developing industry-academic partnerships. Dr. Hamilton then earned a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University studying the impact of research investment on technology commercialization. In 2008, Dr. Hamilton joined Wellspring to oversee all operations related to software products and consulting services. Matt brings over 15 years' experience in R&D management in both industrial and academic lab settings.

Workshop

Ray Immelman
Vice President - Strategy
DEPCOM Power

DEPCOM Power Inc. specializes in the development, engineering and construction of utility-scale photovoltaic installations. Ray Immelman is responsible for developing and deploying long-term strategy at DEPCOM Power Inc.

He has decades of experience in innovative strategies to drive significant business growth. His past experience as Vice President: Strategic Services at First Solar Inc. helped engineer one of the most rapid and successful "VC to IPO" trajectories in US business history. He had been engaged by the United Nations to develop growth strategies for the economy of an entire country in the developing world.

Ray's work with the senior management of companies like Proctor & Gamble, The Kroger Company, and others in oil & gas, manufacturing, food, and automotive validated his expertise at identifying and leveraging the key attributes for success.

Ray holds degrees in engineering, commerce, and management, and is the author of "Great Boss-Dead Boss" - independently rated as one of the 20 best business books available, published in multiple languages.
 

Kevin Jackson
Vice President and General Manager, Foodservice
J.M. Smucker Company

Kevin Jackson is the Vice President and General Manager of Foodservice Markets at The J.M. Smucker Company. In this role, he oversees all sales and marketing operations for the Foodservice Channel for the Company's family of brands including: Smucker's^(R), Jif^(R), Eagle Brand^(R), Knott's Berry Farm^(R), Hungry Jack^(R), Crisco^(R), Dickinson's^(R), Douwe Egberts^(R), Folgers^(R), Millstone^(R), Cafe Bustelo^(R) and Cafe Pilon^(R).

Kevin has been with Smucker for 13 years in marketing leadership positions within the U.S. Retail business. Prior to his current role, he was Vice President of Marketing for U.S. Retail Coffee, the Company's largest business segment, which includes Folgers, Dunkin Donuts(R), Millstone, Cafe Bustelo, and Cafe Pilon brands.
Kevin has over 20 years of marketing and advertising experience in the consumer packaged goods industry and has been successful in growing sales within mature categories. Previously, he held positions at Brach's Confections, Constellation Brands and Dixon Schwabl Advertising.

Kevin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his M.B.A from New York Institute of Technology. Kevin and his family live in Medina, Ohio.

Robert Kirschbaum
VP Open Innovation
Royal DSM

Mr. Robert Kirschbaum (62) graduated from the Technical University of Delft (The Netherlands) as a Chemical Engineer in 1977. His career with DSM consists of more than 30 years fostering various innovations (fibers like Dyneema, specialty films and Engineering plastics like Stanyl) up to full commercialization.

From 1997, Rob was in charge of the DSM New Business Development Corporation. In this Corporate "Incubator" several early phase commercial activities and new ventures were combined to grow into sustainable businesses.  In 2006 the NBD Corporation was integrated into the DSM Innovation Center.

Untill 2009 he fullfilled the role of Vice President Innovation, focussing on the DSM cluster of Performance Materials. Recently he was assigned as VP Open Innovation of DSM. In May 2010 he received the prestigious Giulio Natta Award and he enjoys a visiting lectureship on Corporate Venturing and Entrepreneurship at the ESADE (Barcelona) and the Erasmus University/RSM (Rotterdam).  Rob is married, has 3 kids and likes to play tennis as well as indoor soccer.

Nina Kjellson
General Partner
Interwest Partners

Nina Kjellson has been part of InterWest's healthcare team since 2002 and focuses primarily on investments in biopharmaceuticals and healthcare IT. She is a board member of Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Cebix, Cidara, Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, Lycera, Ocera (OCRX), and WellTok. Nina co-sponsored InterWest's investment in TESARO (TSRO) and led the firm's seed investment in Alt12. Previous investments include Labrys Biologics (acquired by Teva), Trius Therapeutics (TSRX; acquired by Cubist), CNS Therapeutics (acquired by Covidien), NovaCardia (acquired by Merck), and Aspreva (ASPV; acquired by Galenica). Nina is co-founder and co-chair of ConsumerMed.org, a forum to address the convergence of health care and consumer innovation and serves as a mentor to the Nike+ Accelerator and to Blueprint Health. Investment themes include innovative therapeutics for serious and underserved conditions, IT-enabled transformation of healthcare delivery and patient/consumer engagement.  Prior to joining InterWest, Nina was an investment manager at Bay City Capital, a life sciences merchant bank, and a research associate at Oracle Partners, a health care-focused hedge fund.

Nina began her career conducting health policy and survey research with the Kaiser Family Foundation. Nina received a B.A. in human biology from Stanford University.

Case Study

Rob Mills is the Vice President of Operations at CleanWell Company. CleanWell has developed a patented antimicrobial technology based on essential oils that provides the same level of efficacy as conventional disinfectants without the unwelcome side effects that many of these chemicals carry with them. He is focused on product development and strategic collaboration, with both partners and contract manufacturers, to develop innovative end to end product and supply chain solutions. Rob has over 20 years of operational and product development experience in the consumer packaged goods industry working with unconventional technologies and startup companies.

Keynote Presentation

Rob Mirabella
Senior Director, Leader - Office of Alliances
The Clorox Company

Rob Mirabella, Sr. Director, Leader - Office of Alliances leads the Company's efforts to identify and secure external partnerships that enable the Company to achieve its business and financial goals. Rob initially joined Clorox in 1999 and has held multiple positions of increasing responsibility in consumer research, category management and sales. In addition to his Oakland-based headquarters roles, he also spent seven years in Bentonville, Arkansas supporting Clorox's Walmart and Sam's Club businesses.

Prior to his career at Clorox, Rob joined Information Resources, Inc. after graduating from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Before that, Rob attended Boston College Law School and practiced law in Boston for five years.

Rob is the father of two daughters ages 14 and 12. In addition to his family, his other passions include tennis, basketball and camping.

Ken McLellan
Global Partnerships Leader, R&D
The Clorox Company

Ken McLellan is Clorox's new Global Technical Partnerships Leader. He is focused on building best-in-class capabilities to identify, nurture and manage R&D partners, to lead the R&D partnering mission, and to ultimately grow Clorox's businesses in the marketplace through new successful partnerships. Ken's prior experience includes nearly ten years in open innovation and another twelve years in product supply leadership positions at both Clorox and Procter & Gamble. He and his family reside in the Bay Area, and his interests include hiking, bicycling, paddling and motorcycling.

Workshop

Michael Patterson
Polsinelli PC

Michael Patterson specializes in helping businesses resolve their legal needs cost-effectively by quickly identifying key issues, focusing the right expert resources, and executing on the plan.

Mike understands his clients have a business to run successfully and that the legal side is only one of many challenges to be profitable and compete in their marketplace.

A business lawyer with special expertise in securities and international issues, he sees himself as part of the client's team and tries to provide alternatives where possible understanding that at any given time in a dynamic marketplace, all legal alternatives have strategic and economic cost and benefit that the client must weigh.

Mike, also known as "Miguel" as he lived and worked in Latin America for more than 10 years (Costa Rica, Leon, Mexico City), reads, writes, speaks, and negotiates in Spanish. His international experience goes far beyond Latin America - in the last two years he has assisted clients with needs in Canada, Asia, Eastern/Western Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and all over Latin America and the Caribbean.

Cheryl Perkins
President and Founder
Innovationedge LLC

Cheryl Perkins is a thought leader in innovation and a creative catalyst in brand-building initiatives that contribute to rewarding consumer experiences and improved business performance. She was identified as one of the Top 25 Champions of Innovation by Business Week magazine, named as a "top executive driving vision within the consumer goods industry" by Consumer Goods Technology magazine and received an "Excellence in Innovation Award" from the Asia Pacific Congress.

"Cheryl is an excellent facilitator, good at motivating [the] audience...Provided a good take-home message. She is a highly experienced person in open innovation."
Ravi Mulukutla
Meadwestvaco

As President of Innovationedge she is leading companies across many industries build sustainable innovation capabilities and define sustainable growth opportunities. Her work involves designing and implementing organizational structures, processes, systems and tools that enable innovation and growth. These include but are not limited to ambidextrous growth incubators for new business development, design capabilities, strategic alliances and partnerships, environmental sustainability, safety and regulatory affairs, disruptive technologies and product brokering, and portfolio management.

Read our exclusive interview with Cheryl Perkins, "The New Open Innovation Game Plan -- Business Models, Culture, and Risk, Oh My!"

Rosemary Pennington
Senior Manager, Marketing Innovation
J.M. Smucker Company

Rosemary S. Pennington is a Marketing Innovation Leader with extensive expertise in Product Lifecycle Management and Customization of Innovation processes.
She is currently a Marketing Innovation Leader for the JM Smucker Company focused on the Foodservice Business. She is a founding member of the Company's Open Innovation Core Team and has served as the team leader in establishing a company-wide framework for future growth through open innovation.

She has held prior leadership positions in Innovation Management, Manufacturing, Quality Assurance, Regulatory, Marketing, and Research & Development for the HJ Heinz Company. She is known as a thought leader and has provided strategic leadership in pipeline development and project portfolio prioritization to drive execution across numerous key projects.

Rosemary has more than 25 years of industry experience

Dr. Michael J. Pcolinski
Vice President Innovation & Technology North America
BASF

Dr. Michael Pcolinski is Vice President of Innovation & Technology at BASF in North America. His responsibilities include leading multiple research groups in polymer & materials science, white biotechnology, and analytical chemistry as well as supporting BASF through expanding innovation capabilities & innovation management. He also serves as a primary liaison with universities, government laboratories and other external partners at all levels.

Dr. Pcolinski joined BASF in 1992 and has served the company in a variety of capacities and disciplines including research, strategic planning, sales & business management. Most recently, he headed BASF's Inorganic Chemicals North America business unit from 2008 -2012. In 2010 he established BASF's Inorganic Life Science Chemicals global business unit.

Dr. Pcolinski holds a bachelor's degree from Purdue University (1986) and a doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy from The Ohio State University (1992).

Dr. Suna Polat
Director, Collaborative Innovation & Social Product Development
CIMdata

Read our exclusive interview with Dr. Polat, "Social Product Development: Can LIKEs and Search Improve Productivity, Knowledge Capture, Collaboration and Innovation? Yes! "

Dr. Suna Polat has over 23 years of experience in technology development, product development, innovation management, implementation of strategic innovation capabilities--including modeling
and simulation (M&S), open innovation, knowledge management, and social technologies--and driving change and adoption, through her career at Procter & Gamble (P&G) and with her own consulting practice thereafter.

Prior to joining CIMdata, Dr. Polat developed expertise in transport phenomena (and CAE modeling) in academia, and spent over 21 years at P&G, where initially she developed process and material technologies for diverse product categories. Subsequently, Dr. Polat held various leadership roles; she was responsible for the implementation of strategic innovation capabilities, such as open innovation, M&S, and social innovation platforms, for which a common thread was driving organizational culture change and adoption. During her tenure at P&G, Dr. Polat worked with and benchmarked best-in-class companies in diverse industries including consumer goods, material suppliers, IT technology, auto, airline, and pharmaceuticals, to source technology and identify both best practices and new approaches for cultivating innovation and innovation productivity.

Dr. Polat's current interests include methods to assess the state of connectivity and collaboration in large organizations and networks; the effect of organizational culture on innovation output; and the
influence of communities and social technologies on employee experiences, creativity, and innovation output. Dr. Polat holds a BS (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), an MS (University of Pittsburgh), and a Ph.D. (McGill University, Canada) in Chemical Engineering.

He has served on and chaired numerous boards and committees, and currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Marshfield Clinic Health System as well as several editorial boards. A prolific author, his books include: The Trust Prescription for Healthcare: Building Your Reputation with Consumers; The Trust Crisis in Healthcare: Causes, Consequences, and Cures; High Stakes: The Critical Role of Stakeholders in Health Care (with Eric D. Kupferberg); Forces of Change: New Strategies for the Evolving Health Care Marketplace; and,
Launching and Leading Successful Change Initiatives in Health Care Organizations: Managing Successful Projects (2014). Shore has been interviewed on various aspects of becoming a higher performing
organization in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, INC, and Modern Healthcare.

Case Study

Ronald Sharpe
Research Fellow
Amway

Ron Sharpe is an Open Innovation Fellow with the Corporation's Health & Beauty New Technology Group. He is also a member of Amway's Distinguished Scientific Leadership Society. Ron specializes in strategic technology planning, open innovation and new technology development for the beauty category. In this role he is responsible for identifying which areas of technology development and investment will bring the greatest return to the company. Ron is also responsible for scouting and acquiring external technologies that can add value for both the consumer and the business.

As a 34 year veteran of the skincare & cosmetics industry (24 years with Amway) Ron has also led product development teams in skincare, personal care, and shaded cosmetics. His technical expertise includes: global product development with an emphasis on Asia; skin imaging & bio-instrumentation; Asian skin study; the biology of skin aging; energy based esthetic treatment devices, genomics and enology.

Ron holds a B.A. in Biology from Rutgers College, a Masters in Cosmetic Chemistry from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a certificate in Technology Management from Cal Tech.

Dr. Gene Slowinski
Director of Strategic Alliance and Open Innovation Research at the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University; and Managing Partner of the Alliance Management Group

Gene Slowinski is the Director of Strategic Alliance and Open Innovation Research at the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University and Managing Partner of the Alliance Management Group, a consulting firm devoted to the formation and management of strategic alliances. His clients include Unilever, John Deere, Hershey's, P&G, GSK, Kraft, Battelle, Energizer, PepsiCo, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sherwin Williams and many other firms. Prior to forming the Alliance Management Group, he held management positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and Novartis Corporation. In addition to a Ph.D. in Management, Gene holds an MBA, and a Masters Degree in the sciences.

For the last 25 years Dr. Slowinski has consulted and conducted research on the formation and management of strategic alliances, joint development agreements and marketing alliances. An author and lecturer, Gene has presented his work to The Conference Board, The Licensing Executives Society, The Industrial Research Institute, and The American Electronics Association. His articles on managing strategic alliances can be found in Business Horizons, Research*Technology Management, Mergers and Acquisitions, Economic Development Quarterly, Les Nouvelles, Cooperative Strategies in International Business, The Journal of Advanced Management, and Managing the High Technology Firm. With Matt Sagal, he co-authored the book The Strongest Link. His new book, Reinventing Corporate Growth is the leading book on growing the corporation through Open Innovation.
 

Case Study

Stuart Stein
Director, Open Innovation
Mondelez International

A 35 year veteran of the food business, Stu started his career at General Foods as a Chemical Engineer out of Columbia University, doing product and process development research for Maxwell House Coffee. Living through the evolution from GF to Kraft Foods and now Mondelēz International, Stu has taken on roles in R&D and Marketing that have allowed him to live and work in Houston, Texas, Suzuka Japan, Brazil, Tarrytown NY and now Whippany, NJ working with the Global Gum & Candy team at Mondelēz International. While working in the Gevalia gourmet coffee business, Stu had the first hand opportunity to be involved in managing a business dependent upon external partners for all of its core functions, leading to a strong understanding of the value of external collaboration.

Stu joined the emerging Open Innovation Group at Kraft in 2006, working across business units to identify opportunities to drive business value via external alliances and partnerships. Stu's role today is focused on the integration of Open Innovation practices into the development framework, while at the same time, managing some key technical and business alliances. As the OI model evolves at Mondelēz International, Stu is driving new ways of working, constantly on the lookout for new techniques and approaches to drive innovation and is an active participant at Innovation Conferences and events.

Peter M. von Dyck
Chief Executive Officer
e-Zassi

Peter von Dyck is the Chief Executive Officer of e-Zassi and a 20 year technology pioneer with an exceptional record of developing highly innovative technology companies and disruptive product offerings. He is an accomplished innovator and marketer of new technology offerings in the areas of endoscopic surgery, wound care, implantable medical devices and advanced software programs and has been granted a dozen US patents. He has led the commercializing of over two dozen novel solutions and is an international market maker with demonstrated capabilities in innovation strategy, product commercialization, global business development and intellectual property management. Peter has been recognized as a leading technology entrepreneur, including the Ernst & Young: Entrepreneur of the Year and by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who awarded him the Business Diversification Award for Entrepreneurship. He has led several technology companies as the CEO and his previous technology firm was ranked #1 as the 50 Fastest Growing Companies in Florida.

At e-Zassi he is helping to usher in a new generation of Innovation Management software solutions that allow companies to broaden their innovation reach around the world while maintaining Intellectual Property disclosure control and preserving freedom to operate.

Workshop

James Walbom
CFO
Tiempo Development

James Walbom, CFO, Tiempo Development. James has over 15 years of experience in venture capital finance, corporate development, and strategic planning. He has been the Managing Director of a technology commercialization accelerator at a globally recognized life science research institute (TGen), a Principal at a venture capital investment company representing an international consortium of investors including the family of the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and a C-level executive in multiple rapid growth technology companies. In addition, James founded and is a current board member of one of the top graduate level venture capital training programs in the United States.
 

Dr. Ken Washington
Vice President, Research & Innovation
Ford Motor Company

Dr. Washington currently manages Ford's research and advanced technology strategy - helping to lead the company's accelerated drive for innovation throughout all areas of its business. Appointed in August 2014, Washington leads Ford's worldwide research organization, overseeing the development and implementation of the company's technology strategy and plans.

Prior to joining Ford, he was vice president of the Space Technology Advanced Research and Development Laboratories at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. In this role, Washington was responsible for leading an organization of approximately 700 scientists and engineers in performing research and development in space science and related R&D.

Previously, he served as Lockheed Martin Corporation's first chief privacy officer, a role in which he built the company's privacy program, set the privacy strategy direction and established a team of privacy professionals to execute the strategy. Washington also previously served as the vice president and chief technology officer for the Lockheed Martin internal IT organization, where he was responsible for shaping the future of the corporation's information technology enterprise.

Prior to joining Lockheed Martin in February 2007, Washington served as chief information officer for Sandia National Laboratories, where he also previously served in a variety of technical, management, and program leadership positions.

Washington was born in October 1960. He has a bachelor's, master's and doctorate degree in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and is a fellow of the MIT Seminar XXI program on International Relations.

Benjamin C. Wiegand, PhD
VP and Global Open Innovation and New Business Models,
Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies

Benjamin C. Wiegand, Ph.D. is Vice President, Global Open Innovation and New Business Models R&D, Johnson & Johnson Group of Consumer Companies. In this role, he is responsible for developing disruptive innovations to support the overall strategic and growth initiatives of the J&J Group of Consumer companies. Critical to this effort is the development of an innovation ecosystem, leveraging partners with small companies, entrepreneurs, academics and J&J strategic supplier base. To enable this, dedicated Consumer representatives are housed at the J&J Innovation Centers around the world. Ben e is also working to develop new business and funding models to accelerate these new growth opportunities. Finally, his team is responsible to scout new emerging science areas, eg. microbiome, big data, to understand how these scientific advances can drive innovative growth.

Prior to this role, Ben was the General Manager, Employer Franchise and Vice President, Science and Innovation, Wellness & Prevention, Inc. In this role, he had overall responsibility for the Employer Franchise of the Wellness & Prevention business, which focuses on providing health & performance solutions to large and jumbo employers to help them effectively manage their health care costs as well as improve employee productivity. In addition, he led the overall Science & Innovation efforts to support the Wellness & Prevention enterprise, compassing both the innovation development engine of the organization, as well as measuring and communicating the wide range of industry leading outcomes associated with Wellness & Prevention's suite of solutions.

Ben was with the Wellness & Prevention business since its inception in 2008, working with a cross functional team to demonstrate the strategic importance of this new business to the Johnson & Johnson family of companies. As part of that strategic effort, he served as a core member of the Johnson & Johnson Diligence team in recommendation of the HealthMedia, Inc. acquisition. He also led the Research & Development and Intellectual Property Assessment, and worked on the business model development.
Ben has worked at Johnson & Johnson for over 15 years, with experiences in a wide range of the Johnson & Johnson Consumer businesses. He has a broad range of experience in both short term product development as well as long term innovation. In that role, he was named a 2008 Johnson Medal recipient for his work on key behavioral studies of the effect of rituals in improving infant sleep behaviors.

Ben holds a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, and both a M.A. and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Harvard University.

Workshop

Melinda Wochner
Chief Marketing Officer
CoValence Laboratories

Melinda holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Arizona State University, but her 'life' education has been and continues to be at CoValence^(R) Laboratories.

Melinda began her career with CoValence^(R) in 1994 with the title of 'one who wears many hats', due to that CoValence^(R) was the quintessential start-up company at the time. The 'many hats' that Melinda has worn includes, but not limited to: manufacturing, filling, design, writing, customer service, shipping, supply chain, R&D and purchasing.

CoValence^(R) is a custom and private label cosmeceutical and dermo-cosmetics innovator and manufacturer with a niche of providing novel skin care products to global markets. Creating new innovations for the professional and medical skin care markets was the original innovative focus for CoValence^(R). However, as the exposure of the innovations began to expand, the lab's wheel-house of expertise also expanded to include developing for retail, mass market, natural, organic, MLM, private label and boutique brands.

Over the 25+ years in business, CoValence^(R) continues to realize the importance of global readiness with their innovations and in turn have created a Regulatory Department that aids to demystify the global regulations for their own innovation dossiers, as well as to help clients with their own international ambitions. CoValence^(R) has successfully obtained FDA and ISO 22716 certifications.

Even though Melinda's current primary responsibility is to oversee the Marketing efforts at CoValence^(R), she has been a part of and privy to countless product and ingredient innovations that have reached worldwide success. Currently, CoValence^(R) is introducing new patented ingredients to the global market while partnering with global distributors.
 

Nadim Yacteen
Senior Executive Advisor
PWC Strategy& (Booz)

Nadim Yacteen is a Senior Executive Advisor based in New York who leads a Strategy& client offering called Strategic Intuition, a proven method to generate breakthrough innovations for our clients' most important business challenges.

Nadim's primary area of expertise is assisting clients achieve their strategic objectives by identifying, developing and helping drive execution of novel strategies.

Examples of business challenges addressed through the application of Strategic Intuition include:

• Assisted multinational healthcare organization identify innovative strategy to minimize decline of top selling brand due to market leading competitor losing IP

• Helped leading entertainment company develop transformational strategy to redefine business model

• Assisted global healthcare organization create a novel strategy to increase annual sales through partnership with disparate business units

Prior to joining Strategy&, Nadim was a partner with Navigant Consulting, where he established and led his practice's innovation team. He began his career with Johnson & Johnson and Novartis in a number of U.S. and Global strategic positions.

Nadim received his B.S. in economics from the University of Massachusetts. He serves as a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School, where he shares his experience applying Strategic Intuition in a commercial setting. He also assisted in the creation of the Business Innovation Consulting Lab and serves as a guest instructor to the Columbia MBA project teams.

His interests outside of work include spending time with his wife and daughter, and cooking for his friends.