Marc Leifer
Mr. Marc Leifer is a chemistry graduate with more than 30 years' experience in the field of thermoplastic and thermoset polymers' formulation, transformation processes, analysis and properties assessment.
In 2003 Marc was appointed R&D EVP at Kafrit Group (Israel) and in 2008 as CTO at Caesar Stone.
Marc holds the position of Global TMS Manager at ICL-IP FR SBU since 2011.
Dr. Evert Smit
Dr. Evert Smit, a Dutch national, is active in the adhesive business since 1992, with major focus on Pressure Sensitive Adhesives and their applications in all possible field. This ranges from Medical, Building & Construction, Graphics, Electronics, to Transportation / Automotive. He has experience at different points along the value chain, from raw material to final tape application, and at different areas in the technology: from basic research to customer technical service. Having worked for National Starch & Chemical (Unilever, ICI), Henkel and Arizona Chemical (Kraton), he joined Lohmann in September 2015 to lead the R&D departments globally. Since end 2020 he is Director Scouting – co-creating the future of the Lohmann Company (https://www.lohmann-tapes.com/en/), actively scouting for and working with start-up companies and spin-offs that will contribute to the future of Lohmann.
He is currently President of the European Adhesive Tape association, Afera (https://www.afera.com/), after being Chairman of their Technical Committee for several years.
He presented many times at international conferences on the progress in the adhesives- and their applications fields, both from scientific and business standpoints, and both from his company and from his roles at Afera.
He lives with his family in Bonn, Germany.
Sam Haig
Sam is Battery Recycling Business Manager at R S Bruce Metals and Machinery, a precious metal recovery company in Sheffield, UK, and was previously Head of Engineering and Research at Axion Recycling. Sam has a decade’s experience in the waste management and recycling sector and has worked on a diverse range of projects from commissioning of residual waste treatment facilities to developing a patented process for fuel cell membrane recycling. Over the last five years, Sam has worked on the development of novel recycling techniques for lithium-ion batteries, collaborating with companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, and Johnson Matthey. Sam is a chartered chemical engineer and member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Nathan Williams
Nathan Williams is the Founder & CEO of Minespider, a blockchain system for tracking responsibly-sourced materials along the supply chain, with ongoing projects with Fortune 100 companies such as Volkswagen and Google. Nathan has facilitated blockchain workshops as a visiting expert for the UNECE and the World Economic Forum. He has been featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, Huffington Post, and Wired Germany.
Professor Ton Peijs
Ton Peijs is the Professor of Polymer Engineering and Director of the National Polymer Processing Centre (NPPC) at WMG - University of Warwick and has been active in the field of polymers and composites for over 30 years. Ton has published over 300 peer reviewed papers in scientific journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. He has given numerous invited and keynote lectures at international conferences and has successfully supervised over 40 doctoral students. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal 'Nanocomposites' (Taylor & Francis Publ.) and is on the editorial board of another 15 international journals in the field of materials. His research interest are in thermoplastic composites for lightweighting, and sustainable and multifunctional polymers and composites.
Alberto Minguela
A building engineer and construction manager by training, Alberto holds a MSc in sustainable energy and the environment from the University of East London. He has worked with HSSMI since 2016 – first as a circular economy specialist – gaining an understanding of how the circular economy can be leveraged by the manufacturing industry and its extensive supply chain as a closed loop system. He has extensive experience as a circular economy entrepreneur, having co-founded Adaptavate, an award-winning start up. He is a certified practitioner in project management and lean manufacturing and holds an IMIAL Level 4 Award which certifies him in high voltage battery handling. He is considered a thought leader on end of life batteries, fostering transnational cooperation in the field, and is a founding member of the Sustainable Batteries Steering Group UK, a friend of the Global Battery Alliance and leader of project VALUABLE in the UK, chairing its Industrial Advisory Board.
He is currently Research & Innovation Manager at HSSMI, leading the development of successful collaborative R&D projects across the business, building consortia with national and international companies, tapping into his network thinking skills.
Fergal Harrington-Beatty
Fergal has over six years’ experience as a senior engineer and program lead in the electric vehicle industry having worked at Potenza Technology (BMS and EV battery integration specialist) and HSSMI (consulting automotive OEM’s incl. JLR, Ford, LEVC and Williams AE) prior to joining AMTE Power to lead their grant-funding strategy and automotive & aerospace strategy.
Fergal is drawing on his time leading multiple NVN, IUK, Faraday and APC projects to ensure AMTE successfully develops their Ultra Cell range from the R&D phase in Thurso, through scale-up to high volume in AMTE’s planned UK-based Gigafactory.
Ellison Anne Williams
Ellison Anne Williams is the Founder and CEO of Enveil, the pioneering Privacy Enhancing Technology company protecting Data in Use. Building on more than a decade of experience leading avant-garde efforts in the areas of large-scale analytics, information security, computer network exploitation, and network modeling, Ellison Anne founded the startup in 2016 to protect sensitive data while it's being used or processed – the 'holy grail' of data encryption. Powered by homomorphic encryption, Enveil’s award-winning ZeroReveal® solutions provide Trusted Compute in Untrusted Locations™, enabling previously impossible business functionalities for intelligence-led decision making.
Leveraging her deep technical background and a passion for evangelizing the impact of disruptive technologies, Ellison Anne has helped define and advance the Data in Use security space and cultivated Enveil’s capabilities into category-defining solutions that enable secure search, analytics, sharing, and collaboration. In addition to her ongoing contributions as a cybersecurity mentor and thought leader, Ellison Anne has been recognized as an SC Media Reboot Leadership Innovator Award winner, a Woman to Watch in Security, and a CyberScoop Leet List Honoree. She started her career at the U.S. National Security Agency and holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Algebraic Combinatorics), a M.S. in Mathematics (Set Theoretic Topology), and a M.S. in Computer Science (Machine Learning).
