I have turned my 30-year global VP-level leadership responsibilities at Procter & Gamble into expertise in leadership, innovation, strategy, and organizational culture. I now serve as Professor at Solvay Brussels School for Economics and Management and as Director of The Conference Board's (New York) Innovation & Digital Transformation practice. I teach, speak, inspire, and advice broader audiences living my purpose of passion for innovation, fascination with leadership, and the power of connecting.

By education, I am a Chemical Engineer from the Delft University of Technology. I am also fully Board-Certified (through Guberna) and serve on a number of supervisory and advisory boards.

Retired in 2019 from Procter & Gamble as Vice President of Global Procurement after a career spanning 36 years. I was instrumental in bringing innovation "from outside in" collaborating across functions and suppliers. I was at the forefront of P&G's Connect + Develop drive from the early days.

As founder of Noel & Partners, I consult on "making innovation ecosystems work". Specifically around negotiation strategies, supplier relation management, leadership behaviours, organizational constructs, legal toolboxes, and new business models exploration. 

I have a master's degree in Business Administration from Leuven University and have given guest lectures on "Making open innovation work" at the Vlerick Business School, the Solvay Brussels School and EM Business School Lyon.

Co-founder of Becoming-Aware Consultancy, with the goal of improving strategic innovation output of people & organizations. I am also an active investor & board member for 9.5 Ventures, a pre-seat corporate venturing fund. I teach for the Franklin Covey organization & Solvay Business School.

Prior to this, I have been leading consumer centric innovation & brand building for Procter & Gamble in Europe, the USA as well as 12 years in China. A 30 year long career that came to a close as P&G's Global Open Innovation Manager.

I have helped P&G sharpen its Open Innovation program, and has personally lived through what does and does not work in this space. This has made me a strong believer in, ecosystem innovation, where compatible partners each contribute what they do best to make the "consortium" win. I express this conviction currently as I consult for Workero.

I am an innovation advisor and Blue Ocean Strategy expert, certified by the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. My experience in applying BOS is very wide, from the public sector, working with W. Chan Wim, the co-author of Blue Ocean Strategy, in advising the Malaysian government, to the private sector, where I helped large corporates, SMEs and start-ups across various industries increase their revenues and profitability.

My success stories include names such as Heineken, Bridgestone, AstraZeneca, Goodrich, GSK, 3M and ALD Automotive. I have an MBA from INSEAD - France / Singapore. 

Brett Evans is Founder of InnoSync, a consulting firm specializing in Innovation Management transformations for today’s new business models that require strong partnerships across the innovation ecosystem. InnoSync focuses on solving complex organizational and operational challenges in the areas of Portfolio & Program Management, Innovation Strategy, Resource Management, and Agile Innovation.

Before founding InnoSync, Brett served as Vice President of Innovation Management at Procter & Gamble, where he is known as one of the “fathers” of Innovation Management. Over the course of 31 years at Procter & Gamble, he led some of the biggest new product introductions in the company’s history.

Brett holds a B.S in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA from Xavier University. He has lived and worked in both the US and Europe.

Avi Goldstein is the Founder and Director of PATHWAYS Institute for Negotiation Education in Brussels Belgium, where he works to build individual and organizational capacity in problem-solving, creative negotiation. He started his career in negotiation working with Vantage Partners, a consulting firm in Boston, MA spun out of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Avi has helped a variety of companies adopt interest-based methods of negotiation, joint problem-solving, and conflict management into their organizations. Over twenty years, he has delivered training workshops and programs for a variety of industry-leading organizations, including Deloitte, TIAA/CREF, Johnson & Johnson, Applied Materials, SAS, Beobank, Kraft Foods, Politico, Beci, and the Belgium Association of Communication Companies (ACC). He currently lectures at the Advanced Master in Innovation & Strategic Management at Solvay Brussels Schools for Economics & Management and at IHEC’s Executive Master in European Public Affairs and Communication, among other universities with whom he teaches and conducts learning programs.

The purpose of Relationship Design is the exploration and the design of resilient, trust-based and conflict competent business relationships.

Annelies and Marta combine mediation with visual thinking to facilitate a co-creative process and converge towards a tangible & practical outcome - the relationship blueprint.

Annelies is an independent consultant and business mediator at Stone Partners. She works with purpose-driven organisations on their business development, strategy, and finance As a mediator, she assists in conflict resolution in a business context. Previous experience includes M&A advice with KPMG in Amsterdam and Paris, business development in renewable energy technology and PE investment management.

Marta is a former architect turned strategic designer. Her company, Remember to Play, facilitates organisations through multi-stakeholder innovation and change processes. She applies Design Thinking, Process Design and Visual Thinking to enable participants to tap into their creativity, turn complexity into clarity and make process outcomes clear and tangible.

In the 20+ years working in various procurement roles in Procter & Gamble and Solvay, I spent most of my time and energy in creating, driving and implementing end to end innovative solutions in the broadest sense of the word.

As the key commercial partner not only to R&D, but across functions, I have explored, developed and nurtured (external) business relationships to help drive innovative solutions to business challenges delivering new chemistry solutions, new to the world brands as well as well as introducing new process solutions or business models.

I hold a master degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from Eindhoven University of Technology as well as a teaching degree in my desire to help develop and grow people and organisation capability.

Ed Morrison is a founder of the Strategic Doing Institute, Senior Research Fellow of The Conference Board, and Director of the Agile Strategy Lab at the University of North Alabama. The Lab develops new approaches to managing complex collaborations and networks. He is co-author of the book, Strategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership (Wiley, 2019).

Patent attorney, a role in which I have been close to the innovation process throughout my career. My experience ranges from the in-house role as VP and General Counsel – Patents at Procter & Gamble to partner in an international law firm (Howrey) and, more recently, as solo practitioner. Over the years my focus has shifted more and more to life sciences - biotechnology and pharma. My decision to "go solo" was propelled in part by my desire to work for start-ups. My counseling practice runs the gamut from innovation and IP strategy development to licensing and enforcement. 

I have an MSc and a PhD from Delft University of Technology, a Juris Doctor degree from NKU-Chase College of Law, and I am admitted to practice before the US and European Patent Offices. 

Mr. Sawicki is a retired Procter & Gamble executive with 37 years of experience in Business Development, Chemical Purchasing, International start-ups and R&D. He has deep experience in innovation, sustainability, business building, collaboration and relationship management. Prior to P&G, Mr. Sawicki did 3-1/2 years of cancer research at Roswell Park. He currently is the CEO of Cinthesis, a mechano-chemistry start-up to deliver sustainable, solvent-free chemistry to industrial clients; and is working on launching a second start up in the medical device field. He an Executive-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati Business Accelerator.
 

By education, Mr. Sawicki is a Chemical Engineer at the University of Buffalo. He serves on the Board and Executive Committee for Music to Life, a non-profit mentoring musicians to make positive impacts in their communities.

After many years at P&G's Fabric and Home Business Unit in many positions of R&D Technology, Product and Process Development across regions, I eventually led the global Corporate Process Design Discipline across the Company. We focused on supporting project teams and improving methodology when taking products from bench to market ever more efficiently. I currently serve as technology-process consultant with a number of companies, teach at the University of Arkansas and volunteer as a Technology Expert for the Solar Impulse Foundation. Above all, I get my energy working with teams that are passionate in taking new innovation to market.

I hold a BS/MS in Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and a MS/PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Arkansas (USA).

I have a strong track record taking projects from ideation to commercialization using well proven methodology to address this important facet of (open) innovation.