Dr. Irina Borodina is a successful biotech entrepreneur and scientist. She cofounded BioPhero, a biotech startup producing insect pheromones for environmentally friendly pest control, that has been acquired by FMC Corporation in 2022. Dr. Borodina also directs a research group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), focused on the sustainable production of chemicals using yeast cell factories. .

Olivier Rolland, PhD in Chemistry, is Managing Director of TWB (Toulouse White Biotechnology), a world-renowned public-private research platform specialised in scaling industrial biotechnology projects from the lab to the plant. Prior to TWB, he held leading positions in major groups (Boeing, Michelin, Total) and notably worked on scaling fermentation-based biofuel and molecules production.

At Breakthrough Energy, Ann is working with European partners to accelerate clean tech innovation in the pursuit of climate neutrality and a net-zero emissions future. She has more than two decades’ experience in high-level public policy and strategy, operating at the intersection of technology, innovation, foresight and entrepreneurship. Previously, she served as Director-General and Head of the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), the European Commission’s in-house think tank, and founded and ran the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based knowledge economy think tank.

Dr. Angeliki Diane Rigos is a scientist, educator, and consultant interested in working across disciplines to promote sustainable solutions to global problems. She has nearly 40 years of experience as both an academic researcher and an energy specialist consultant. She is Executive Director of the MIT TATA Center for Technology & Design, a pioneering unit that trains and supports MIT researchers working to solve challenges facing communities in India and the developing world.

Andrew Hessel, a pioneer and an expert in the field of synthetic biology, is a co-founder and advisor of Humane Genomics, an early-stage company developing synthetic viruses for canine and human oncology. He is also the co-founder and chairman of the Center of Excellence for Engineering Biology and the Genome Project, the international scientific effort to engineer large genomes, including the human genome. He is a former distinguished research scientist at Autodesk Life Sciences.

Andrea Maier is the Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity at the National University of Singapore as. Her research focuses on unraveling the mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases. She is heading international longitudinal cohort studies and geroscience interventions. During the last 12 years she has published more than 370 peer-reviewed articles, achieving an H index of 68, spearheading the significant contributions of her highly acclaimed innovative, global, multidisciplinary @Age research group. She is a frequent guest on radio and television programs to disseminate aging research and aninvited members of several international academic and health policy committees, including the WHO.

Cara is a manager in the Strategic Analysis and Engagement group, with expertise on the mechanics of different carbon dioxide removal (CDR) pathways and their potential impacts. She has particular expertise in geochemical CDR techniques such as enhanced weathering, ocean alkalinity enhancement, and mineralization.

Cara has a background in particle physics, environmental epidemiology, and exposure science. She has worked in multiple international collaborations on topics ranging from fundamental science to the health impacts of climate change. She is also an On Deck Climate Tech Fellow.

Greg De Temmerman holds a PhD in experimental physics and has worked for over 15 years in the field of nuclear fusion. Between 2014 and 2020, he was scientific coordinator on the ITER project and he has published more than 230 papers in peer-reviewed journals. In 2020, he became Executive Director of Zenon Research, a non-profit think tank chaired by Jean-Baptiste Rudelle (Criteo) that identifies and analyses the scientific, technological and economic solutions needed for a future compatible with planetary limits. He is also a research associate at Mines-ParisTech PSL.

Prof Silvia Vignolini is the Director of the Sustainable and Bio-inspired Materials Department at the Max Planck for Colloid and Interfaces in Potsdam and a University Professor in Sustainability and Bio-inspired materials at the Chemistry Department in Cambridge. She studied Physics at the University of Florence, Italy. In 2009, she was awarded a PhD in Solid State Physics at the European Laboratory for non-Linear Spectroscopy and the Physics Department at the University of Florence. 

Vaitea Cowan is one of the three cofounders of Enapter. Sebastian, Jan, and Vaitea worked on the Phi Suea House in 2016, which became a lighthouse project for green hydrogen in Southeast Asia. In 2017, they cofounded Enapter on a mission to make green hydrogen affordable and accessible for everyone. They grew the team from 11 to 200 by 2021. Today, Vaitea heads Enapter’s communications and is based in the Berlin office. Vaitea is on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Energy 2020. Among other awards, she supported Enapter in winning the inaugural Earthshot Prize “Fix Our Climate” launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation.  Her personal mission is to bring green hydrogen to the islands and to hire more women along the way.

Mijndert van der Spek is an Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt University with a track record in process design and optimization of CO2 capture, utilisation, and storage, and direct air capture technologies and systems, using process simulation, techno-economic assessment, life cycle assessment, and advanced uncertainty analysis to inform decision making on the feasibility of technologies and processes. Mijndert has a keen interest in adsorption-based CO2 capture, notably from the air and his team works on understanding the impact of humidity on the adsorption performance of materials and processes. He is the principal or co-investigator on several UK and EU funded research projects, the vice-chair of the EU networking Action TrANsMIT, Associate Editor for the journal Frontiers in Climate and member of the IEAGHG Cost Network where he led activities on new guidelines for technoeconomic assessment.

Frauke Kracke is Head of Science at Stripe Climate and pushes our scientific thinking on the most innovative technological solutions for permanent removal of atmospheric carbon. She holds a PhD in biotechnology from the University of Queensland.

Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil’s work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog.

Christopher Wareham received his doctorate from the European School of Molecular Medicine and the University of Milan. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University and Honorary Associate Professor at the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Much of his research focuses on the ethical implications of ageing and life extension. In this research area, he has edited a volume, The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing, published in 2022. He also works on the ethics of emerging biotechnologies, and published work often views them through the lens of African ethical systems.

Christine is a global leader in agri-food-tech innovation, an energizing community-builder & an activator of breakthrough ideas that create lasting change in food and agriculture. As the Founder & CEO of Thought For Food, she galvanized a community of 30,000+ entrepreneurs in 180+ countries who are dedicated to transforming food systems. The programs she has developed have generated 8000+ business ideas and launched 70+ startups.

Nolen Gertz is Assistant Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twente, a Senior Researcher at the 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology, and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Global Center for the Future. He is the author of Nihilism (MIT Press 2019), Nihilism and Technology (Rowman & Littlefield International 2018), and The Philosophy of War and Exile (Palgrave-Macmillan 2014).

Benjamin Tincq is co-founder of Good Tech Lab, an agency that supports technological and systemic responses to global challenges – restoring climate and ecosystems while delivering progress for all. He is co-author of the report “On the Frontiers of Impact Tech” which analyses 180 areas of technological innovation contributing to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals

Benjamin is an engineer by training, and was previously co-founder of a think-tank dedicated to digital social innovation (Ouishare), as well as a consultant in digital strategy and green tech. He has worked with companies such as Vinci, Michelin, MAIF, Autodesk, Castorama, ADEME and the City of Paris.

Ulrich Betz, Vice President of Innovation at Merck, is responsible for innovation management and strategic academic collaborations at Merck. He is an accomplished R&D manager with >20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, including positions in the President’s Office at Merck Biopharma and positions reporting directly to the Heads of Research and Development at Bayer and Merck. In his current role he designed and implemented for example the Merck Innovation Cup, the Curious2018-Future Insight Conference, the Merck Future Insight Prize, the Darmstadt Science Declaration, the Merck Research Grants and Challenges, the Compound Synthesis Challenge, the Johann Anton Merck Award, the idea competition innospire and the BioMed X Outcubator.

Lana Graf is an impact investor and principal industry specialist at Disruptive Technologies and Funds dpt. at IFC, a private sector arm of the World Bank Group, where she leads deals in Ai/ML and Deep tech. Lana’s goal at IFC is to help bringing advanced technologies to worldwide clients and emerging markets. World Bank group platform is a perfect fit to help with smart and supported adoption of disruptive technologies, through access to countries, sectors, partners and clients of IFC.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Lana spent over a decade as a corporate executive in the Ai/Robotics and Industrial automation sector.

Eric Trusiewicz is a specialist on heavy industrial decarbonization, especially cement & concrete. He is active as a board member, advisor and operating executive working with venture-backed cleantech startups. Eric has worked on cement decarbonization as an entrepreneur in residence at the cleantech venture capital fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, as a fellow at Stanford University, and prior to that has a decade of experience in the cement industry in a variety of executive roles across Europe and the United States. 

Prior to BOLD, Presca was an investor at the private equity fund Five Arrows. Previously, she had been an investment banker at Rothschild & Co. During her earlier career, she was a curator and museum director. Presca is a graduate with distinction of Yale College (BA) and the London School of Economics (MSc), the latter as a Fulbright Scholar. She also holds an MBA from INSEAD

Karine Baudin has over 20 years of experience in business development, open innovation strategy, negotiation of public-private R&I partnerships, fundraising, and alliance management.She joined L’Oréal Research and Innovation in 2015 as business developer, part of the Open Innovation group, in charge of setting up partnerships for R&I division. Previously, she had research experience as a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Francisco and as a research assistant at UC Berkeley. 

Ingrid is a Partner at early stage deeptech VC fund IST cube, where she focuses on life science investments. In parallel, she supports researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in technology transfer matters, giving her a unique perspective on academic spinoffs from both sides of the table. Ingrid holds a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge and is an IP expert and European Patent Attorney.

Frank Thelen is a European serial founder, technology investor and TV personality. Since 1994, he has founded and managed technology and design-driven companies. In his role as the founder and CEO of Freigeist Capital, he focuses on early-phase deep tech investments. He has written two best-selling books, Startup-DNA and 10xDNA. Frank is Chief Executive Officer of the 10xDNA Disruptive Technologies Fund.

Patrick Nathen is co-founder of Lilium, currently working in chief engineering flight mechanics. In his previous roles at Lilium, he built up multiple departments, among others the global product team, where he led the physical aircraft and digital product strategy, product design and overall product market fit. Prior to this, he built up the calculation and design team, shaping the architecture of the aircraft. Patrick holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University of Munich.

Since 2019 Jason Palmer has hosted “The Intelligence”, the award-winning daily podcast from The Economist, where he was previously a science & technology correspondent. He was a fellow of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT in 2014, and has worked also at the BBC and New Scientist. Prior to taking up journalism he was a physicist working on ultrafast spectroscopy.

Ivan Pavlovic joined Natixis in 2008 to cover European Utilities and Oil & Gas majors in the fixed income market. Since 2018, he has been developing expert content on the financing of energy transition. Areas of focus mainly include trends in compliance and voluntary carbon markets, development and financing of green hydrogen projects and carbon capture processes.

Starting with Dolly the Sheep and the Human Genome project, Richard has helped companies, countries, NGOs and research centers successfully communicate the benefits of their science to stakeholders over the last 30 years. With partners across Europe, his new agency RHA Communications specialises in providing deep tech start-ups with integrated communications packages.

Gwen is a Partner on the Investment Team at Khosla Ventures.
She was previously a Partner at IndieBio/SOSV covering bio and AI. Prior to IndieBio, Gwen was the founder and Managing Partner of Galapagos Ventures, an early stage venture fund focused on the intersection of biology and AI/ML. She was an early investor in SyntheX, Intrinsic Medicine, and Huue. 

Co-founder, Managing Partner IQ Capital – UK deeptech early stage VC $1bn AUM investing from seed to – £30m from 4th Fund and Growth Fund. Chair, BVCA (2021/22). Honorary Fellow in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University, Independent IC member for British Patient Capital – Life Science, Co-invest programmes and Future Fund:Breakthrough. Advisor to Governments on VC and R&D ecosystems.  Specialist in Regtech, Suptech, Cyber, big data, defence and security investments and guiding founders through GTM, competitive intelligence and mar-tech scale.

Hal Hodson is The Economist’s special projects writer, based in London. He joined the paper in 2016 as science and technology correspondent, writing about face recognition, tigers and the brain. In 2018 he was named Britain’s best science writer. In 2019 he moved to Hong Kong to take up a new role as Asia technology correspondent. He returned to London during the pandemic to join the paper’s covid team, writing on the immune system, vaccine manufacturing and data science. His work currently focuses on technology trade and decarbonisation.

In 2005, he headed product marketing in London and then consumer marketing for Orange. In 2008, he became Executive Director of Carrefour, in charge of marketing, e-Commerce and merchant services. In 2012, he launched Barnes & Noble’s tech business, Nook, internationally. In 2015, he joined the Boston Consulting Group as Associate Director of BCG Digital Ventures. In 2020, he joined the group Edenred as Chief Innovation Officer in Asia-Pacific, member of the Executive Committee.Patrick has worked for 30 years in tech and digital, on the launch of new companies and their transformation.

Paavo is a Partner at Maki.vc, working with pre-seed and seed stage deep tech companies across Europe. His investments span the deep tech space from sustainable textiles to industrial climate tech, alternative proteins and nanotechnology. As a former entrepreneur and startup executive, Paavo has acquired practical knowledge on commercialisation and business building from strategy to operations.

Omar Zahr began his career in venture capital after graduating with a PhD in chemistry from McGill University in 2015 and subsequently pursuing a deep interest in nurturing university inventions to commercial maturity. 8 years later, Omar Zahr is now the CTO of TandemLaunch, a VC fund and startup foundry that provides a turn-key solution to company creation for university researchers looking to see their inventions transformed into legitimate, high-value and socially impactful companies. 

Sergey is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded 3 deep-tech ventures (including Koatum and Vortex Oil Engineering) and raised more than $50 million in venture funding. He has advised several other startups in the therapeutics space on fundraising, IP protection, and clinical trial strategies. He is also a Visiting Lecturer to several universities on venture capital and intellectual property rights and co-authored a master’s program in Technology Law for the Riga Graduate School of Law. 

Pauliina Meskanen is the founder of Survivaltech.club, a popular newsletter on deeptech climate innovation. She is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Lifeline Ventures, a Helsinki-based early-stage VC, and a venture partner at Climate Capital Bio, a US-based biotech climate VC. Previously, Pauliina helped commercialize energy innovations at VTT, the Finnish state-backed research institution.

Seth Bannon is a Founding Partner at Fifty Years. Seth has seeded a range of deep tech startups shaping the world for the better — companies like Upside Foods (culturing meat to eat), Solugen (engineering enzymes to make carbon negative chemicals), and Astranis (small satellites to cover the Earth in Internet).Passionate about helping more PhDs start startups, he and Fifty Years published the Spinout Playbook, a guide to spinning out of academia.

Constantijn van Oranje leads Techleap.nl, the accelerator for the tech ecosystem in the Netherlands. As Special Envoy, he is on a mission to turn The Netherlands into a unicorn nation. He and his team connect the Dutch tech ecosystem to help ambitious and
promising Dutch tech companies grow fast internationally by improving their access to capital, market, talent and technologies.Constantijn co-founded StartupFest Europe, which is still the biggest start-up event ever organized in The Netherlands.

Helen Albert is a freelance science journalist and senior editor at Inside Precision Medicine.Prior to going freelance, she was editor-in-chief at Labiotech, an English-language, digital publication based in Berlin focusing on the European biotech industry. Before moving to Germany, she worked at a range of different science and health-focused publications in London. She was editor of The Biochemist magazine and blog, but also worked as a senior reporter at Springer Nature’s medwireNews for a number of years. 

In his role as CEO, Krijn guides Meatable’s strategic direction. Before founding Meatable together with Daan Luining, he worked for 6 years at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he focused on strategy development and operations. After leaving the company he planned to take a year off, but he quickly met Daan and together they founded Meatable. Through Meatable, Krijn is realizing his ambition to contribute to several of the biggest challenges of his generation.

Guillaume is the Chief Scientific & Industrial Officer of PILI, a french biotechnology and green chemistry company. PILI develops and produces sustainable high-performance dyes and pigments. PILI has scaled up to the ton-scale several biobased chemicals as well as associated down-stream and chemical processes.

At the deep tech mission of BCG, Nicolas is driving change towards a sustainable future by aligning technological advances and business opportunities in a way that breaks the compromise between sustainability and profitability.
To this end, he can draw upon his experience pursuing a PhD at the interface between biology, chemistry and physics at EPFL, assessing new, science-based technologies and thinking through how to anticipate their impact on our future at Hello Tomorrow as well as directing the development of digital health tools as a Mercator Fellow for Médecins Sans Frontières in the Middle East.

Francesco is a physicist and has been passionate about fusion since the age of 16. He dedicated his studies to heating, diagnosing and stabilizing fusion plasmas and liquid metals. After working on all major magnetic fusion concepts, he concluded that simplified stellarators are the shortest road to net fusion energy and a start-up is the fastest vehicle to it, so he co-founded Renaissance Fusion in 2020.

Peter is Partner at Solvay Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Solvay Group, a global leader in specialty chemicals and advanced materials. Established in 2004, with a global footprint, Solvay Ventures has over $100m assets under management. Solvay Ventures manages a portfolio of funds and direct investments to support the Group’s innovation efforts. In addition to providing capital to start-up companies, Solvay Ventures leverages Solvay capabilities and network to generate business synergies and partnerships between the start-ups and Solvay’s BUs and Innovation Platforms. 

Marianne is the Managing Partner of BBV-T1ST, an innovative cross-border seed-stage venture fund backing mission-driven founder scientists who are accelerating industrial transitions in humanity’s critical sectors: Manufacturing, Food and Health. Passionate about investment and impact, Marianne has more than two decades of experience in cross-border Corporate Finance with the last 10 years focused on startups and VC in Europe, US and Israel. 

Alice Toderi has been the Chief Marketing Officer at HELLO NATURE (formerly Italpollina) for nearly seven years. With a background in healthcare and beauty, Alice brought a consumer-focused mindset to Hello Nature, which she drew on as the driver behind the rebranding of the group. She also managed the integration of the marketing department at a global level, focusing the efforts on the biostimulants sector of the group, building the awareness through several initiatives and the creation of the biostimulant.com platform. 

Andra Keay is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, the non-profit industry association founded by advanced robotics companies to let the rest of the world know what’s really happening in robotics. An experienced strategist, she speaks globally about the investments and the impact of robotics in society. Andra is also the VP of Global Robotics at AMT, a Visiting Scholar at CITRIS People and Robots Lab, an Advisor to Circuit Launch, a partner at The Robotics Hub, founder of Women in Robotics, VP of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s Industrial Activities Board, Deep Tech Lead for IEEE Entrepreneurship, and creator of global Robotics Clusters.

Stéphanie Paix is in charge of Groupe BPCE’s global businesses and Chief Executive Officer of Natixis since December 3, 2022. She started her career in the Audit Department of the Banques Populaires from 1988 to 1994. She became regional manager at Banque Populaire Rives de Paris and then manager in charge of the back office and organization from 1994 to 2002.She then moved to Natixis Banque Populaire as head of the back offices of the Corporate Banking division. In 2006, she was appointed General Manager of Natixis Factor and became a member of the Executive Committee of Coface. In 2018, Stéphanie Paix became Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of the General Inspection Division of Groupe BPCE. 

Igor Kocis is a co-founder of GA Drilling and has over 30 years of engineering, business leadership, and serial entrepreneur experience. As CEO of GA Drilling, Igor is fully dedicated to bringing affordable, cheaper, and cleaner energy to everyone in the world. Igor is responsible for GA Drilling’s company strategy and business management, leading the strategic investment process and driving the company from its R&D stages to the first pilots. Igor was selected for the exclusive list of the top 100 innovators in CEE, and the company has been repeatedly ranked among the best European innovation companies. Igor received an M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Slovak University of Technology.

Olivier is Executive Director for Entrepreneurship at Genopole, where he backs biotech startups catalyzing bioeconomy industries. Olivier has over twenty years of startup generation, company development , and deeptech commercialisation. He has spent several years in setting up and managing various startup development programs in France and the UK and has been appointed as an innovation expert for the French Government in Northern California. Olivier is an an advocate of ecological transition being powered by biotechnology

Jean-David Malo became Head of Unit in charge of regional aspects in DG R&I (2006-2010), of the Unit in charge of increasing private finance and closing market gaps by expanding existing EU innovative financial instruments (see RSFF) and by developing new ones in the fields of debt (including guarantees) and equity financing (InnovFin) (2011-2013) ; and of
the Unit in charge of the support to Horizon 2020 SMEs (i.e. EUROSTARS II, SME Instrument and the Fast Track to Innovation) and on Financial Instruments and State Aids (2014-2017).In 2019, following the European Council’s request to set up the European Innovation Council (EIC), he became Director of the EIC Task Force.
Since April 2021 he is the Director of the Agency for EIC and SMEs – EISMEA.

Karin Santana Rodriguez in is an experienced leader who has successfully performed academic, management and entrepreneurial roles in Venezuela, USA and Canada. Karin obtained her BSc degree in General Sciences at Fordham University (New York, USA), which led her to work as a research associate at FUNDALAS, Foundation for Interdisciplinary Research and Development in Caracas. Having also acquired administrative experience at two Fortune-500 companies, Karin co-founded and is the CEO of Polytone Laser Inc. – a Canadian MedTech startup that seeks to develop a breakthrough non-invasive laser technology for the systemic treatment of solid tumors and other complex diseases.

Przemek is the CEO of Nevomo and co-founder of the company. Previously, he held the position Chief Product Officer responsible for coordinating the development of Nevomo’s products, including supervision of R&D projects and collaborations in technology areas. Przemek has over fifteen years of managerial experience in finance and sales, gained mostly in private banking, fund management, real estate brokerage and land development sectors. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and a Ph.D. candidate at Kozminski University in Warsaw (Management in New Technologies). 

Jérôme leads our Deep Tech Advisory & Ecosystem offering, aiming for disruptive and sustainable business model innovation by bridging over corporates and the deep tech ecosystem. He has extensive experience on innovation processes, product R&D in high tech industries, agile transformation & program management. Jérôme received his Master in Business Studies from HEC Paris in 2002, and is also an exchange graduate from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. Formerly with Renault Nissan, he joined BCG in 2011 and brings 20+ years of experience. He is passionate about sustainable development, philosophy & the ethical use of breakthrough technologies.

Susanne joined Amadeus in 2023 and is a Partner in Amadeus’ European early-growth deep tech strategy.

She is a professional venture capital investor and angel since 2014 and has led and co-led more than 20 investments in deeptech including health and biotech.

Susanne was previously a Partner at Verve Ventures. She has served as board member or observer on several of her portfolio companies such as: CREAL, a leader in lightfield technology for VR and AR; antibody discovery platform MemoTherapeutics; high throughput organism-on-chip animal testing alternative Nagi Bioscience; retinal biomarker company Earlysight, AI assisted diagnostics provider Medimaps; breakthrough oral delivery system plaform Biograil and next generation gene therapy company Somagenetix.

Hattan is the Entrepreneurship Director at KAUST delivering the university’s entrepreneurship vision. He
believes in young people as change agents of the future and that universities play a key role in creating
national economic impact. In his role as an advocate for innovation, Hattan works across the entire
entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Kingdom, delivering entrepreneurship training, creating corporate
innovation programs, and investing in startups that will contribute to the national transformation
agenda.

Chayma BOUAZZA is the Regional Manager Middle East at PASQAL, a full-stack quantum hardware player offering quantum processors based on neutral atoms technology. She is in charge of building collaborations with public and private stakeholders with the goal to build a quantum ecosystem in the region. Previously she worked as an Innovation Consultant on a wide range of topics such as mobility, nanotechnology, renewables, etc. Chayma has a PhD in ultracold atoms from École
Normale Supérieure (Paris – France).

Yair Reem is a Partner at Extantia Capital, a climate-first venture capital firm accelerating the path to a decarbonised world. Extantia backs daring entrepreneurs whose breakthrough ventures can significantly reduce emissions and accelerate the transition to a decarbonised society. Previously, Yair was Managing Director at Hasso Plattner Ventures and a cyber technology leader at Israel’s Unit 8200. Yair holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Technion (Israel), Executive MPA from Hertie (Germany), and AMP from Wharton (USA)

Kinga has 20 years of experience in investments and finance. She is founder of Experior VC, investing in companies across all verticals with a CEE nexus. She is founder of European Women in VC platform and IC member of the EIC Fund. Kinga was management board member of Polish VC Association for 5 years. She sits on the board of private and public companies. She is named one of the TOP 50 of Europe’s most influential women in the start-up and venture capital space by EU Startups and top 50 women in tech in Europe by Forbes.

Hubert is the Chief Operating Officer at Owkin where he leads strategic planning and operations. He brings 10+ years of product management and strategy experience from the industrial biotechnology industry. Hubert started his career with synthetic biology pioneer Amyris, and held various roles leading the development and commercialization of novel molecules for the consumer care market. A graduate from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, Hubert also holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Prior to joining the French Tech Mission, Clara held various management positions in the startup ecosystem all around the world. From 2019 to 2021, she was the Chief Business Officer of Vestiaire Collective, the French unicorn peer-to-peer marketplace for premium and luxury pre-owned fashion.

Matthias Meiner is one of Lilium’s four Co-Founders and currently holds the position of Chief Engineer Systems
Integration.
He studied Mechatronics and Information Technology at the Technical University Munich. When he met Daniel
Wiegand in 2014, he had just started a PhD in Robotics. Fascinated by the technology and vision behind the
Lilium Jet he decided to quit his PhD and joined Daniel, Sebastian, and Patrick as a co-founder of Lilium.

Emmanuel is CEO at Aenitis Technologies and Senior Entrepreneur in Residency at Agoranov. He holds a Master degree in Biology, a specialized Master in Biotech Companies’ management (Grenoble Management School) and an Executive MBA (UQAM and Paris Dauphine). Emmanuel has a strong professional experience in start-up launching strategic intelligence in the biotech. He supported over 50 start-ups launching such as Doctolib, Cardiologs, Eligo Bioscience, Corwave or DNA Script.

Jean-François Bobier is a core member of Boston Consulting Group’s Technology Advantage practice with a focus on technology-driven transformation at scale. Since joining BCG in 2004, Jean-François has partnered with clients across multiple industries on projects related to digital, software engineering, agile, and deep tech.Jean-François leads BCG’s R&D initiative on quantum computing and technology and digital organization. Prior to joining the firm, Jean-François worked as an IT architect for Fidelity Investments and IBM Business Consulting Services.

S. Sita Sonty leads Boston Consulting Group’s Commercial Space team, working to expand the client base for the space economy. She serves as a senior BCG Defense and Security expert and a BCG Federal core member, advising sovereign governments on defense, civil, and commercial space strategic trends. Sita helps shape BCG’s aerospace and defense corporate strategy, risk, sales projection, and go-to-market functions.

Renita Kalhorn is an executive coach, Forbes contributor and creator of The High-EQ Founder. She’s worked with 1,300+ clients in 40 countries and specializes in helping deep tech founders level up as leaders so they can execute on their vision.

Brian grew up in Luxembourg and studied mechanical engineering in Switzerland (ETH Zurich) and Boston, U.S.A. (MIT). He has worked on liver perfusion (Wyss Zurich, CH) and the structural heart (CorWave, FR & Alluent Medical, FR), before turning his attention to the eye at Pixium Vision as Director of R&D.
Over the last 15+ years he has established a proven track record of bringing the most ambitious projects from the drawing board to viable products.

Lisa Melton is Senior News Editor at Nature Biotechnology. Lisa has a PhD in Immunology and a Biochemistry degree from The University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She moved to the UK to work as a postdoc at the National Institutes of Medical Research in London (now the Crick) and later switched to science journalism at the Novartis Foundation. She has written for the Economist, the New Scientist, Scientific American, the Observer and Times, and for the last 14 years, has been covering biotech news for Nature Biotechnology.

Jonny is a Founding Partner at Marble, a climate deeptech venture studio solving hard climate problems. He’s mentored over 200 future founders on their journey from pre-company to venture backed startup. Passionate about the potential of individuals who can create radical change.

Pathfinder in Europe, the US and Canada, Eric is supporting as Venture Partner Breakthrough Energy Ventures. In his previous entrepreneur roles, Eric was CEO of a Canadian medical device company, quoted in the US & producing robotic devices with AI solution and, beforehand, Eric was President Europe of a startup company, translating pioneering 3D bioprinting technology for innovative treatments for children patients with rare disorders. Former senior executive in the pharmaceutical industry, Principal with the Boston Consulting Group, Eric is a Medical Doctor -specialized in public health & epidemiology-, a Physical Chemist -specialized in air pollution & physics of the environment-, and a MBA.

Pierre-Philippe Mathieu is heading the Φ-lab Explore Office at the European Space Agency in ESRIN (Frascati, Italy), aiming to connect people, ideas and digital technologies to help shape the future of Earth Observation. He spent 20+ years working in the field of environmental and ocean modelling, weather risk management and remote sensing. He has a degree in mechanical engineering and M.Sc from University of Liege (Belgium), a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Louvain (Belgium), and a Management degree from the University of Reading Business School (Uk).

Esther Peeks is a team dynamics expert at the Netherlands’ only deep-tech venture builder, HighTechXL in Eindhoven. She supports startups from team recruitment and formation to high performance level. Esther and her team bring together entrepreneurial, innovation-minded individuals and groundbreaking technologies to solve grand societal challenges the world faces today. Special interests include diversity in teams, female leadership and objectifying the gut feeling we have about team performance of the teams we work with in the program

Lise has been working in venture capital for the last six years. Most recently, she was Founding Partner of Propagator Ventures, an early-stage deep tech VC with investments in North America and Europe. Before that, she was Investment Director at Nordic Impact and Investment Manager at the German Corporate VC Bauer Venture Partners. She also worked operationally at the company-builder Rocket Internet, being MP in several Nordic markets. She has a Ph.D. in Management, Technology & Economics (MTEC) from ETH Zurich and is half-Norwegian, half-Swiss, however against all odds, terrible at skiing.

Zero Carbon Capital is an early-stage venture fund backing European companies building innovative, scientific solutions to the biggest, hardest challenges of decarbonisation. We’re making pre-seed and seed investments across all emissions sectors; from agriculture to industrial processes, and energy to transportation.

Stefano is the founder and sole GP of Unruly Capital, a pre-seed investment firm investing in what’s crazy today and normal tomorrow. He has invested now in more than 100 companies, and previously was a YC-backed founder, spending 5 years in the valley.