Speaker Bios:  (back to Event Summary)

Shiho is a member of the alliance management team at Novartis Pharma AG, based in Basel Switzerland, where she manages multiple partnerships within Novartis' development and commercial portfolio. Trained as a pharmacist, Shiho started her business development career in her home country Japan, but soon stepped out of her comfort zone and worked in various small-mid-large international pharma companies in Europe over 20 years always related to alliances and partnerships.

Shiho has a deep expertise in negotiations and managing collaborations in the areas of technical R&D, manufacturing & supply, drug development and commercialization as well as implementation of divestments and M&A.

Alberto is the Global Head Digital & Partnerships at Unilever R&D. He leads the Digital Transformation of R&D towards the “Lab of the Future” by introducing digital tools, maximising the use of data and AI for scientific discovery, process engineering and new business models.  He also leads external ecosystem engagements, including the Unilever Foundry, with the purpose of accelerating breakthrough innovation through innovative collaboration models.  Prior to Unilever, Alberto set up and led the Digital Innovation Accelerator at Royal Philips, with the mission to boost disruptive innovation and fuel a culture of intrapreneurship.  

Before becoming global head alliance management healthcare at Merck, Markus was Chief Business Officer Healthcare New Businesses, Global Head Strategy and Operations General Medicine & Endocrinology, and similar leadership roles at Merck including the Country General Manager for Merck Austria.

Markus also has worked in the PwC network and Procter & Gamble.

For more than 20 years already, Frank has been working for SAP in consulting, pre-sales, product management, business development and partnership roles. Since April 2022, he co-leads SAP’s industry partner management team and have the ability to cover a broad field of partner activities across all industry verticals that SAP serves with its line of business and industry-specific solutions. Earlier he focused on Energy and Natural Resources includes Chemicals, Mill Products & Mining, Oil, Gas & Energy, and Utilities. But now this larger variety in industries allows him to work with many different and highly experienced teams, working on numerous topics from strategy and ideation to monetization and go-to-market.

Frederic Bonfils is the Corporate Alliance Management Director for the Pierre Fabre Group, a position he has held since 2014.

He has been awarded the Certification Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP) by the ASAP (Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals). He is an active member of the ASAP French chapter.

Frederic Bonfils joined the Pierre Fabre Group in 2005, and prior to taking on his current role in Alliance Management, he held various positions in marketing, international key account management and marketing/development. During this period, he worked in a wide-range of business units and therapeutic areas, including Oral Care, OTC, Urology, Respiratory and CNS. In all of these activities, the management of external partnerships played a prominent part of his responsibilities. Before joining Pierre Fabre, Frederic worked for Sanofi during 15 years, in Finance, local and international marketing and management of a profit center abroad. 

Frank joined ICW as Chief Executive Officer at the start of 2023. He started his career at CIBA Geigy where he worked as a chemist in their pharmaceutical research Laboratories. He then spent over 30 years with BSI, starting as a client manager, then working in new product development, product management, and was Operations Director for Continental Europe Middle East and Africa region overseeing BSI assessment delivery across the whole region. He then went on to be Regional Director for the Northern European region, where he had R&L responsibility for Germany, France Holland, and Scandinavian countries. He became EMEA Compliance & Risk Director, and in moved in 2021 into the role of UK&I product Certification Director. Frank was responsible for the introduction into the BSI Portfolio of a number of new products including integrated management systems, OHSAS 18001 (now ISO 45001), BS 11000 (now ISO 44001). He developed the ISO 44001 Certification scheme now used for the certification of organisations to ISO 44001. Frank has been a Fellow of ICW since 2014 and was the Collaborative Leader of the Year in 2018.

Carl-Marcus has spent 27 years in the IT industry, starting later in his career as an alliance manager, in 2019. He's played a key role in shaping strategy for Iver Group, a leading Nordic digital transformation partner with strong multi-cloud capabilities.

With a focus on competence-, service-, and co-selling development, he holds a Certification of Achievement in Alliance Management (CA-AM) since 2022. He also serves as a Board Member at the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP), contributing to industry collaboration and advancement.

Catriona Hansbauer works as Director, Alliance Management in the Alliance Management Department in Business Development & Licensing. She manages priority and complex alliances across the BioPharma R&D Therapy Areas.

Prior to her current role, Catriona worked as External Innovation Manager in the Strategy and External Innovation Department within the CV, renal and metabolism area (CVRM). In that role, she managed key collaborations and supported the enhancement of the CVRM portfolio through in-licensing opportunities.

Before joining AstraZeneca in 2015, Catriona worked as a patent paralegal for the patent law firm Mitscherlich in Munich supporting patent attorneys in all phases of the patent prosecution process. Catriona has a MSc from the University of Gothenburg and a BA from the University of Regensburg in Germany. She is CA-AM (Certification of Achievement – Alliance Management) certified.

A recognised global leader in digital technology and business strategy with 27 years of experience building digital ecosystems for the leading FTSE100 and Fortune 500 companies. A successful leader with a robust track record and reputation for his energetic multinational team leadership, sales, technology background and strategy, value-based & consultative selling, business development and strategic marketing abilities. Extended expertise in the enterprise space across different industries and technology, with strong international experience, working in a matrix and complex environments and a proven track record of improving company performance and exceeding company sales revenue and targets through strategic business initiatives, marketing activities and customer relationships.

Ard-Pieter de Man PhD is a board room consultant and professor of Management Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in the areas of organizational forms, ecosystems, platforms, and alliances. As a consultant he advises organizations on these issues on a strategic level. He is the author of over a hundred articles and fifteen books: How to survive the organizational revolution, that helps managers make sense of new organizational forms, and the widely used Alliances: An executive guide to designing successful strategic partnership.

Christophe is responsible for strategic alliances within Dassault Systemes.

Pinard is also president of the French chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP)

Bonnie holds more than thirteen years of experience successfully building, managing and retiring third-party partnerships across the pharma, diagnostics and healthcare industries.

With a background in biochemistry and cellular biology, Bonnie has navigated drug and device lifecycles across multiple geographic territories -- leading global, cross-matrixed teams through early discovery, clinical development and commercial operations.

Stephan is leading negotiations for collaboration, license, clinical supply and other agreements with biotech, pharma and academia to deal execution.

His Alliance Management experience includes: Contract management (expansion / termination of existing alliances), governance management, orchestration of interdisciplinary workflows, relationship building and conflict resolution.

Lasse is Associate Director, Alliance Management at Genmab. He was previously Senior R&D Alliance Manager at LEO Pharma for 3 years, and perviously Innovation Lead at Biosyntia.

Dr. Rosi Liem is a Forvis Mazars Partner based in Germany, leading Forvis Mazars’s Strategy & Business Transformation Practice since March 2023. In this role, she primarily advises clients from the energy, life science, chemical and consumer goods industries.

She brings with her over 25 years of management experience in industry and consulting. Through her work at Hochtief, the Metro Group, McKinsey, E.ON and PwC, she has extensive industry experience and a broad network in the industries she supports.

Antony is formerly Strategic Partnerships Director at Pfizer.

Kaushik is an experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the pharmaceuticals industry. He is competent in leading Project teams and skilled in Research and Development (R&D), Good Laboratory Practice (GLP), Life Sciences and CRO Management. He has a Six Sigma training focused on portfolio and project management across the spectrum of pharmaceutical industry, CRO and academia.

Judit has an academic background in cancer research and manages multi-stakeholder innovative drug development alliances of strategic importance. Through her scientific background and experience in the public and business sector she is well positioned to manage portfolios of assets with different stages and risk profiles. She enjoys bringing together complimentary skillsets and supporting partners to play to their strengths with the goal of beating cancer. She is a keen advocate of equality, diversity and inclusion. 

Mikel is Head of Partnerships EMEA at CyberProtonics. Mikel was recently Innovation PM at Venture Lab; ecosystem orchestrator and author.

He is a Chemist by training, entrepreneurial in nature, with international experience in open innovation: digital health, pharma, energy, cleantech & mobility. He has recognized expertise in bringing eclectic stakeholders and enabling constructive collaboration to a shared outcome. He previously worked for Bayer G4A (Digital Health Start-Up Accelerator) and the Bayer CoLaborator (Biotech Start-Up Incubator) in San Francisco.

He is a Published Author of Today’s Superpower: Building Networks and Co-Author of the academic paper: What Corporates Can Do to Help an Innovation Ecosystem Thrive — and Why They Should Do It

Jeremy Gréant has an extensive background in strategic partnerships and alliances. Jeremy currently holds the position of Head of Strategic Partnerships at Lighthouse, where they are responsible for identifying, selecting, building, and nurturing partnerships within the hospitality and travel technology ecosystem. Prior to this role, they served as a Strategic Partnerships Manager at Lighthouse, overseeing and managing a portfolio of 100+ partners and driving partner revenue. Before joining Lighthouse, Jeremy worked at International SOS as a Strategic Partnerships and Alliances Senior Programme Manager, where they devised and executed partnership strategies, built and managed partnerships and alliances, and ensured effective coordination and communication between stakeholders. Jeremy also served as a Business Analyst and Operations Coordinator, providing analytics, managing day-to-day operations, and implementing processes supporting partnership activities.

Nicole Colwell is an accomplished tech industry leader with over 25 years in the industry, making her mark at influential organizations like GE, Hewlett Packard, and Avaya. Currently as EVP/Chief Alliance Officer at the PraSaga Foundation, she champions collaborative alliances to drive tech innovation. Recognized among the top women in Web3, Nicole is also founder of WESAGA, empowering women in emerging technology. Nicole's insights have graced global stages, including the United Nations, spotlighting her expertise in shaping technology's future through strategic alliances.

Nada was born in Lebanon in 1965 and holds a degree in Electrical Engineering, Ecole Superieure d'Ingenieurs de Beyrouth (ESIB) and an MBA from HEC (Paris). She moved to France in 1995, after 8 years as Head of Sales Department in Matelec - Electrical equipment manufacturer in Lebanon. In 1999 she joined Suez Group as Business Development manager. In 2002, she integrated the Renault Group and occupied several Corporate positions in the Communications - Facilities Management and the Insurance Departments. Since 2012, she has developed her expertise in the implementation of new strategic partnerships, mainly JVs in China, as well as project management in partnerships for the Alliance (Nissan/Mitsubishi), Avtovaz, Mercedes Benz, Renault Trucks, Hyvia and Minth. As of November 2023, she joined Ampere, the new electric and software company of Renault Group, to set up and manage the Business Office in charge of the partnerships portfolio of the company.

Mirjam Ros is a business strategist who believes in simplifying the complex and in making ‘common sense more common’. She is driven by a people and user-centric approach to open innovation, business strategy, collaboration, commercial contracting and Intellectual Property (IP). Mirjam works as an innovation & strategy consultant and coach at nlmtd, an Innovation & Consultancy Agency in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her customers work at start and scale-ups, SME’s, corporates, accelerators, universities and institutes.
 Mirjam wrote 'the Innovation Matrix' with Deepika Jeyakodi. Mirjam worked more than 25 years in the high tech industry, of which 15 years in Leadership and Management Team roles. She holds two Master degrees, in Business Law and in Public Administration & Policy.

Jan Twombly, CSAP, is president of The Rhythm of Business, a service provider with expertise in partnering, alliances, and collaboration offering consulting, education, data-rich assessments, and workflow automation. For over 20 years, she has been a leader in advancing the practice of alliance management. Her current emphasis is on ensuring alliance professionals focus on delivering the services of greatest value to stakeholders; upskilling alliance managers, alliance leaders, and team members, and digitizing alliance management workflow. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), overseeing its editorial and content strategy. She is a frequent contributor to Strategic Alliance Quarterly, regularly speaks on collaboration and partnering, and is co-author of The Partnering Guide™ blog and numerous whitepapers. Visit rhythmofbusiness.com/insights for our most recent publications.

Mark has 18 years of global enterprise sales experience covering Europe and Asia-Pacific. He has proven expertise in implementing growth strategies with new offerings, alliances and channels (SaaS, Services, Consulting and Outsourcing). He has a track record of successfully growing accounts, adding new logos and building high performing teams.

Sameer is a seasoned executive with comprehensive knowledge of global software, AI platforms, cloud and IT services marketplace. At Google cloud, Sameer is currently responsible for the advisory and consulting channel business for EMEA. The focus in his current role is to drive boardroom priorities, help organizations fundamentally re-shape their businesses, deliver large business transformation engagements and enable clients to adopt strategic technologies like AI and Cybersecurity.  In the last 4 years at Google,  he has successfully incubated and scaled up the system integration, outsourcing and venture capital businesses. Previously, Sameer has over 25 years of experience in international operations, marketing and sales at major consulting firms, system integrators and digital agencies including Accenture, Wipro, Capgemini and Publicis.Sapient.

With a career spanning twenty-five years, Nadine possesses extensive expertise in management, sales training, and sales across the top-tier software giants, namely SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft. Her skill set encompasses the design, administration, and execution of intricate sales training initiatives and sales and customer success programmes.

Currently, Nadine holds the position of overseeing the Alliances business in the UK. In this role, she leads a dedicated team responsible for managing strategic services partnerships, which includes SAPs Cloud Service (Hyperscaler) partners. Between 2016 and 2019, Nadine assumed the pivotal role of driving and guiding the revenue growth for the Solution Extension business in the UK and latterly EMEA North. These Solution Extensions, developed by elite independent software partners, seamlessly complement SAP's solution capabilities and are sold as part of SAPs solution portfolio. In the preceding years, from 2013 to mid-2016, Nadine served as the EMEA Director for SAP's Global Sales Academy, where she directly supervised the professional development of all sales graduates across the EMEA region. Prior to this, she held the position of Sales Enablement Manager at SAP UKI for over six years, spearheading comprehensive sales training and enablement programs for various roles including Sales, Presales, and Field Services. Before joining SAP in 2008, Nadine's career included a decade-long tenure at Oracle. Her roles spanned diverse areas, ranging from orchestrating Customer Success programmes in the UK and Ireland, to selling technology solutions in the higher education sector. Furthermore, she excelled as a specialist CRM sales strategist, driving sales endeavours into the telecommunications and manufacturing industries. Nadine is a certified coach, an Accredited Customer Executive Board Challenger Sales Trainer, a proficient analyst in Predictive Index (PI) Behavioural Profiling, and an accredited trainer with the Institute of Customer Success.

Ard-Pieter de Man PhD is a board room consultant and professor of Management Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in the areas of organizational forms, ecosystems, platforms, and alliances. As a consultant he advises organizations on these issues on a strategic level. He is the author of over a hundred articles and fifteen books: How to survive the organizational revolution, that helps managers make sense of new organizational forms, and the widely used Alliances: An executive guide to designing successful strategic partnership.

Lili Zhou, a qualified lawyer in PRC in corporate laws and Joint Venture establishment. In the last 8 years, alone with her move from China to Germany, Lili switched her focus on HR M&As. From both corporate and business perspectives, she has successfully led over 40 M&A projects in HR area for ~20k employees’ transfer all over the world. Lili’s knowledge and experience in laws, HR, project management and culture exchanges made valuable combination for successful HR M&A management. In addition, she has built up different knowledge management platforms to always inspire new ideas, share lessons learnt and enhance professionality

George entered the field of alliance management as the first Global Alliance Director at Roche following a 15 year career in Medicinal Chemistry at Wellcome and GlaxoWellcome and biotech  consulting . After a 9 year career at Roche in UK and Switzerland in alliance management, BD and M&A integrations he joined GSK Biologicals in Belgium to establish and head a new Alliance Management and Operations function managing a range of strategic alliances in Vaccines development. In 2015 George joined UCB in Brussels where he developed a Centre of Expertise and a Community in Alliance Management creating a recognized and value-adding capability within the company for managing external partnerships. George joined Ipsen in 2019 as VP Head of Strategic Alliances Europe where he also developed the Alliance Management Centre of Excellence which has been instrumental in training the company’s alliance managers.  George holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham, UK.

After over 27 years in biotech and big pharma and 17 years at the frontline of business development and alliance management, Knut has seen many success stories as well as failures of collaborations. By sharing his experience and deep insights he enables companies to drive innovation through creating tailored collaborations and executing their alliances with excellence - generating new value for all parties.

At Novartis, Knut served as vice president, global head of alliance management where he strengthened the corporate alliance management function across five divisions, managing a team of seasoned alliance leaders who were responsible for a portfolio of over 300 alliances. Previously, he served as global head of BD&L for two franchises, ophthalmology and respiratory. Knut's teams were responsible for all business development activities, in- and out-licensing, all variations of collaborations, M&A activities and due diligences, and managing the alliance portfolio. In the early years of his 20-year career at Novartis in Switzerland, Knut was leading clinical stage R&D and commercial projects.

Steve is currently president of a newly formed consulting firm. Steve previously had responsibility for AstraZeneca's global late-phase and commercial alliance and integration management (AIM) strategy and execution capabilities. Steve's team led the integration of asset acquisitions, the transitions for divestments, and management of key late-phase alliances for AZ. Steve joined AZ in January 2015, after spending 26 years at Eli Lilly and Company where he was a founding member of Lilly's Office of Alliance Management. Steve is a well published author in Pharmaceutical Executive, PLG's Business Development & Licensing Journal, and Strategic Alliance Magazine and has been a board member and treasurer of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.

Sami is an accomplished leader specialising in developing alliance partnerships and channels, managing strategic sales and directing business development programmes and strategies.

He is currently VP for Global Alliances & Head of Digital Partnerships at BAE Systems – Applied Intelligence. His previous roles include: Global Director of Partnerships at a Google Ventures backed Series C funded Scale-up called Scandit. He has also held senior partnerships roles with Vodafone and BT Group. In 2018, Sami co-founded ChannelGuru, a specialist consultancy and provider of services to help SME/EMB’s improve their routes to market and distribution channels.

Sami has worked in the communications, IT and electronics industry for nearly 30 years in a variety of leadership roles. He specialises in developing technology solutions and the framework to sell them through and with partner organisations and has worked closely with some of the world’s leading technology brands. He joined Vodafone in 2014 to set up the Alliance partner function, which included developing a methodology for assessing, selecting, on-boarding, and developing strategies to maximise alliance led profitable business.  Sami was also responsible for Vodafone’s relationship with key system integration partners in the UK.

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