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Tech Foresight Summit

René Rohrbeck is Professor of Strategy and director of the chair on “Foresight, Innovation and Transformation” at the EDHEC Business School, France. He holds a doctorate from the Technical University Berlin. In his main research field “Corporate Foresight” he is an internationally recognized thought leader and award winner.

In his research he develops methods for participatory foresight, scenario-based strategizing and conducts regular benchmarking studies on the Future FITness of organizations. René Rohrbeck has developed a portfolio of Executive Education courses on strategic foresight, which he has delivered around the world, both as open programs and customized courses for individual organizations. He teaches Strategy, Strategic Foresight, and Business Model Innovation on different MBA programs.

Chris is an innovation and machine learning enthusiast, speaker and the CEO of ITONICS, a vibrant and fast-growing software and solutions company in the field of growth strategy and innovation management. Since joining ITONICS in 2011, he has led a team of innovation experts and international projects across multiple industries helping companies to enable, shape, and grow their corporate foresight and innovation management activities.

Chris has more than 8 years of comprehensive experience in managing the fuzzy front-end of innovation. His profound expertise includes automated environmental scanning with big data analysis, corporate foresight, trend and technology management, startup scouting, as well as the identification and prioritization of profitable growth and investment strategies.

Chris is an innovation and machine learning enthusiast, speaker and the CCO of ITONICS, a vibrant and fast-growing software and solutions company in the field of growth strategy and innovation management. Since joining ITONICS in 2011, he has led a team of innovation experts and international projects across multiple industries helping companies to enable, shape, and grow their corporate foresight and  innovation management activities.

Chris has more than 8 years of comprehensive experience in managing the fuzzy front-end of innovation. His profound expertise includes automated environmental scanning with big data analysis, corporate foresight, trend and technology management, startup scouting, as well as the identification and prioritization of profitable growth and investment strategies.

Tobias is founding and managing partner of Rohrbeck Heger. As industrial engineer he has a background in business and technology and has been working in industry, public-private-partnerships and closely with scientific institutions and startups in the last years. Tobias has designed, implemented and headed the EIT Challenge – a distributed pan-European startup and scale-up contest – from its initial idea to the end of a successful first year.

Further milestones in his career have been the successful development of large-scale, international innovation and startup contests at Multi-National Corporations, the systematic exploration and planning of new business fields, trend analysis methods and tools, and the roll-out of several innovation and trend radars.

Parallel to consulting, Tobias is also an active researcher and business angel. His research has been published in leading international journals and on conferences such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futures, ISPIM, and the R&D Management Conference. Through his investment company, Tobias advises founders, with a particular focus on IT, logistics and mobility.

Danielle Ferry leads New Product Innovation for Moody’s Analytics’ (MA’s) KYC/S business, which seeks to ensure our customers know exactly who they seek to do business with so that they can make informed decisions that comply with regulatory requirements, mitigate reputational risk, and fight financial crime. Danielle brings to this goal the energy and imperative focus of a startup, which she honed during her time in the MA Accelerator, an incubator for transformative innovation in FinTech, where she was focused on new product discovery.

She has held a number of additional roles at MA, including driving strategic initiatives for the MA executive team and leading a quantitative modeling and analytics team. Before joining MA, she worked in asset management and enterprise risk management at C12 Capital Management, AIG, Morgan Stanley, and Bear Stearns. In a prior life, Danielle was a health economist with a passion for public policy. She holds a PhD in Economics from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York and BA in Economics and Political Science from Boston University.

Olga Kokshagina is a professor of innovation management at EDHEC Business School. She is also an associate researcher at the Scientific Management Center of the PSL research university of Mines ParisTech. She holds a PhD in Management Sciences from the PSL University of Mines ParisTech.

Her research interests include strategic design management, innovation and technology management, digital transition, and entrepreneurship. She is interested in interdisciplinary organizations that explore major challenges such as health, climate change, or the energy transition, as well as the regulation of emerging technologies and the future of work.

Furthermore, Olga is a member of the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) and co-leads a special interest group of ISPIM entitled "Breakthrough research methods". She is co-author of the books Radical Innovation Playbook and Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Stephan Mergenthaler is Head of Strategic Intelligence and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. He is responsible for the Forum's strategic analysis capacity on global trends (intelligence.weforum.org) as well as its digital innovation strategy. He has served the Forum in various functions since 2010, having been responsible for the development of the Network of Global Future Councils, the Global Innovators community, the Global University Leaders Forum as well as the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Foresight initiatives. Prior to joining the Forum, he worked as Research Associate and Non-Resident Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin and as researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

He holds an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, an MA from Sciences Po Paris as well as a PhD in Political Science from Humboldt University Berlin.

Further links: https://intelligence.weforum.org/

Joana Lenkova has 15+ years of international experience in the fields of marketing, innovation, business strategy, and strategic foresight. She has worked across multiple sectors including FMCG, finance, and entertainment for blue-chip companies such as AB InBev, Societe Generale, and Disney, as well as successfully growing start-ups. During her career at The Walt Disney Company, Joana held a consumer strategy role and actively led the UK Strategic Foresight team of futurists.

In April 2019, Joana founded Futures Forward Ltd, a strategy and futures consultancy company, working with international clients across the public and private sectors, helping them build robust strategies for the future. Joana is a graduate in Strategy and Innovation from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She is a founding member of the Global Foresight Advisory Council of The Futures School, and a member of the Association of Professional Futurists and the Oxford Union. All views are her own.

After studying food technology at the University of Hohenheim since 2003, Karsten Roth has worked as a project manager, QHSE and QM manager in the food industry. His career has taken him from potato processing and edible oil production to the Allgäu family cheese dairy Hochland - one of the largest private cheese manufacturers in Europe, where he has been QM manager since 2010.

Since his 2016 annual meeting with his boss, which basically went like this: "Karsten, would you be up for being my sustainability manager?" - "Yes, absolutely!" - Karsten is also responsible for sustainability management and climate protection at Hochland AG.

Dorothy Shaver is a Registered Dietitian focusing on food system transformation with unique experience in and passion for driving behaviour change for positive health and environmental outcomes. Over the past seventeen years she has worked across media, retail, health care, marketing, AI, and the fitness industry championing food choices to enable personal and planetary health.

Dorothy’s current role is Global Sustainability Marketing Lead for Unilever’s largest food brand Knorr, in addition to a founding board member of The Food for Climate League and Senior Nutrition and Wellbeing Advisor for syd (iamYiam).

She led the creation of Future 50 Foods report and Cookbook, which has collectively driven close to six billion earned media impressions in more than 95 countries as part of more than 700 million media pieces. It is a collaborative thought leadership piece in which food system issues are outlined with 50 exemplary foods identified that increase the nutrient value and decrease the environmental impact of meals. It is at the core of the Knorr brand innovation and communication strategy. Most recently, Dorothy played a major role in shaping and activating Unilever’s Regenerative Agriculture Principles.

She has been a long-term sustainable nutrition food spokesperson having spoken at global conferences and events including Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, quoted in media including TIME magazine, and featured in radio shows including NPR. In addition to this, Dorothy is a guest blogger, podcast speaker, expert contributor and food writer spreading her positive passion and drive to get the masses to fall in love with food that is good for people and the planet.

Dorothy received her undergraduate degree from Framingham State University and her master’s degree in Public Health Education from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Dorothy currently lives in a canal house in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. When you meet her, she’ll inspire you to join her in being a Varietarian moving toward the ‘Most delicious revolution that ever was’ for the benefit of people and the planet.

François Pitti is Group Director, Strategic Marketing and Foresight for Bouygues Construction. He is leading globally the development of innovative customer offers with a focus on sustainable design, construction and urban development strengthening the Group’s capacity to anticipate changes in its markets. François Pitti trained as an aerospace engineer, graduating from the French School of Aeronautical Engineering (Sup Aéro, Toulouse). He also holds an MBA (San Diego,CA).

He began his career in 1994 at General Electric as a product line manager in the Medical Systems division, before being appointed Marketing Director for Asia in the radiology division, based in Tokyo. He then joined Alcatel and held several management positions firstly in Tokyo where he has been living for eight years and then in Paris as Director of Key Accounts and Director of Partnerships. He was subsquently named Vice President, Strategic Alliances for the whole Alcatel-Lucent group. François Pitti has been a National Economic Advisor to the French Government, by decree of the Prime Minister, since 2008.