Speakers
Event Host
Clare Forestier
After hosting the conference in London, we are welcoming Clare back again in Helsinki!
Clare Forestier is a professional business event emcee. Her background is as a broadcast journalist, having worked in TV and radio news across the BBC and other UK broadcast outlets for 25 years. Clare has also worked in private business, undertaking Fortune 500 executive interviews and hosting business events and roundtable discussions dealing with a variety of subjects and industries. Based in the UK, she now runs her own business, using the skills she developed in her journalism career to facilitate and emcee business events and train people in media and presentation skills.
Keynote Speaker
Martin Walker
Photo credit: Klaus Einwanger / © Diogenes Verlag, Zurich
Martin Walker is back by popular demand. He spoke about the macroeconomic situation at our Hamburg conference in 2016.
Martin Walker, is a best-selling author, and ‘A world-class scholar-journalist’ (The Washington Post).. A foreign correspondent for Britain’s The Guardian for 25 years, he served on the Iraq war’s front lines as chief international correspondent for UPI, where he became the Editor. He is now best known as the International best-selling author of the Bruno, chief of police series of novels, which have sold more than 6 million copies in 18 languages and won him France’s Gold medal for services to culture. His ‘Bruno’s cookbook’ won the Gourmand International Prize as ‘World’s Best French Cookbook.’
A regular commentator for the BBC, CNN and National Public Radio in the US, he has been a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC and director of the Global Business Policy Council, the think-tank of the international consultancy of A T Kearney.
A Brackenbury scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, and Harkness Fellow at Harvard, his history of the Cold War was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His coverage of the last years of the Soviet Union won him Britain’s Reporter of the Year prize, and his memoir, Martin Walker’s Russia, was serialized by the BBC. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Die Zeit, Moskovskii Novosti and Asahi Shimbun.
Unpacking Industry Insights
Jean Luc Dubois
Jean-Luc Dubois currently serves as a Principal Scientist at Trinseo. He worked for Arkema for over 18 years as Scientific Director, leading various innovation projects. In recent years, he started chairing the Executive Board and the Advisory Board of the MMAtwo project. He led the workstream on depolymerization technology, which developed a new value chain to process different types of PMMA wastes into high-quality regenerated monomers. Dubois is the author and co-author of more than 150 scientific publications with high cite rating, and 190 patent families.
Unpacking Industry Insights & Expert-led Trend Talks
Vesa Kärhä
Vesa Kärhä is the CEO of the Finnish Plastics Industries Federation. He has worked throughout his professional career, over 35 years, in a different plastics industry mission, from environmental questions to labour issues and all in between. He graduated from Helsinki University of Technology with a Master of Science (Chem Eng).
Unpacking Industry Insights & Expert-led Trend Talks
Ronald Bock
Ronald Bock is Chairman of the Fluoropolymer Product Group of Plastics Europe. He has been working in the field of fluorotechnologies advocacy for over 15 years. Ronald holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and has worked for DuPont and its spinoff Chemours, and currently holds the position of Director of Governmental and Regulatory Affairs for AGC Chemicals Europe.
NextGen Programme – Mentoring session
Duncan Smith – 10 valuable career lessons I learned as global sales director.
How do you deal with external and internal influences beyond your control? Duncan Smith has been a global sales director in our industry for over 25 years. He faced many challenges in a rapidly changing world but always stood his ground. Duncan received valuable advice throughout his career, from which he has benefited greatly. He has selected the ten best pieces of advice, and he will come to Helsinki to share them with you.
Bryan Heath – Two-way Q&A on your career in plastics
Bryan will take you on a two-way Q&A, facilitating a stimulating discussion and highlighting your learning journey and potential. Bryan Heath is a self-made man in the plastics industry. He has a keen eye on people’s potential and what they should develop to become the person they want. In a two-way Q&A, he will show you will find the answers in the questions.
Next Gen Speaker
Anni Siltanen – Future skills for employers in the plastic industry
Anni Siltanen is a chief adviser for the Chemical Industry Federation of Finland, responsible for the Skills and Competence department, educational politics, and digitalization. She simultaneously holds a position at the ECEG (European Chemical Employer’s Group) as the chair of the working group on Education and Lifelong Learning and as a project manager for future skills.