News

03-03-2020

Biorizon’s Advisory Board: a Brief Introduction

Biorizon is on the move from research and innovation to upscaling and applications with first of a kind plants by 2025. In order to achieve the goals, to get strong regional embedding, to optimize industrial assets and activities and to interregional collaboration in Europe over the value chains, an advisory board was installed.

The task of the advisory board is to give advice on the Biorizon road map, to position Biorizon in the Flanders – Netherlands ecosystem and its role in the European sustainable development strategy. The advisory board members will be ambassadors of the bio-aromatics strategy in Europe and look for new economic challenges to strengthen the industrial environment in the region.     

The advisory board is composed of four members from Flanders and the Netherlands. 

1. Peter Nieuwenhuizen is VP Technology Strategy at Enerkem, the carbon recycling company. Peter has over 25 years of experience in the chemical industry in strategy, sales & marketing, supply chain and RD&I, including as CTO for AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals.  
2. Willem Sederel worked 36 years in the chemical and polymer industry with Shell, General Electric Plastics and SABIC and fulfilled global leadership roles in process, product, application development and marketing. Since his retirement in 2013 he has been active in the Board of the Circular Biobased Delta cluster to accelerate the development of a biobased economy in the Delta region.
3. Jan Van Havenbergh is Managing Director at Catalisti (formerly FISCH), the spearhead cluster that accelerates innovation into business in the Flemish chemical and plastics industry. Jan previously worked as a marketing, sales and communication manager in international healthcare markets and as an entrepreneur specialising in strategic analysis of companies in transition. Jan has a strong scientific background in chemical research and business development (IP, valorisation and licensing).
4. Ludo Diels is professor at Antwerp University, former scientific advisor of sustainable chemistry for Biorizon co-initiator VITO, and now vice-chair of the advisory board of the public-private-partnership, SPIRE (Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency).

Willem Sederel and Ludo Diels are co-founders of the Biorizon center and Jan Van Havenbergh supported via Catalisti Biorizon since its founding.

If you want to talk to Biorizon’s advisory board, please contact chairman Ludo Diels via ludo.diels@vito.be or +32 477 62 23 04.