As Rabobank’s Dairy Strategist, Mary Ledman leads a team of analysts around the globe and is tasked with analyzing developments in the regional and global dairy markets, developing the bank’s medium-term dairy forecasts and advising the bank on its engagement with the dairy industry.
Mary has a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M University. In addition, she received Fulbright Scholarship to conduct comparative research on U.S. and European dairy policies at the University of Goettingen, Germany.
An independent entrepreneur and innovator with a focus on sustainable food that respects nature.
Since 2020, Christian Christensen has been the CEO of DRYK ApS, a company producing plant-based drinks for the high-end market.
After several years as a product manager at Coop, Christian Christensen and his partner decided to embark on a project to develop, produce, and sell some of the future’s plant-based foods—without compromising on taste and quality. The core idea was that by replacing milk with plant-based drinks, it is possible to reduce animal production and promote climate sustainability and biodiversity.
Thorough research into suppliers capable of meeting the high standards for raw materials, production, and quality led to a collaboration with the Swedish supplier Trensums Food.
Despite challenges both personally and in business, Christian Christensen has persevered and worked tirelessly, and he is now beginning to reap the rewards of his efforts. DRYK ApS’ revenue is steadily increasing, and today the company exports to more than 30 countries.
Christian Christensen has no doubt that the future of food is plant-based – and that this shift is necessary. His message is that we must find solutions to global public health challenges while simultaneously reducing the global resource consumption of food production.
Jazz Minhas Technical Sales Manager brings 17 years of expertise and a network of contacts within the F&B industry. Passionate about natural colours and ingredients has turned his attention to highlighting the importance of the dairy industry and immersing in proactive solutions for clients. A delegate spokesperson for dairy media articles with exposure to key global dairy manufacturers he continues to drive the usage of sustainable natural colour solutions.
Colette Jermann is a food scientist with a wide experience across the food industry including consultation for new and conventional thermal processing technologies, fortifying foods, and solving NPD challenges.
She is now primarily focused on maximising the visual, and colourful, impact of dairy products using EXBERRY® colours.
Kasper Hettinga received his MSc and PhD at Wageningen University. Over the past 15 years, he built a research group on the effects of processing on milk proteins in relation to digestion and health functionalities of dairy products. He is full professor in Dairy Processing and Functionality” and also is the chair of the Food Quality & Design Department. He is scientific advisor to 3 startups. He has supervised, and is supervising, ~40 PhD projects, and published ~175 peer-reviewed articles. He is teaching at the BSc, MSc and PhD level on topics related to food science, especially dairy technology.
In his work, he is combining traditional food science approaches to study food proteins with advanced -omics approaches (proteomics, peptidomics), leading to more detailed insights in the effects of processing on milk proteins. By subsequently studying the digestive behavior of those proteins, and linking this to the health consequences, focusing especially on immunogenicity, he aims to get better understanding of the health consequences of dairy processing. His works focuses on milk proteins from different sources: from animals such as cows and goat, to human breast milk, and recombinantly produced milk proteins.
Julia Keppler studied Food Science at Kiel University in Germany where she also received her PhD, and was a visiting post doc at INRAe in France afterwards.
She has more than 11 years of experience in the field of food protein functionality and 99 peer-reviewed publications and holds multiple patents. She started her research group in the Food Process Engineering lab at Wageningen University, the Netherlands 6 years ago with the focus on tuning the structure and functionality of food protein ingredients during processing. In that context, her group explores new food protein sources that range from plant-, single cell -, mussel-proteins, to (dairy) proteins obtained through precision fermentation; unravels their functionalities and delves into the intricate relationship between structure and function influenced by processing techniques. The overarching aim is to identify and create sustainable and functional ingredients for the future.
Audrey Finesso, PharmD, MsC, Clinical Regulatory Strategist has 25 years of professional experience in regulatory affairs from industry (pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies) to consultancy. She worked in different global regulatory affairs departments and gained a strong experience in clinical and regulatory strategy, unmet medical needs, life-threatening diseases (onco/hematology) and orphan diseases. She joined the consultancy world in 2017 and is currently supporting Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry stakeholders with the aim to expedite their development programs and interact with key global Regulatory Agencies (EMA, FDA, National Agencies) through different regulatory/expedite pathways.
Mark Lovern, PhD, is Executive Director of Medical Science Services at Fortrea, and has 25+ years of experience in the application of model-informed drug development (MIDD). Throughout his career, Mark has led and contributed to numerous projects involving quantitative pharmacology. Prior to his present position, Mark spent over 10 years at Certara in a variety of capacities. His work history has been split between biopharmaceutical companies (GSK and UCB) and companies that support the biopharmaceutical industry (Quintiles and Certara.) In addition to modeling pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data across a wide variety of compounds and therapeutic areas, Mark has also taught over 50 technical training workshops on modeling tools and methodology. His most recent therapeutic area experience has been with therapies for infectious disease, metabolic, and autoimmune disorders.
Mark was awarded a Ph. D. in Biomathematics from North Carolina State University in 1997. His favorite leisure activities include hosting dinner parties, traveling, reading, and enjoying films.
Richard McNally has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and 20 years of experience in oncology. He has worked at small and large CROs and in biotech. At Fortrea, he is a subject matter expert for the design of clinical trials, including early and late phase oncology, the design and analysis of cell and gene therapy studies, and for adaptive design clinical trials. He advises both internal project teams and external clients on the design and statistical analysis of clinical studies, and he assists project team in developing clinical trial protocols and statistical analysis plans. He also sets up and manages Data Monitoring Committees across a wide range of therapeutic areas. He has been at Fortrea for thirteen years.
