Archives: Speakers

Having almost 20 years experience in the flavour industry Natalia worked for Symrise  in a number of different roles including  Head of Beverage Sales in Russia, Category Manager in BU Beverages, Competence Business Development Manager. Most recently Natalia is responsible for Taste Modulation Competence in BU Beverages looking after respective portfolio of Taste Balancing Solutions to answer the industry challenge of how to find balance between healthy nutrition and great taste.

Katharina Schäfer is a food scientist and has worked as a Product Manager at Hydrosol for more than 4 years. One of her major responsibilities is to seek out new trends in the food industry, in order to present to customers ways in which our products can address the latest developments. Katharina did her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, with a semester abroad in Stockholm. Besides her work at Hydrosol, Katharina has been a doctoral student at the University of Vechta since 2019. Here she is conducting acceptance research on the topic of “Cellular Agriculture”, i.e. on foods of the future, such as cultured meat and precision fermentation of milk components.

Dr Stephanie Wray is a founder of Nature Positive (the brainchild of a small group of academics and consultants who recognised that engaging business in the fight against the loss of biodiversity was (i) the key to making a difference at scale (ii) an unfulfilled market opportunity that has been on the ‘too difficult’ pile for years and (iii) just the sort of  thorny intellectual problem they loved to get their teeth into.)  She is also a Director of RSK Wilding and RSK Biocensus.  Previously she was Global Head of Environment for Hyder Consulting (now Arcadis) and has held a range of non-executive, interim management and strategy consulting roles advising businesses on their environmental impacts.

Steph is a Chartered Ecologist, a Fellow and past President of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and in 2011 she was awarded the Mammal Society medal for her work on mitigating development impacts on mammals.  She has worked in biodiversity consultancy for at least  twenty five years (at least she’s not admitting to more) and she will never bring you a problem without a solution, usually a fiendish one that you will kick yourself for not thinking of first.

As an Associate Façade Engineer in Buro Happold’s Berlin office, Anke is working on large-scale international projects as well as local multidisciplinary projects in Germany. Having graduated with a degree (Dipl. Ing.) in Civil Engineering from the University of Science in Karlsruhe and a Master in Façade Engineering from Bath University, Anke has over 20+ years of experience in the construction industry. Having worked in a Main Contractor role in London, she gained experience in all RIBA stages to deliver high-profile commercial and residential projects as well as sport stadiums such as the Emirates and the London Olympic stadium. Furthermore, she has extensive experience as a Project Manager in Germany, delivering top tier residential and commercial buildings.

Anke’s primary interest is it to engineer and design high quality building ‘skins’ that are efficient, buildable and sustainable in the long-term. She succeeds in this by applying an integrated engineering approach to building design, addressing the complex demands, for example reducing energy consumption and the carbon footprint of construction material, of the built environment.

Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Over 25 years of experience in the accountancy profession, including the last five years leading a new firm of ICAEW Chartered Accountants and the prior ten years as a Director in PwC’s Accounting Advisory group specialising in asset finance and leasing, structured products, complex IFRS advisory and leading their IFRS 16 accounting services.

Chris has a wide range of experience of delivering assurance and complex advisory services to the retail sector, lessees and lessors, asset finance businesses, global investment banks and technical accounting support and multi GAAP conversions.

He has also led IFRS 16 implementation engagements to FTSE100 retailers, hospitality groups and global house-hold names.

In addition to his time within the accountancy profession, he has valuable experience outside having worked for two years at the IFC, World Bank Group in Washington DC USA where he provided IFRS accounting and structuring support to investment officers and structuring teams on IFRS and US GAAP and a further year as Head of Financial Reporting Controls and Risks for a life insurance company negotiating refinancing with bankers.

With over 15 years experience working in the flavour and FMCG industries, Lisa drives the cross category consumer insights and innovation on behalf of Symrise with UK customers. Lisa’s career has been in Marketing underpinned by a BA Hons in Marketing, she is driven by working with customers to address new opportunities and consumer trends.