Tom is an award-winning innovator with 23 years’ industry experience. Initially working in the consumer products sector with Reckitt, Tom has spent the last 17 years in the paper and packaging industries working for market leading multi-national companies including; UPM, DS Smith and Billerud as well as running his own independent sustainable packaging consultancy for 4 years.
Tom’s experience is wide ranging, from consumer and market insight, mergers & acquisitions and brand owner management to product development and sustainability.
Recently Tom hosted and presented on two international webinars focused on the circular economy and innovations in packaging. In 2022 Tom presented as part of Esko’s Sustainability in Packaging series of webinars and at Smithers’ E-Pack event in the US. Added to this Tom has prior experience of managing multi-market consultancy projects focused on packaging strategy & roadmap development for branded consumer goods.
Tom was awarded the “Think New” award by Billerud at a ceremony in Stockholm in Dec 2017 for his work leading a team that developed 2 new paper grades, and innovative bag designs, that helped break the market for paper based e-commerce mailing bags.
Somnath Ray, based in Jakarta, is a Principal at AFRY Management Consulting, a leading advisor of choice to the world’s Forest, Pulp, Paper & Paperboard, and Tissue industry sector.
He is passionate about bringing strategic insight and solutions to Forestry, Fiber, Paper & Paperboard, and Tissue segment, with a keen interest in paper product development, fiber recycling, and Industry 4.0 application towards creating a sustainable circular economy. He has over 15 years of experience on strategic development projects, focusing on strategy formulation, industry and market analysis, due diligence, operational excellence, product development, business development, and transformation. Before joining AFRY (Pöyry), he worked on strategic projects as Corporate Planning Manager at Double A (1991) Public Ltd. Co., Thailand.
He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communication from VTU, India, and a Master of Business Administration (Specialization in Management of Technology) from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
Coming soon...
An avid sustainable packaging leader with a strong sense of purpose and profound ability to see the big picture while remaining highly focused. Proven track record of steering through ambiguous environment and driving disruptive projects of strategic importance at a global scale across several MNC`s. Experienced and adept at agile translation of scientific concepts into successful commercial products for delivering business results at a global platform.
Dirk Kaczmarek, Technical Account Development Lead at Consumer Flexibles, joined Mondi in 2012. He is passionate about food packaging and has more than 20 years of experience in FMCG packaging and has worked globally. At Mondi he has held various roles (Application Engineer, R&D, Quality, Technical Account Manager) and also worked in Thailand for almost 3 years. Before Mondi, he gained experience at other international flexible packaging converting companies. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Duisburg/Essen, Germany, and the University of Manchester, UK. He also obtained a doctorate in engineering (Dr.Ing.) from the University of Duisburg/Essen.
Ms. Heidi Su joined Suzano in 2022 and currently serves as the Head of Sustainability,Asia, responsible for Suzano's sustainability-related business in Asia, including stakeholder engagement, sustainability project development and decarbonization roadmap in China. Previously, she worked at Innovation Center Denmark (partnership between Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Higher Education and Science) as the Sustainability Innovation Officer. She is also the founder of the Sino-Danish Child Friendly Project.
Heidi graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a master's degree in environmental engineering.
Magnus has worked within the paper & board industry sector for 30 years and has had various positions such as R&D, Coating Pilot Plant mgr, Product mgr, Procurement, Commercial Director and now as a Sales Director at UMV Coating System. He has also been CEO of the drying equipment supplier Ircon Drying Systems AB, before rejoining UMV last year.
He has gained a vast experience in coating and sizing application through the numerous R&D- and customer projects he has managed in the whole world as working field.
Magnus has made several presentations at international conferences and symposiums, with coating perspective.
Dr. ir. Pieter Samyn received Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering 2007 at Ghent University and followed an academic career at University Freiburg and Hasselt University, until 2021 when he joined the collective research center Sirris as a Senior Research Engineer. He has broad experience on the synthesis, processing and characterization of bio-based materials for composite and coating applications. His research focusses on surface functionalization and he subsequently led research projects on bio-inspired adhesion mechanisms, functional coatings for paper substrates and the development of (nano)composite materials from bio-based building blocks (cellulose, biopolymers). The applied industrial research currently focusses on formulation and processing of biobased resins for more sustainable paper coating formulations with enhanced performance and recyclability.
