Andy was lucky to find his passion for startups, after working for corporate giant KPMG he craved the challenge to make more of an impact in a business. He moved to music tech startup Crowdsurge (who ultimately became Songkick) where he helped grow the company significantly in 4 years, ultimately through to an exit as their Global Financial Director. As a chartered accountant, Andy gained a great understanding around the foundations of business and took this knowledge of Audit, Private Equity and Consulting into the startup world. Andy co-founded FITCH Brew Co in 2017, after a successful Crowdfunding raise in just 29 hours. FITCH have now grown to launching 7 products, operating out of their own UK brewery, and selling across the UK and internationally. FITCH are on a mission to challenge traditional perceptions of soft drinks by using Cold Brewing to generate exceptional function and flavour. The low calorie, all natural, vegan friendly and low sugar range are focusing on the key consumer trends of today.

Milena Perera-Łagożna is a Product Manager at Arteta Sp. z o.o. - fast growing, startup-mindset company, operating in several food categories. At Arteta, she is responsible for developing new products that are in line with consumer insights and market trends. Her leading project is the expansion and strengthening of the DayUp-mass market brand of unique lifestyle healthy snacks composed of only natural ingredients. For years she is associated with the food industry. Milena’s experience ranges from large corporations to small startups, always for the FMCG sector. In her private life, Milena identifies with the main slogan of the DayUp brand - "life with no tricks".

Graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in International Business with Spanish. After working for a year in PwC, I quickly decided it wasn’t for me and so I joined fast growing FMCG business Pip & Nut as the second employee there. Experiencing the hugely fast and successful growth of the company spurred me on to want to do a company of my own, and it only seemed fit that it be in an industry I have always loved… Food and Drink!

Erika Ollen’s experience ranges from strategic marketing to brand consulting and design, always for the food related industries and very often with a health/nutritional and/or educational focus. Erika is a skilled chef with insights in product development and communication. She has more often than not ran her own projects and initiatives. For the past four years she has been part of running the innovative beverage company Caliente Beverages, being head of Marketing. Their drink range has received great international recognition, incl. “Best New Adult Drink” at World Beverage Innovation Awards. Extensive dialogue with the market made the team identify the gap for NA spirits early on, thus developing Gnista – launched Autumn 2019.

A native of Northern Germany, Jörn Gutowski spent most of his young adulthood abroad. After studying marketing at Emerson College in Boston and a one year stint at a PR agency, he worked for an international non-profit organization. While travelling the world, he was exposed to many new cultural and culinary experiences. His passion and appreciation for food was so deeply affected that in 2013, he decided to put his 10+ years background in marketing and business into his new venture TRY FOODS. Following the slogan „feed your curiosity“, TRY FOODS has been helping people to expand their knowledge of and their palate for high-quality food products. In 2018, he co-founded another food startup, called Zeevi Kichererbsen GmbH. Zeevi is the first European company producing and selling a chickpea tofu, called Kofu.

Leif has worked all his life in the food & drink industry in the Nordics and Baltics. A total of +20 years in the Foodservice Sector, both fine-dining companies as well as the catering-giant Fazer for 15 years. Since 2015 Country Manager OOH Finland as well as Business Development for the OOH (Foodservice) Business Area within Löfbergs Coffee Group – a Swedish coffee roaster since 110 years, active in 10 markets in the Nordics, Baltics, UK and Canada. Leif is extremely interested in how, why and where we consume food & drink and the changes in our consumption, occasions and places – this is where many innovations are trigged!

Luis Carlos Chacón leads the BusinessCase team, global boutique consultancy that works with multinational FMCGs identifying emerging and future business opportunities. Also, has been a columnist for Forbes Latin America for several years (being nowadays top-rated) and currently finishing a postgraduate degree in Global Business at the University of Oxford (where previously graduated in Strategy and Innovation), his educational background includes studies in Design Thinking at Stanford, and Futures at The University of Manchester, and Houston. In business, he has worked for more than nineteen years for the operations of Fortune 500 Companies such as Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, LVMH, Diageo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Dannon, AbInbev, among many others. Behavioral economics enthusiast (understanding the cross between needs and contexts) and believer in connecting the distant (linking the disconnected but inseparable) under the influence of socio-cultural changes in industries and consumption.

After graduating in Brand Management at IULM University in Milan, Maria Rosaria started her professional career in management consulting in MC Crescendo. In 2010 she joined Barilla in the Marketing team where she covered roles of increasing responsibilities both on local and global business and took part in many relevant innovation projects. Since 2014 she has been Branding & Communication Manager in CucinaBarilla Italy and then became Strategy & Transformation Manager in 2018.

After the graduation in Economics at Università Bocconi and a Master of Science in International Public Policy at UCL (University College London), Matteo joined The Monitor Group, a strategy consulting firm, supporting companies' business development in EMEA. He joined Barilla in 2008 and moved from Marketing to Innovation in 2012 to develop and launch CucinaBarilla, which he led as the CucinaBarilla Managing Director. In 2018 he was appointed Global Marketing Director at Barilla, leading of the most dynamic and vibrating product categories of the company with a global footprint. He is passionate about Food, business modelling, trends and innovation. He will be chairing the Food Innovate Summit for the second time and attending it for the third time.

Sarah is passionate about innovation and technology in the food, beverage and nutrition industry. From her background of nutritional sciences and business innovation, Sarah has become an industry expert across the entire food and beverage value chain from industry 4.0 to alternative protein sourcing. Sarah excels at engaging her audience by presenting well-thought-out analysis and provide insights on disruptive technologies and the players behind them which is highly appreciated by clients and provides them with a clear strategic direction moving forward. At FutureBridge, she uses her extensive experience to help clients solve complex business challenges which includes everything from scouting the right sugar reduction technology that fits to their products specifications to identifying new biodegradable packaging materials that will contribute to the client’s sustainability strategies. Before joining FutureBridge, Sarah held a similar successful positions in which she led many engaging projects with global leaders in the food and beverage space to set them up for new product development success.

FMCG experience in Sales and marketing with Vita Coco, Siberri and Jealous Sweets. Private Wealth Management with Barclays private wealth.. Endurance athlete, Swimming cycling and running. Campaigner for the Tribe Freedom Foundation.

As the founder of Eatable Adventures back in 2015, José Luis pioneered the nascent Food Entrepreneurship movement in Europe; which resulted in an emerging ecosystem of new companies that are improving the way we eat. He also led the launch of Gastroemprendedores, the largest global network of Food & Beverages Startup founders and entrepreneurs, reaching well over 25.000 individuals; similarly launched Food Business Angels, the first global network of early stage investors in early stage phases of F&B startups. Prior to his involvement in the Food Space, he has been active in the innovation and new technologies industry for almost 30 years, working with such international corporations as Cisco, Oracle, BBVA and Unisys as EMEA and LATAM new markets and emerging sectors development business director. Educated as a Computing Engineer at Extremadura University, José Luis completed his tech studies with business and culinary studies at Stanford University —Graduate School of Business' Executive Program – Le Cordon Bleu at Francisco de Vitoria University in Madrid — Diplôme de Cuisine – Reims Champagne- Ardennes University – Diplôme Universitaire DUGGAT – and Haas Business School Berkeley University – Venture Capital Executive Program.

Andrea (32) was exposed to entrepreneurship for as long as he can remember. He grew up seeing his family’s businesses active in the furniture space, going through both highs and lows, and ultimately closing following the financial crisis of 2008. Andrea’s family invested then in a restaurant, where he started working as handyman while being a full-time student at University. During his second year of University, Andrea launched FAB. In 2014 he founded ComLab, a qualitative research firm in the food sector, that still exists today. With these combined experiences, Andrea gained extensive knowledge of the HO.RE.CA and L.O.D. sector and collected relevant data on customers’ needs and preferences. This is when he started thinking of ways on how to bring a new paradigm to the food business by making operations easier and more efficient for professionals. In June 2015, Andrea beta-tested the concept with a small rented facility and a few friends who owned restaurants, as his first clients. 3 years later, he rebranded the company as Soul-K and began to serve ready-to-eat meals and high-quality semi-finished ingredients, which cost on-par or lower than customers purchasing and working the raw materials themselves. This ultimately eliminated the variability normally linked with food cost calculations. Furthermore, the solution enabled the shift from fixed CAPEX (e.g. personnel costs) and OPEX (e.g. inventory, machineries) into on-demand variable costs, with a positive impact on margins and no cap on scale. As of today, Soul-K is the only player worldwide able to provide the HO.RE.CA and L.O.D. sector with such a comprehensive offering due to its strong tech component and lean manufacturing processes.

Karine Dussimon is a Senior Consultant in Food and Nutrition at Euromonitor International with a specialisation in snacks. Karine is responsible for the content and quality of Euromonitor’s snacks data and analysis and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows such as ISM Sweets and Snacks in Cologne and the London Chocolate Forum in London. Euromonitor International is a leading independent global provider of strategic market intelligence, with analysts in over 100 countries and with 15 offices across 6 continents including London, Chicago, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Sydney, and Cape Town.