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 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 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.

Alberto has been active as a business reengineering consultant, helping companies with their digital transformation in the Food&Beverage and FineChemicals Industries for over 30 years, operating in multiple countries worldwide. Always taking pleasure in proposing and implementing innovative ideas, Alberto supports delivering practical yet disruptive solutions working with passion in this exciting industry.

Professor of Food Chemistry belongs to the Department of Pharmacy; his main research topics are the design and evaluation of nutraceuticals, food safety, and food analysis for their traceability. Prof. Ritieni is currently the Coordinator of the Doctoral Course in Nutraceuticals, Functional Foods and Human Health; he is currently on the Council of the Ministerial Commission to evaluate medicinal foods and food supplements. The scientific career is supported by more than 275 scientific articles in international journals, and many are invited to plenary lectures at International Congresses. In addition, prof. Ritieni has many contacts with food and nutraceutical enterprises to develop and evaluate research projects in the nutraceutical field. In the FoodLab of Department are available advanced instruments like mass spectrometers, HPLC, digestors etc., to characterise foods, by-products, natural or synthetic ingredients and nutraceutical formulas. Finally, he is a referee of research and development projects supported by national or regional ministers, international agencies, etc.

Born in Lecce in 1992, Andrea Lippolis moved to Milan in 2011 to attend the Faculty of Engineering and Management at the Politecnico. He is passionate about fitness and he played as a basketball player in the minor leagues. During his university period Andrea realized that, even in Milan, there was no home delivery service for personalized ready meals. These meals can come to the rescue of all those who wish to achieve certain fitness goals but have neither the skills nor the time to prepare the dishes. In 2011, the idea of ​​Feat Food (currently Vita Meals) was born as a platform that exploits the potential of Artificial Intelligence.

Andrea returns to his hometown in 2015 to take the first steps toward his "creation": in a small delicatessen in Lecce, a chef prepared healthy and balanced meals according to Andrea's instructions, and then he personally delivered the food. Back in Milan the following year, Andrea organizes the work in a more structured way, and in 2021, the turnover of Feat Food records a + 156% thanks also to the investments of 1.5 million received.

In 2022 Andrea was nominated within the Forbes Under 30 ranking in the "Food" category. In March of the same year, Feat Food becomes Vita Meals: a real revolution that aims to put more and more people and the needs of their lives at the center.

For 2022, his goals are to add ten more resources to the team, which now has 33 people, and to expand beyond the borders.

Dr. Atanasios Moschos is a Quality and Food Safety professional with nearly 25 years of experience. He studied chemistry at Brussels University (ULB) and obtained his PhD in physical chemistry. He is also graduate in Occupational Safety and Hygiene and in Innovation Management. He was expert at the European Commission where he worked for 3 years. Since 1995, he works for Leonidas Confectionery, one of the larger “pralines” manufacturers in Belgium. As head of the Quality Department, he has a global and integrated vision of quality and safety. He participated in the Belgian association of biscuits, confectioneries and chocolate manufacturers (Choprabisco), in the verification of the official self-checking guide of the sector. He is also a member of the Regulatory and Scientific committee and the Hygiene Group of Caobisco, the European association of biscuit, chocolate and confectionery industries

Daniele is a serial entrepreneur, passionate about startups and innovation. He launched his first company right after completing his studies in Business and Management. The company was later acquired and Daniele, after 2 years of experience in consulting, joined the German venture incubator Rocket Internet launching 3 different companies on the Italian market: Wimdu, a competitor of Airbnb, Zalando – the biggest online fashion retailer -, TravelBird – an online travel company.  In 2016, he decided to move back to Italy to start Quomi, introducing meal kits on the Italian market.

After graduating in Food Science and Technology, she completed a Master's degree in Biochemistry. She later joined the family company in 2000, where she developed the brand Iginio Massari and launched E-Commerce and social media.

Co-founder of Iginio Massari Alta Pasticceria brand and BOD member at Iginio Massari Srl, focusing on marketing and, jointly with her brother Nicola, for the R&D department.

Duygu Keçelioğlu has experience in the research industry for around 20 years, both in the research agency and manufacturer. She is currently working as the Head of Knowledge, Insights and Execution Excellence at Coca-Cola Icecek, responsible for all CCI geography covering Turkey, Central Asia, the Middle East and Pakistan. Currently, her works focus on commercial knowledge and insights projects covering shopper insights, market and retail analytics, merchandising tracking, store effectiveness and category management in CCI regions. Before joining CCI, she had worked at NielsenIQ and Turkcell. She holds an undergraduate and MBA degree from Marmara University, Turkey.

Edward joined FutureBridge at the end of 2021. In his role as a senior analyst for food & nutrition, Edward is responsible for evolving and delivering FutureBridge’s techno-commercial syndicated research. He has a decade of experience in the food industry within retail and market intelligence roles. He is a passionate speaker and storyteller – with a life goal to deliver a TED talk.

Elif Polat is a consultant specialising in food and nutrition at Euromonitor International. In her current role, Elif is writing content providing global insights about different topics in the food industry including trends, consumer behaviours, competitor strategies, channels, and future outlook as well as recommendations for industry players.

Elif gained a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at Istanbul University in Turkey. Elif continued her education with a master’s degree in International Business from University of Greenwich in the UK.

An entrepreneur from Brescia, he joined the Iginio Massari Srl company in 2018 to support its growth with his entrepreneurial skills.

He is currently a manager and BOD member at Trafilerie Carlo Gnutti Spa. As co-founder and  BOD member at Iginio Massari Srl, his job focused on E-Commerce and IT and omnichannel development with scalability from an internationalisation perspective.

Born and raised in Varese, Ester Miozzo has a business degree from the Faculty of Economics of Insubria University.

Soon after graduating, she moved to Milan to start a career in the advertising industry, working in significant agencies across international network organisations (from Omnicom to WPP to Publicis Group).

After 12 years, Ester started a new journey at The Coca-Cola Company, looking after Brands building, Brands Strategy creation and integrated communication campaigns on a European and Global level.

In January 2022, Ester joined Planet Farms in the role of Chief Marketing Officer.
Proud mum of a four-year-old daughter, Ester is passionate about marketing and good causes and dedicated to creating a more progressive vision of the world.

Born in Sondrio in 1987, he obtained a degree in Organization and Human Resources from the University of Milan (2010) and an MSc in Management at Bocconi University (2012). During university, he founded his first startup dedicated to the world of events. Just after the master's, he approaches the world of consulting where, inside BTO Spa, he creates and grows his business unit. In 2014, he reached the position of COO but decided to devote himself to a new professional adventure: in 2015, he founded Winelivery, where he currently holds the position of CEO—nominated both in 2020 and 2021 Businessperson of the Year by Fortune Italia and in the Next 40 by Capital Italia. Today he actively collaborates as an advisor for various companies in the startup world, including Venture Box of Gellify. He is always devoted to sharing values and oriented toward growth; he chose in 2021 to publish his first book, "Fare Startup in Italia", which tells the knowledge collected in recent years to support the new generations of Italian entrepreneurs.

As a teenager, Freddy Hunziker only had one dream: to become a mountain bike pro in the downhill category. As a junior European champion, he found the key to rapid regeneration in plant-based nutrition after a serious injury. He became a vegan for ethical reasons but missed the cheese. So the trained poly-mechanic engineer started to experiment with different nuts and seeds in the kitchen of a farmhouse in the Bernese Oberland, learned the cheese trade, and skilfully combined the traditional fermentation and maturing techniques with innovative, plant-based organic ingredients. The award-winning alternative to Camembert was launched in 2016 and marked the start of Freddy's and Alice's entrepreneurial careers and the founding of the fossil-free start-up New Roots, which now employs around 35 people. Freddy was awarded the Swiss Economic Award in 2019 and was nominated for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2021, which honors innovative personalities and successful entrepreneurs with a positive impact on society and business across Europe.

Grégory is currently Innovation Director for Continental Europe at Princes Foods. He has around 20 years of experience in various FMCG categories, gained in different international companies (Coca-Cola, British American Tobacco, BIC). With a solid background in sales and marketing, he is passionate about Business Development, bringing value to consumers, customers, and the company.

In his current role, he is driving the Plant-Based Group strategy, leading NPD in new markets/categories in Europe and has developed a full transparency platform using blockchain technology.

With over 25 years of experience in the food and beverage industry, Johan has dedicated his career to providing the industry with innovative new ideas and offerings to help companies of all sizes grow their business. As Chief Product Officer, Johan is responsible for Dawn’s R&D and Category marketing globally, prioritising innovation efforts within Dawn to provide customers with the best bakery products. Since joining the team in 2012 as vice president of R&D in Europe, Johan has led the research and development of multiple Dawn product launches, specifically the Dawn Balance Line, which contains a clean label, vegan and better-for-you products. In addition to his focus on product development, he also drives global technology projects to keep Dawn at the front of introducing new industry capabilities both for bakers and within the company's walls. Before joining Dawn, Johan was the Innovation Director at Sara Lee and previously held various R&D roles across food product categories at Unilever in the Netherlands and the UK. He has a master's and a PhD in Molecular Science from the Agriculture University of Wageningen and an MBA from Rotterdam Erasmus University.

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.

João Brites is a regenerative entrepreneur, breakdancer, and Director of Growth & Innovation at HowGood, a research company with the world’s largest product sustainability database. Before HowGood, João was a Director of Sustainability at AB InBev and led impact ventures in the USA, Mexico, Portugal, and the Amazon Rainforest. João is an economist by training, a tropical agroforestry specialist, and is on a shared mission to make the business a force for the regeneration of life.

Kiran Sanchit is a banking professional & food, beverage & Agri expert and has been with ING for almost 15 years. Kiran is responsible for one of ING’s Sectors within the Wholesale Bank, Food, Beverage & Agri in the EMEA region in his current role. As such, he manages teams closely involved in financing and servicing large food companies and is in close contact with many large companies in the food industry, often discussing strategic topics at the board level. Sustainability is a topic close to his heart and part of many discussions he has. He closely cooperates with ING Economic Bureau. By linking economic data to input from companies, a series of articles on the dynamics in the food industry have been delivered. Kiran closely follows developments in the industry and is frequently in touch with other industry experts to share views and discuss results.

After graduating from Babson College and obtaining a Finance and Entrepreneurship degree, Laura moved to New York to join Lehman Brothers where she took a role in Latin America Fixed Income Institutional Sales Team.
She then moved to Barclays Capital where successfully held this same position for three years.
After gaining valuable banking insight, Laura decided to take a leap forward into the entrepreneurial world and developed Qvit, the first personalised avatar-based virtual dressing room. After eight years of successful sales and proof of concept, Laura sold her technology and moved on to her next venture, in the Food Industry. Laura established and managed the Spanish and Portuguese market for Donna Italia. Donna Italia is an international company that produces, commercializes, and distributes frozen Italian products for B2B clients.
After 5 years in the Food Service Sector, serving a wide variety of customers, Laura has become fascinated with plant-based alternatives and predicts an inevitable shift from animal protein to plant-based substitutes. Her belief is that if you manage to crack the sensory attributes, health concerns, and price accessibility, there is no reason for people not to make this shift. She is here to
make an ImpACT!

Luis Carlos Chacón leads the BusinessCase team, a global boutique consultancy that works with multinational FMCGs to identify emerging and future business opportunities. Also, he 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 he previously graduated in Strategy and Innovation); his educational background includes studies in Design Thinking of 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, and AbInbev, among many others. Behavioural 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.

Lukas Böni is one of four founders of Planted and a member of the Executive Board - driven by the desire to have a positive impact on the climate and animal welfare, as well as to improve the resilience of food value chains. He studied food science at ETH Zurich and the University of Melbourne and holds a master's degree in food process engineering and a PhD in food science. Lukas is an expert in food and process design with a focus on sustainable food. At Planted, he is responsible for Science and Operations. Planted is currently the fastest growing start-up in the alternative protein space in Europe.

Marcello Gelo is currently Chief Marketing Officer for Mutti. He has more than 20 years of experience in large multinationals (L'Oreal, Nestlè) and family companies (Barilla, Bauducco, Mutti), gained in different countries (Italy, Switzerland, Russia, Brazil) and in different markets (cosmetics, pet food, food), both in marketing (strategic and operational) and in trade marketing.

After graduating in Brand Management at IULM University in Milan, Maria Rosaria started her professional career in management consulting at MC Crescendo. In 2010 she joined the Barilla Marketing team, where she covered roles of increasing responsibilities for both local and global businesses and took part in relevant innovation projects. In 2014 she became the Branding&Communication Manager for CucinaBarilla Italy and then became Strategy & Transformation Manager in 2018. In 2020 she joined Cortilia, where she led the Marketing team with significant achievements such as a complete redesign of the brand, the development of the Private Label project, and the transformation into a Benefit Corporation.
She is currently CMO and Impact Manager in Tuorlo Media and attending an Executive Master in Sustainability & Impact Leadership at Politecnico in Milan.

Massimo has been acting as an innovation and business reengineering leader for 25+ years in multiple industries like finance, automotive, software, and services. The last 10+ years in the recipe-based industry. He developed profound experiences in discovering, designing, and creating innovation opportunities involving processes, people, and systems executing multiple transformation and go-to-market projects.

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.  — T. Edison

Paul brings 32 years of experience in beer & cider production, Food Safety and Quality within Heineken, as one of the 50 Master Brewers of Heineken globally. After finishing his Ph.D. in Yeast Genetics & Physiology in Amsterdam, he started his career in Heineken R&D. He was for years the ‘Yeast doctor’ within Heineken. He gained practical operational experience in breweries as Quality Manager and Head Brewer in Shanghai, Panama and Den Bosch breweries. And he was also for several years technological consultant for Heineken for our breweries in South America, the Caribbean and Europe. In 2013 he became Quality director of Heineken USA, till 2019. Currently he’s senior Global Lead for Licenses & Quality, within Heineken Global Supply Chain team, based in HQ in the Netherlands.

Philippe has more than 20 years of experience in implementing enterprise applications in the Food & Beverage and Process industries and has been guiding the digital transformation of food & beverage – Process manufacturers, mainly in France / Europe, and also for five years in the USA. 

Philippe is Solution Director at Infor,  leading the Infor International EMEA Solution Architect team to advise Infor customers and prospects in their journey in CloudSuite Application selection, with diverse expertise from PLM to Supply chain planning to ERP and WMS. As part of Infor Product Software Development, Philippe is gathering market requirements and collaborating on solution enhancement plans by R&D for the Food & Beverage segments, which enable the monthly update of Infor Cloudsuite for all customers, which keep them always current.

After graduating with a PhD in Food Chemistry, Jens joined the Dairy Division at the German KRÜGER GROUP in Stendal as Head of Product Development. In 2013, he joined what used to be called WILD Flavors (now ADM) in Berlin as Head of R&D and held various global leadership roles in the field of research and development, including innovation deployment and portfolio, knowledge and IP management. After more than 20 years in the food industry, he recently made the move to the world of academia in order to help students best prepare for their important roles in the world of food and beverage technology. In April 2022 he was appointed as Professor for food technology at BHT in Berlin.

Kraft Heinz’s vision is: Sustainably grow by delighting more consumers globally! Rachid is accountable for External Manufacturing & Supply Chain and with a senior professional team distributed across the globe to mitigate Food Safety & Quality risks, lead various improvement initiatives, govern various global processes, manage change and trouble shoot where required cross functionally and creates real long-lasting partnership wherever he goes.

As some of you may already know, Rachid is very skilled at making events he chairs interactive while working closely with the audience to stimulate conversation and enhance learnings.
We look forward to having Rachid back with us. Get ready for some exciting conference days!

A seasoned Executive in the FMCG world with unique leadership skills in transforming businesses in severe internal and external circumstance into a profitable sustainable model. He is a visionary who comes with a proven track record in building a business from the ground, based on the lean accelerated model within the largest F&B company. While creating the first pure born brand in Nestle since 35 years (Nespresso 1986). His open-mindedness, strategic thinking and creativity helped inspire the organization to transform, following the same model in other businesses. He successfully renovated a failing business challenged by forex devaluation along with a major restructuring risk, renovating it to the fastest growing business retaining market leadership and its employees. Deep knowledge across the entire value chain of the businesses, with sustainability credentials. A professional with deep experience in building business, growing and inspiring people besides leading innovation through collaborating with startups, scouters and incubators.

Over 30 years of experience at the highest levels in blue-chip companies, regulators, universities and NGOs

leading on food and consumer safety from program, policy and product design to verification of system effectiveness and enterprise risk management

leader of the mondelez food safety team that was recognised in 2021 with the iafp black pearl award

Currently, co-chair of the global food safety initiative   and dedicated to developing thinking on the future of food safety management and helping organisations effectively manage their food safety risk

With 2,5 years in Bunge, Senay has over 24 years of experience in the field of R&D , Regulatory and especially Quality and Food Safety.

She is Quality and Food Safety Director, Europe & Asia in Bunge. Her role is to define and implement Bunge Quality and Food/Feed Safety strategy ,key programs, operation standards and leverage Quality and Food Safety Culture.

She started her career at a Packaging Company and later at Unilever where she performed different roles; R&D Engineer, Factory Quality Manager and Global Quality Excellence Manager responsible for Food, Refreshment, Home and Personal Care Categories.

Stephanie is the International Head of Food Industry and Retail at ProVeg International, a food awareness organisation working to transform the global food system by replacing conventional animal-based products with plant-based and cultured alternatives. In her role, she works to accelerate the growth of the alternative protein industry in Europe & globally; and create a sustainable future of food for humans, animals, and the planet. Before joining ProVeg, Stephanie spent the last five years of her career building B2B communities of C-level decision-makers and working to accelerate innovation and collaboration in the Consumer Goods sector. She has worked across various industries, including Beauty & Personal Care, Drug Development, and Food & Beverage.

PhD in Farmacy and licenced in Food Technology and Nutrition with more than 20 years of experience in the global management of Quality and Food Safety. Along her career, Teresa has created the Quality 360º Programme which integrates the quality management in all product life cycle through four perspectives: corrective, preventive, predictive and exploratory. In addition, with a multicultural team formed by more than 150 people, under her leadership the company is developing projects about neuroscience apply to R&D and Quality, advance nutrition and probiotics, emerging risk and contaminants management and the and Culture Excellence.

Tommaso, aged 36, is a serial entrepreneur, investor and businessman. After graduating from IULM University in Milan, Italy, in 2010, he established Royal Yacht International, which has become a market leader in global yacht chartering and brokerage with eight offices in six different countries.

Tommaso is particularly interested in working with and investing in socially impactful businesses with real purpose. After being an early investor in Beyond Meat, he co-founded NEAT, the plant-based food group backed by Lewis Hamilton and Leonardo DiCaprio, in 2019. His focus is on making NEAT’s alternative protein food as accessible as possible to consumers, particularly flexitarians.

Tommaso also serves in a pro bono capacity as Fundraising Chairman for UNICEF Events. His role has enabled him to travel with UNICEF supporting numerous projects in developing countries and raising more than $10 million through his charitable efforts.

Simon Carr is VP and Head of Evalueserve’s CPG practice. He has over 20 years of experience in the CPG space in innovation and IP based roles. Firstly, with Mondelez International, he was IP & OI Manager for their global coffee business and then with Crown Holdings as Global IP Manager. He has a degree in Engineering Design and a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategy and Innovation from the Säid Business School, University of Oxford. He has been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in their 2016 production of King Lear.

Giovanni is currently Marketing, E-Commerce & CRM Director in Iginio Massari Alta Pasticceria. He has more than 20 years of experience in the marketing and digital area. After a short experience in a creative agency, Giovanni joined Luxottica Group where for 17 years  has been responsible of the digital activities, starting up and developing E-Commerce, CRM and all digital activities worldwide for Ray-Ban and all the other Group’s house brands. Lastly, he has managed in Kering, for almost three years, E-Commerce and CRM for Pomellato and Dodo brands. He has a degree in Business Administration from Carlo Cattaneo University (LIUC) and two Executive Course Diplomas in Marketing Management & Strategy from SDA Bocconi.