After graduating in Chemistry & Economics from Birmingham University, Reg Adams began his career at Amalgamated Metal and was later seconded to English China Clays (now Imerys), where he wrote his MBA thesis on company growth. At British Sulphur (now CRU) during the 1970s, he edited a range of publications on industrial chemicals and fertiliser raw materials. His first book Titanium & Titanium Dioxide (ISBN 0903199793) was published by Financial Times Business Books in May 1984. His seventh and most recent book Titanium Minerals: Global Industry, Market & Outlook (ISBN 9781910922088) was published by Roskill in August 2016. Reg Adams has also been retained as an expert witness in matters of commercial litigation or investment scrutiny and he has been commissioned as a speaker at more than 60 international conferences, including each of the TiO2 conferences hosted by Smithers (and predecessor companies) since 1992. He has also chaired a number of conference sessions. His company - Artikol (founded in 1977) - specialises in market intelligence and publishing on mining and chemicals. Drawing on Artikol’s extensive information database, Reg Adams compiles and edits the monthly bulletin Focus on Pigments and the quarterly TiO2 Worldwide Update. For further details, see http://www.artikol.com.
Aziza Gazieva is a Vice President at Fermium Research, having co-founded the company in 2018 following 6 years at Wells Fargo Securities. In early 2016, Aziza transitioned from corporate banking to chemicals equity research as an Associate Analyst on Frank Mitsch's team and was a key contributor to help the team rank in the 2017 and 2018 Institutional Investor's All-America Research Surveys. Ms. Gazieva is a graduate of New York University with a major in Economics.
Gerry Colamarino is currently the Managing Director of TiPMC Solutions LLC, which he founded in 2014.. He has over 30 years of international experience within the chemical, mining, and energy industries, having had multiple professional and leadership positions within the former DuPont Titanium Technologies (Chemours), Iluka Resources, and Bloom Energy.
TiPMC is a recognized thought leader and independent resource for all subjects pertaining to the TiO2 value chain, with a strong focus on TiO2 pigments and Mineral Sands. TiPMC employs a unique network of industry and functional experts, providing boutique consulting and advisory services, industry publications, and data services to financial institutions and industry participants world-wide.
Gerry is a graduate of Rutgers University, earning a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He currently resides with his family in Nashville, TN.
Nick has been with P&G for over 21 years in R&D roles spread across the Laundry and Baby Care businesses. In those roles, he has played a critical role in developing new technologies and formulation approaches for the Liquid Laundry Business and more recently has been Baby Care's lead technologist in understanding print and ink applications used for diaper graphics printing. Nick graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH with a BS in Chemistry, and resides in Cincinnati.
Dr. Kamakshi Christopher is the head of R&D in Soujanya Color a global pigment dispersion manufacturer. She has a PhD in applied Organic Chemistry and has an experience of more than 15 years in industrial research. She was a recipient of Roon Award by the American Coatings Association in the year 2013 for work on omniphobic surface coatings. Her research interests are in identifying and developing innovative solutions in color for coatings, inks, polymers and consumer goods.
Christian Straka is since 2018 the lead for setting up Gabriel-Chemie sales in the Americas. Best known for bringing over 20 years of international industry and extrusion business experiences with him, he can recall on a vast solution base. Christian is Austrian born, a digital native, holding a degree in business administration and electronics, had worked in both large and small companies to build and execute global plans in commercial and industrial sectors. At Gabriel-Chemie, he inspires and empowers existing and new customers to create real results for their business.
Dr. Amy Ethier is the Global Expert Services and Regulatory Manager for the Cosmetic Effect Pigment business at Colors & Effects. She joined BASF (now Sun Chemical) through the Leadership Development Program (LDP), and has held positions in Manufacturing, R&D and Technical Marketing. Amy holds a Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut.
Andre Bendo is a Technical Industry Manager, Senior Expert for Automotive Coatings with Sun Chemical. Based in Philadelphia, he has over 28 years of experience related to pigments and coating applications. Andre has gained an interesting perspective on pigments through a variety of positions in Research & Development, Quality, Production, Marketing, Business Development and Technical Service. Currently focused on pigments for automotive, he actively supports new industry developments including autonomous vehicles. Andre holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware (USA).
Wei Joined EMD Electronics as Technical Marketing Manager. She started her career in the coatings industry at Red Spot Paint and Varnishes as a R&D Chemist. She then moved into applications and technical service area as the raw material suppliers in polymer resin at Reichhold. She spent the past 20 years in the effect pigments industry with various responsibilities at BASF and Ciba.
Wei has several publications and patents. She holds a MS degree in chemistry and BS degree in chemical engineering.
Jeff McNaught is a Color Development Chemist with PPG Industries. His 27 year career has spanned field service, manufacturing process improvement, quality control and color development for Automotive OEM. A focus on process improvement initiatives have been a common theme running across all rolls. At the end of 2019 PPG’s Global Color team began looking at new ways of communicating color digitally. These new processes took on more urgency with the onset of 2020’s broad new adoption of remote working. PPG’s 2020 Color Show was the first to be delivered in an entirely remote and digital format.
Jeff’s roll in digital color communication has been learning and leveraging digital program capabilities, digital object design and implementation from physical to digital worlds. His skills in Illustration, graphic design and woodworking aid development of communication materials across business units.
Fossum holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. He has previously held various managerial and commercial positions in the Hydro Group, within the oil and gas industry and the fertilizer industry, and in FMC Technologies. Fossum has been general manager of Norsk Hydro East Africa Ltd in Nairobi, Kenya. Mr. Fossum has served as CEO for Nordic Mining ASA since founding in 2006.
David has been involved in the mineral sands and TiO2 pigment industry since 1997, in Australia and the US. He joined TZMI in 2004 and works on a wide variety of projects across opaque mineral, metal and chemical sectors. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from Curtin University of Technology, as well as a Masters of Engineering Management (International/Finance). David worked for RGC (now Iluka Resources) and Tiwest, in process engineering, technical and engineering services roles. He has also been involved in business management and global supply chain functions with Kerr-McGee Chemical LLC in Oklahoma City, US. David is located in Perth, Australia.
Dr. Karin Tynelius holds a MS and a PhD in Metallurgy and Materials Engineering. She is the Director of Mineral Markets and provides consultancy, training and market intelligence on titanium-dioxide (TiO2) and the mineral sands industry. She has 30+ years of experience in the metals and mining industry and was in charge of the market research for TiZir until 2018.
Karin also holds a Director’s Certificate (IDP-C) from INSEAD and is a Non-Executive Director of Keliber.
Robert Gibney is General Manager Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) Sales for Iluka Resources, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States.
Mr. Gibney has over 35 years of pigment industry experience, having spent over 21 years with Tronox/Kerr-McGee Chemical in a wide variety of senior management positions, including Vice President Global Pigment Marketing, Vice President Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs, Senior Vice President Global Supply Chain and Chief Administrative Officer.
Having joined Iluka on February 1, 2014, Mr. Gibney is focused on developing Iluka’s TiO2
feedstock sale strategies along with increasing the TiO2 expertise within the company.
Dr. Kamran Shekh joined Yordas scientific team in 2020. He comes to Yordas with a solid mix of human toxicology and ecotoxicology research consulting experience. A problem that Kamran worked on as Regulatory Toxicologist for a client while working as a consultant, promoted him to return to purse a PhD on the physiological biochemical, and molecular basis of species-specific differences in the toxicity of metals. This work was followed by research at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta. At Yordas, Kamran provides his expertise in the areas of hazard and exposure assessment in the context of REACH and CLP.
Passionate leader in solving the problems and challenges in areas like Environment, Energy, Coating, Composites and Material Science with its core strength as novel application developer using Nanoscience principles.
Accomplished entrepreneur and scientist, with leading patents, a degree in Management, and successful track record in founding and running Tech businesses. Wide experience of running successful business in India, Singapore, and USA.
Specialties: Ideas to Commercialization, Microwave based synthesis, Applications of Nanoscience and Nanomaterials, Innovative solutions.
Education:
-Master of mechanical engineering, University of Stuttgart, Germany; University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
- Ph.D. in process engineering, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Professional career:
- Since 1999, founder and managing director of LCS Life Cycle Simulation GmbH (www.lcslcs.de)
- Since 2002 lecturer at University of Technology, Graz, Austria; lecture title: Economic and Ecological Technology Management
- Since 2013 jury member “besserlackieren AWARD”, annual honor for the best paint shops in Europe
Dr. Adalbert Huber received his degree in chemistry and PhD from the University Of Stuttgart, Germany. He started at Degussa in 1988 as a research chemist for printing inks.
Since 1990 he worked in leading positions in application technology for automotive glass decoration and ceramic decoration with precious metal and high temperature pigments.
He joined Merck KGaA in 1997 as head of application technology for pearlescent pigments. Later he was responsible for the Business field Coatings.
He joined Schlenk in 2014 as Head of R&D, where he focused the research on the combination of metal and pearlescent effect pigments. Adalbert Huber is currently also member of the board of the Forschungsgesellschaft Pigment und Lacke.
Daphne Benderly, PhD is a Senior Manager Technology at Presperse. She has 25 years of R&D experience in materials engineering. Daphne received her doctorate in Materials Engineering from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, MS in Macromolecular Science from Case Western and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. She is active in the New York Chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists (NYSCC) and is also the Treasurer of the Applied Rheology Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers.