This is the flagship EPIC event, dedicated to the members only. Attendance by CEOs or contact persons. 1 person per company.
EPIC AGM 2022 participants biographies, photos and companies descriptions are available HERE
This is the flagship EPIC event, dedicated to the members only. Attendance by CEOs or contact persons. 1 person per company.
EPIC AGM 2022 participants biographies, photos and companies descriptions are available HERE
Basil Garabet is the President and CEO of NKT Photonics which he has successfully grown since 2015.
Basil is a serial entrepreneur with a 38-year tenure in Photonics where he has started, led and turned round a number of International Photonics companies. Basil’s career has spanned leading positions in JK Lasers, EM4, Altitun, Melles Griot and Lasertron.
Basil is closely involved in promoting Photonics globally, especially research in new applications such as Quantum, and performs numerous honorary duties including Board seats on EPIC, Bifrost Communication, and the Danish Quantum Community.
Basil holds an MSc in Lasers and Their Applications.
Johan Feenstra (CEO) joined SMART Photonics as CEO in 2019 after having been on the Advisory Board for about 3 years. Before SMART, Johan co-founded Liquavista in 2006 and is co-inventor of electrowetting displays. At Liquavista, he has had a broad set of roles, ranging from CEO, to CTO and Program Management. Together with his team, he raised four rounds of venture capital for Liquavista and sold the company twice, in both cases to Fortune 500 companies (Samsung Electronics and Amazon.com). Johan received his PhD in Solid State Physics from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands in 1997. He currently serves on the Advisory/Supervisory board of 3 other scale-up companies.
Rüdiger Paschotta is the founder and managing director of RP Photonics, and is well known for his famous RP Photonics Encyclopedia (www.rp-photonics.com/encyclopedia.html). His main offers are powerful digital marketing in photonics (using the buyer's guide which intimately connected with the encyclopedia) and design and simulation software in photonics. Besides, he offers technical consultancy and tailored staff training courses.
Guy Ear (President & CEO) has 10 years of several sales and marketing management positions in airlines, tourism and luxury hospitalities in France, UK and the United-States prior to deciding in 2005 to take a new challenge in the Photonics industry by taking a Sales & Marketing Director for Asia Pacific at a UV light-source manufacturer for Lithography, Mask Aligner equipment in Japan. With his strong self-taught abilities and capability in speaking 5 languages in the Asian region, Guy has built up an extensive experience and a human network. He founded Etendue Mejiro KK (Japan) in 2006, a company specialized in design and manufacturing high performance scan lens for semi-conductor and digital displays industry, which was sold in 2009. Guy joined SIGMAKOKI Group as the Head of the International Sales Division to expand the international presence of the SIGMAKOKI Group in Asia and recently by establishing a new subsidiary in Europe in 2014.
Ronny Timmreck (CEO) received his diploma degree in physics from the University of Technology Dresden, Germany and his PhD for a work on organic solar cells in the group of Prof. Karl Leo renowned for the organic electronics start-ups Novaled and Heliatek. Ronny founded his first start-up at the age of 23 and developed this company to a leader in its branch. In 2016, he took the lead in the start-up project SENORICS. He has been CEO of SENORICS since the company’s foundation in 2017 and in that position raised more than 10 M€ venture capital.
Benno Oderkerk (CEO) has a background in electronics and medical technology. He studied at the University of Twente, Netherlands and did his master’s thesis at Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa in 1988. Since then, he worked for 5 years in a small sensor company in Munich and, in 1994, he started Avantes, a spectroscopy company. In the following 26 years Benno lead the company as CEO to a successful worldwide leader in spectroscopy. In 2018 Benno sold Avantes to Nynomic and in 2020 he resigned as CEO. Since then he is in the board of a few photonics companies, as well as in the supervisory Board of Photon Delta and Chairman of Photonics NL. Benno Oderkerk is President of the EPIC Board of Directors.
Viacheslav Artyushenko (President & CEO) was born in Russia. His PhD in physics was done at General Physics Institute, Moscow in 1981 - focused on his pioneering development of polycrystalline fibers for Mid IR-range: 3-18µm. His multiple publications and patents were devoted to fiber optic technologies and applications in laser medicine, process-spectroscopy, optical sensing and diagnostic. In 1998, he founded art photonics GmbH in Berlin – one of worldwide leaders now in the production of specialty fiber products for a broad spectra 0.2-16µm. Dr. V. Artyushenko and art photonics are members of EPIC, CPACT, IBioIC, SPIE, OSA, SAS, SPECTARIS, Optec-BB, Photonics-BB, GDCh-DECHEMA & CLIRSPEC.
Thor Ansbæk (CEO) has a Masters in Engineering from The Technical University of Denmark. He also holds a Ph.d. in semiconductor lasers (VCSELs) for medical diagnosis. Attracted public funding for commercialization of the technology and pre‐seed financing to spin‐out the company OCTLIGHT. Has built a team of eight employees, leading consultants, a professional board of directors and an advisory board.
Jean Schmitt is the President and one of the Managing Partners at Jolt Capital, an independent private equity firm he founded in 2011 to invest growth rounds in B2B deeptech European companies.
Prior to Jolt Capital, Jean was Managing Partner at Sofinnova Partners, running the IT practice with a focus on telecom and wireless markets.
Before his career as an investor, Jean was the CEO and founder of 4 companies with successful exits, including SLP InfoWare, sold to Gemplus in 2000.
He is a senior lecturer at Telecom ParisTech and HEC Paris, a former Chairman of the International Venture Club and a Member of Henkel’s Henkel X mentorship program. Jean is currently a board member of Sinequa, NIL Technology, Interel, Blackwood Seven, Verimatrix and Virta. He graduated from Telecom ParisTech and holds a post-graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence.
Brendan McDonagh (Senior Adviser) is a Senior Adviser at the EIB’s Advisory Services Department. Brendan manages a range of assignments in the innovation, digitalisation and transport areas. Brendan joined EIB in 2016 and worked in Western Europe Operations Division and in the Innovation Finance Division before taking up his current post in 2019. Prior to joining EIB Brendan held senior management positions in the Irish Development Agency - IDA Ireland. He holds a Degree in Mathematics and Economics and a Master’s in Business Administration.
Maria Lundqvist (Finance Advisor) is Finance Advisor at the Innovation Finance Advisory team at the European Investment Bank. Her area of expertise is within innovation, the digital economy and emerging disruptive technologies, with a particular focus on deep tech, AI, blockchain, quantum technologies as well as cybersecurity, photonics and space.
Maria joined the EIB in 2015 as an Economist at the Bank’s Economics Department, focusing on innovation policy and strategy. 2016-2020 she worked as an Economist at the EIB’s technical department, analysing and assessing innovative investment projects within technologically advanced sectors before taking up her current role in 2021. Prior to joining the EIB, Maria worked as a Business Analyst in Switzerland. Maria holds a Master degree in Economics from Lund University, Sweden. Outside of work, she loves the mountains and outdoor activities, sports in general, cross-country skiing and bikram yoga in particular. Travels and adventures are a big part of her life.
Elad Volfin (Chief Revenue Officer) has a vast experience in Electro magnetics, Big data and intelligence, and a background in Electronics engineering and Business administration and has been part of the Photonics industry for more than 12 years. In the last year, after acting as the VP of Sales & Business Development for Monocrom, Elad is now holding the Position of the CRO of Monocrom, exploring for new collaborations, investments and partnerships in the industry.
Bruno Gross (General Manager) studied physics in Munich and Vancouver. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich while working as a researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics in the group of Prof. T.W. Hänsch. Bruno started his business career as a management consultant. Afterwards, he held various senior management positions, both in the photonic industry as well as in large educational, non-profit organizations. Currently, he is heading Thorlabs Germany.
From Technical Director at a Laboratory for Material Testing to young founder of a company active in the field of fiber optic technologies for structural health monitoring in Lugano, afterwards becoming manager of an international technical company in Paris, Nicoletta Casanova, with her passion for innovation, is a serial entrepreneur always trying to make things differently. After her first successful experience, she decided in 2013 to give birth to FEMTOprint SA, with the following main goals: open new technological horizons in industrial manufacturing and boost innovation in microsystems by providing means for rapid prototyping and serial production.
Her passion for innovation is reflected in her additional activities as Innovation Counselor at the Swiss Innovation Agency “Innosuisse”, as Chair of the BRIDGE Steering committee, and as Leader of the Group for innovation at the Association of Ticino’s Industries.
Nick Gavril (Co-founder and CEO) has more than 15 years of experience managing design and production of optical modules, optical telecom devices and fiber lasers. Since 2003 he was leading R&D at an innovative telecom component manufacturer. In 2015 Nick co-founded Litilit (known as Integrated Fiber Optics at the time). Nick also serves as a principal project implementer at the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology. He holds 4 patent applications (one in the US) and he is a co-author of 2 scientific publications.
Pieter Klinkert (Fund Manager) has been the Fund Manager of PhotonDelta Foundation since September 2021. He is responsible of PhotonDelta’s investment portfolio of companies active in integrated photonics. To further expand the ecosystem he searches new investment opportunities. In the first 15 years of his career, Klinkert held several entrepreneurial positions with a focus on general management, business development and fund raising. In 2019 he made a switch to fund and investment management in the venture capital world, where he had a strong focus on high tech ventures, especially photonics.
Carlos Viana (CEO) is the co-founder and chief executive officer of a deep tech startup company, ICON Photonics SAS, developing advanced chip optical I/O interconnects for the next generation connectivity. He holds a PhD in Photonics from Université Paris-Est, France and he has more than 10 years of experience in photonics technologies, Administration & Business development.
Michael Bailly is the CEO and Co-founder of SILINA. He holds an Engineering degree in physics from Ecole Polytechnique and a Master’s in Management of Technology from UC Berkeley. Most of his professional career has been spent managing and setting up First-Of-A-Kind industrialization projects in long cycle technological industries. From 2008 to 2020, he has worked as project director at Areva and Air Liquide, leading the automatization and the construction of innovative plants in France and Europe. In 2021, he founded SILINA with his co-founder, CTO and inventor of SILINA’s technology.
Active private investor in early-stage photonics and deep tech companies that loves to network and learn. Shareholder and member of the board in international technology companies. Juror and mentor in international technology events like MIT Innovators under 35, European Photonics Venture Forum, TechTour & TechTour Photonics, AdMaCom| INAM, Podim.
More than ten years of experience in working with scientific projects from around the world. Advised hundreds of technology companies from over 40 countries on the subjects of technology commercialization, raising capital and business development. Graduated from two-cycle studies at the Warsaw School of Economics (International Economic Relations and Management) and scholarship holder at Ryukoku University in Japan, (graduated from Japanese-Asian Studies - JAS). In 2012 co-founded Internest, a creative and consultancy agency for the high-tech sector and as Internest’s CEO cooperated with scientists and innovators globally, advising them on the commercialization process and helped create business and investment opportunities. In 2016 co-founded and became President of the Center for Innovation and Technology Commercialization Foundation (CIKT) that organized the global campaign "Bringing tech&science closer to people" conducted under the auspices of UNESCO - with the reach of over 88 million people and 137 countries it was the first and the biggest digital event promoting tech&science projects. In 2015 and 2016, scouted for Polish technologies and verified them for a TV documentary series ("Inventors of the future") made for Canal+ Discovery about Polish startups, scientists and innovators.
Since 2018 Managing Partner in VIGO Ventures that is an early-stage (pre round A) investor for photonic and deep tech companies that brings hands-on business approach and possible follow-on investment up to €10mln.
Daan A.J. Kersten, with Master degrees in mechanical engineering from TU Delft and business administration from Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Business combined with Stanford University Graduate School of Business’s Executive Program for Growing Companies, Daan has created a solid basis for building deeptech scale-ups. After having co-founded industrial metal additive manufacturing equipment OEM Additive Industries, Daan is now CEO of PhotonFirst, expanding rapidly to a global player. In 2022 PhotonFirst is building a regional headquarters in North America to accelerate its growth.
Stefan Traeger (President and CEO) is the President and CEO of Jenoptik since 2016. He completed his PhD in 1998 as Dr. rer. nat., at the Leibniz University of Hanover and subsequently attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, as postdoctoral research affiliate. In 2003, Dr. Traeger obtained a Master of Business Administration at the Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, as part of an Executive Education Program. Dr. Stefan Traeger started his professional career at Carl Zeiss in 2000, where he held various management positions until 2007, including as Director Strategic Business Development of Carl Zeiss Meditec AG in Jena and as Managing Director of Carl Zeiss SMT Ltd. in Cambridge, UK. In 2007, Dr. Stefan Traeger was appointed Managing Director of Leica Microsystems CMS GmbH, a Danaher Group company. As Vice President & General Manager, he was responsible for the global Life Science Division of Leica Microsystems. From 2013 to 2017, he was a member of the executive committee of the listed Swiss company Tecan Group AG where he managed the global retail customer business in the Life Sciences Division.
Markus Riedi (CEO) studied precision engineering with a focus on optics, mechanics, and electronics at the Hochschule Munich. Internships at Rodenstock, Steinheil and Phytron complemented his studies. Since 1980, Mr. Riedi has also worked in his family's manufacturing business. During this time, Mr. Riedi qualified as a master craftsman and took over the management of the company in 1992. In 1993, Mr. Riedi began to work in parallel in Opto Sonderbedarf GmbH and took over 100% of the company in 1999. In 2008, the family business was integrated into Opto GmbH.
Mr. Riedi acquired his business and management know-how in numerous seminars in business management and management training.
CEO Dr. Eric Lindner holds a PhD in Physics from the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. During his research in fiber optics, he worked on special types of FBGs for many different application fields. He joined FBGS as a project engineer in 2008. In 2012 he became responsible for the development and production of DTG®s. He became CEO in 2015, driving since then the development of the company. Eric is co-author of 5+ patents and 40+ scientific publications
Dr. Stefan Weber has a long-standing technical background in Photonics and Adaptive Optics. He was on the management board of two successful high-tech startups: SwissLitho AG, manufacturing rapid prototyping nanolithography tools and modum.io AG in Zurich, developing IoT trackers for Pharma supply chain. Before that, he was product manager at Jenoptik Optical Systems GmH, did his Post-Doc at the EPFL developing MOEMS systems, and earned his PhD in experimental at the FU Berlin.
Jan Meise (CEO) joined AMS in 2010. He drives the company’s sales expansion plans, organically and inorganically, which resulted in the company’s acquisition of Sweden based Azpect Photonics in 2012 with the financial backing of AMS’ shareholders. Prior to joining AMS Technologies, Jan lived and worked for 9 years in Silicon Valley, USA. In his last position at Finisar, he was responsible for new markets, driving business cases and reviewing potential acquisition targets. As part of a small technical entrepreneurial team, he also co‐founded a boot strapped start up funded by Angel Investments. Jan Meise is a member of the EPIC Board of Directors.
Evaldas Stralkus (CBDO) is the new Chief Business Development Officer for Optonas group of companies. Evaldas have more than 13 years’ experience of working various positions in manufacturing companies. Latest position of his experience is CEO for Lithuanian Mint (circulation and collectible coins production). The company is 100% state-owned. He is Business Development professional with experience in C-level sales based on long term partnership, including experience in international sales with a demonstrated successful history of working on successful business lead and sales growth. Evaldas passion about manufacturing started from early beginnings as he has a master’s degree in manufacturing (integrated production) science. He has constructive management approach and like to focus on continuous improvement to reach best organizational performance and output.
Djordi van Beek (Partner in Technology Recruitment) is responsible for managing a team of Consultants, Business Managers and Recruiters at Orion Engineering. His team specializes in technical (project) staffing and is responsible for the entire recruitment and selection process of (inter-)national candidates with a focus on the High-Tech and Semiconductor industry. While making a difference on personal level, his team is always searching for technical talent in and outside our network (with a specific focus on interesting backgrounds like Applied Physics, Mechatronics, Electromechanics, Aerospace etc.)
Frank Wolfs (Managing Director, Founder and Owner) is an entrepreneur with passion for recruitment related to technology driven people and companies. For over 20 years, Frank has been working in technical oriented international companies and institutes. Frank possesses international working experience with top technology firms as well as with top engineers and scientists. His communication skills and professional knowledge, both general and technological, are capable to perform at C-level. To perform on Strategic, Tactical and Operational levels in an International (Competitive) Recruitment environment for EPIC members is one of Frank's main interests and goals for the near future. He also has heavy industry experience in sectors like Semiconductor, Medical Devices, Healthcare, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Research, Food, Optics, Recruitment and Human Resources, where Photonics captured Frank's special attention since 2015 when he set up the entire recruitment operation for a very successful start-up on integrated Photonics back in NL. ProFound became member of EPIC to help member companies recruit on a global scale and develop tailor made solutions that have a long-term impact.
Peter Tottrup (CEO and Co-founder) has three decades of operational and investment experience in high tech industries. For 6 years, he is serving as CEO for NLIR. Prior to that, he has 10 years as Venture Capital Partner. Peter also spent 7 years as Consultant (DK & Schweiz), twice as CTO in VC backed startups (DK & USA) and 4 years at Accenture as Experienced Senior Consultant (DK, Sweden and USA).
Titas Gertus (CEO) is a new leader for FEMTIKA. Titas has been interested in femtosecond laser micromachining for more than 15 years. He has a PhD degree from Vilnius University in material engineering. Titas is looking only forward to see challenges market will bring for hybrid manufacturing.
Rob Voorkamp (CEO) holds masters in Mechanical Engineering as well as Business Innovation. Throughout his career, Rob held several positions in project management, marketing and business development in different types of industry. His business development activities involved licensing, technology acquisition and M&A in high-tech industries. In 2015, Rob started SCIL Nanoimprint solutions together with several key inventors