IP creator for novel materials

Carlo studied Environmental Sciences and Forest Engineering (MSc) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. He earned his Executive MBA at the University of St.Gallen (HSG). After his service as an army pilot, he started his professional career as co-founder of the ETH spin-off, MyClimate, a non-profit organization and prominent provider of carbon offsetting measures. Since 2004, Carlo has served HeiQ as co-founder and CEO, developing the firm from a two-employee company to an over 200-employee company. He also serves as Chairman of ECSA Group, a 108-year-old Swiss chemical and energy distributor with a consolidated turnover of over USD 300 million for 2020 and is a member of the executive board of Science Industries, the Swiss association of the pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical industries.

Murray completed his undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he earned his Ph.D. He later accepted a post-doctoral research position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich. Since 2005, Murray has served HeiQ as CTO, developing the product pallet from one product to over 100.

Xaver started his career in finance in 2005 after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of St.Gallen (HSG). At the beginning of his professional career, he worked with EY Switzerland as an auditor for industrial clients and graduated as a Swiss Certified Public Accountant in 2009. He later worked in various finance positions and led the global finance and accounting team of a listed Korean speciality chemical producer before joining HeiQ in 2018 as Head of Controlling. He was appointed Group Chief Financial Officer in October 2019.

Hoi Kwan brings with her a dozen years of experience in Marketing in consumer branding, market research, advertising and ingredient branding. During her study in City University of Hong Kong with major in Marketing, Hoi Kwan already started conducting marketing consultancy projects with World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), as well as such international FMCG companies as Reckitt Benckiser and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. She then started working for brands of Procter & Gamble in branding, advertising and consumer research. Hoi Kwan joined HeiQ in 2016 as Global Brand Manager after earning her master’s degree in marketing at the University of St. Gallen and has been appointed Group CMO in 2019.

Robin serves as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of HeiQ Chrisal in Belgium.

Robin studied Biotechnology (MSc) at Ghent University and did his PhD in Microbiology at the same university, specializing in probiotics. After his PhD, Robin got a position at the Lab of Microbial Ecology and Technology (Ghent University) to perform research on water treatment and the use of probiotics to control Legionella in cooling water. In the meantime, he followed several courses at the Vlerick Business school.

In 2006, Robin moved to the Belgian company Chrisal, to start the probiotic cleaning project as R&D manager. In 2009, Robin was appointed CEO of the company. Besides his current position at HeiQ Chrisal, Robin is also international ambassador for South Africa at the Belgian Chamber of Commerce.

Mike holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering & Industrial Management from the West Virginia University Institute of Technology. His roles have included Global Head-Up of Innovation at Hanesbrands Inc.. Mike is a strong leadership professional who has worked in the apparel & home categories for several years on both the client and vendor side of the business, and who is skilled in Operations Management, Fabric Formation, Fabric Processing, Product Development, Product Management and Development from concept to commercialization, Merchandising, Negotiations/Strategic Partnerships and Leading Teams. Focusing on Consumer and Brand needs are his guiding force.
Mike joined HeiQ as the CEO of HeiQ ChemTex.

Tom holds a degree in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He started his career in New York investment banking, and over time transitioned to the field of materials technology, where he has successfully founded and sold two companies specializing in antimicrobial technology.

Oliver studied chemistry at the University of Regensburg, Germany and the University of Versailles, France. He earned his Ph.D in chemistry in 2010. He later accepted a post-doctoral research position at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, within a scholarship of the Max Planck Society. Oliver earned his MBA in general management in 2018. He started his career at RAS in 2011 and was active in different management positions of the company. Since 2019 he is member of the executive board of directors, and since 2021 CEO of HeiQ RAS AG.

Robert has a Master’s degree of Business Administration and Bachelor’s degree of Science with over 25 years of experience in the international textile and paper chemical industry. He was not only involved in the regional and global roles in Thailand, Switzerland, and Singapore, but also served as Head of Archroma Chemicals (China) and the legal representative. In September 2023, Robert was appointed General Manager of HeiQ China.

Raquel is CEO of HeiQ Iberia and manages brand relations and technical support in the Iberian region, co-developing the home textiles market and leading innovations on the HeiQ thermoregulation offerings through the new innovation hub in HeiQ Iberia. Her experience includes management of both the phase change materials (PCM) and thermoregulation microencapsulation business units at Devan Chemicals with a track record on bringing value-adding startup technologies to market at a global scale. She holds a Chemistry Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree on functional textiles from Minho University and an Executive Innovation Master’s Degree from the Vierick Business School.

Ming brings close to 20 years of experience in textile and garment production supply chain focusing on sales, material innovation and development, sourcing and production. She holds a Bachelor of International Trade from the National Taipei University of Business, Taiwan, speaks Chinese, English and Spanish and has lived in both Taiwan and Argentina. Ming is based in HeiQ Taiwan in Taoyuan City, Taiwan.

Kate studied fashion and textiles in Auckland, New Zealand. After graduating, she gained great technical & professional experience in textiles and apparel by working for; Designer Textiles International, TMC owned by Lempriere Australia, Youngone Corporation, All Saints, Under Armour & Old Navy/Gap inc.

Kate moved all over the world to follow her calling, living in New Zealand, Vietnam, South Korea, UK and USA. She travelled to many mills/factories globally working on innovation of different performance textiles and fashion apparel. She joined HeiQ in 2020 and is CEO of HX Taiwan.

Uwe is a Chemist by training made his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for experimental medicine in Göttingen, followed by a Post Doc at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory). After 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry (Ciba Geigy/Novartis/ Altana) in the field of nucleic acids and antisense therapies he joined the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwest Switzerland School of Life Sciences” in 2000, to build up research in material sciences and (bio)nanotechnology with the focus on applied research. His major interests are in nanomaterials, surface chemistry, surface characterization and biointerfaces in particular. In September 2020 he joined HeiQ materials in  the function as chairman of the Innovation Advisory board and innovation headcoach.

Andreas is board certified physician in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and, since July 2021, in hospital epidemiology. His training included several hospitals in Switzerland, with specialty training at the university of Basel hospitals in infectious disease. In Iowa, USA, he completed training in hospital epidemiology and a Master’s degree in epidemiology. Until 2021, Andreas served as deputy head of division of infectious disease & hospital epidemiology at the university of Basel. Andreas co-founded the national center for infection prevention and continues to serve as its president.  Since 2003, he is a regular expert for the World Health Organization (WHO), writing guidelines for surgical hand hygiene, e.g. completing the first draft for “minimum standards” infection control in Swiss hospitals. These requirements have since been accepted by authorities and are mandatory for acute care hospitals since February 2021. Andreas was also part of the surgical infection prevention group at WHO. His main research interest, beyond hand hygiene, is prevention of surgical site infection with emphasis on preparation of the surgical site, antimicrobial prophylaxis and C.difficile infections. Andreas published 513 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Martin studied biology at the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany. After his master in Biology in Michigan, USA he earned his Ph.D. at the Technical University München in Freising. He continued his career as a Postdoc at the Institute for Microbiology of TU München. After visits at the University of Nottingham, England and the Ben-Gurion-University in Beer-Sheva, Israel, he received his habilitation degree for lecturing in microbiology at the TU München. A research sojourns at the Department for Molecular- and Cell Biology at the University of California in Berkeley was followed in 2003 by accepting the Chair of Food Microbiology at the Institute of Food Science and Nutrition of the ETH Zurich.

Andreas holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Hamburg, Germany. From 1998, he was a full professor at Saarland University, Germany. He is an ICREA Research Professor at Pompeu Fabra University and Head of Infection Biology Laboratory in Barcelona. His research focuses on infections with non-cytopathic viruses, particularly on understanding the factors that regulate the decision between an acute versus a persistent infection course, defining the factors that control the dynamic balance of virus expansion and immune control in persistent infections, and generating quantitative descriptions of the virus/immune system dynamics by mathematical modeling.

Marcus is professor emeritus, ETH Zurich, Department of Materials. He studied chemistry at the University of Zurich. After receiving a fellowship of the Royal Society he spent two years at the School of Molecular Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, in the field of advanced surface and interface characterization technologies. Between 1978 and 1994 he worked in different R&D functions in industry (Alusuisse-Lonza) on materials and surface technologies related to metals and composites for automotive, architectural, food and packaging applications. In 1994 he joined ETH Zurich, Department of Materials and built up a research group in the area of surfaces and interfaces of biomaterials, biosensors, medical implants, cell culture platforms, carriers for drug delivery and nanomaterials for biotechnological and medical applications. Retired in 2011, he continues to consult and advise public and private R&D institutions / companies word-wide.

Werner has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Regensburg (UR) and is a full professor and head of the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at UR where he also heads the chair of “Solution Chemistry” as well as the Carl-von-Carlowitz Centre of Sustainable Chemistry. He has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, with research focusing on the chemistry of complex solutions, such as solvents, salts, surfactants etc., as well as green chemistry and connected product formulations, such as biofuels, biopolymers, plant extracts etc.

Hyung Gyu is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea. His academic preparation includes M.S. from Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Korea (2000), on Computational Fluid Dynamics, Ph.D. from Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, USA (2007), on the pioneering investigation of fast mass transport inside carbon nano tubes, and the postdoctoral training at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA, USA. In 2009, he joined Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, where he received tenure professorship with leading the Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technology & Sustainability (NETS). Returning to South Korea in 2019, he rebuilds NETS and launches a new research center, Center for Low-Dimensional Transport Physics. Hyung Gyu’s research interest consists in fundamental understanding of the transport phenomena in low-dimensional narrow space, engineering of membrane platform capable of coping with low-dimensional spaces, and coupling of plasmonic sensing to nanofluidics.

Nico is Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry at the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. His research interests are bio-inspired polymer materials, biocatalysis in polymer chemistry and amphiphilic polymer self-assembly. He studied Chemistry at the Universities of Freiburg (Germany) and Edinburgh (UK) and graduated with a PhD in Macromolecular Chemistry from the University of Freiburg in 2007. After a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the University of Basel in Switzerland where he received the Venia Docendi for Chemistry in 2014. From 2013 to 2018 he was Associate Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry at the Adolphe Merkle Institute of the University of Fribourg, funded by a prestigious Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship.

Hendrik is a general and cardiovascular surgeon trained in Lausanne and Berne, Switzerland. He performed his clinical and laboratory research in these cities as well as at Duke university, NC, USA. He is now Head of R&D at the University hospital in Berne, Switzerland and collaborates with several national and international institutes, universities and companies. Hendrik contributed to more than 120 scientific publications, raised several public and private grants and was honoured with several national and international awards. Hendrik is especially interested by technology transfer and owns 4 patents. He recently graduated as Executive MBA at the University of St-Gallen, Switzerland.

Clemens studied Polymer Engineering at the Montan- University Leoben, Austria, where he earned his Ph.D. He started his career at the Swiss company Huber+Suhner as a polymer expert and soon became a project-engineer in the corporate research laboratory. Later he became head of production and finally head of research and development. During all his years at Huber+Suhner he was engaged in education and held lectures. In 2003 he changed to the University of Applied Sciences Nordwestschweiz and in 2005 he became deputy head of the INKA – Institut für Nanotechnische Kunststoff-Anwendungen. In 2009 he returned to Loeben as head of the Polymer-Processing Institute.

Irene studied medicine at the universities of Tübingen and Bonn, Germany and earned her doctorate of medicine at the University of Bonn. She worked in several hospitals in the departments of anesthesiology, emergency medicine, surgery and internal medicine. Subsequently, she specialized in allergology and environmental medicine and worked as a primary care doctor in her own practice until 2019. Since then, she has advised numerous companies on health-related matters and work place standards.