• 1982 – 1989 Manager Marketing Research/Marketing Information Systems
• 1989 – 1992 Head of Corporate Market Research Department
• 1992 – 2001 Director Strategic Planning/Market Research
• 2002 – 2004 Director Strategic Analyses and Scenarios
• since 2004 Director Strategic Projects, BASF

Besides his work for BASF he is a member of several organisations:
• Member of advisory board and former Vice President ECMSA (European Marketing & Strategy Association)
• Speaker German Group ECMRG (European Chemical Marketing Research Group)
• Member CDMA (Commercial Development and Marketing Association)
• Member WFS (World Future Society)

Hans Kolnaar (1967) has worked in the chemical industry for over 20 years. After his education in chemical engineering at Eindhoven University and obtaining a PhD in physics from University of Bristol, he joined DSM in the Netherlands in 1990. Here he held several positions in product development, technical marketing and business marketing in the Polymers business. Here he co-developed marketing initiatives in the area of B2B marketing such as customer planning and customer value management.

When SABIC acquired DSM’s petrochemicals business in 2002, he held positions in Europe as Business Manager HDPE and as Manager Intelligence & Business Development at Strategic Planning. Since November 2009 Hans is globally responsible for Ideation & Innovation within SABIC.

Thorsten Ploss - Roland Berger

Dr. Thorsten Ploss, a chemist by education and partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, has worked for over 12 years in strategy consulting, focusing on the oil, gas and chemicals industry, which he advises mainly in strategy development, cost optimisation and reorganisation.

After living in the Gulf region for over 4 years he now serves his global clients from Roland Berger's London office.

 Christian Page - DOW

Christian Page has studied in Switzerland, the US and Germany. He holds a PhD in chemistry from the Max Planck Institute/University of Saarbruecken. In 1988, he joined the Dow Chemical Company in technical service and then moved into production and market development roles. Finishing a MBA gave the impulse to move into the commercial area, where he was responsible for the development and the application of new marketing tools. This was followed by different marketing roles, up to leading the marketing group for a global business with focus on profitable long term revenue growth by developing and implementing marketing strategies that address the needs of our target customers worldwide. He is now the business director of a global business unit.

Education in organic chemistry. As a chemist I have been working in drug discovery at Solvay. 25 Year ago I started at Océ Andeno in chemical process optimization. This company was later bought by DSM. Since 16 years I am active in Intelligence jobs in Fine Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Fine Chemistry and EPDM rubber. Within these jobs I was involved in the full range of operational, tactical and strategical activities. The current position is at DSM Elastomers as Business Intelligence Manager.

ECMSA is an ideal place to broaden your horizon. The combination of focus on the chemical industry and marketing and strategy gives you the opportunity to develop contacts. It helps you to add different approaches and views.

Since September 1st, 2006, Luigi Robbiati is the Director of Growth for DuPont in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He is responsible for corporate marketing and sales in the region and to develop new growth opportunities for DuPont, ensuring common and consistent best sales and marketing practices throughout the region. He is also leading the West European Country Leaders team, focusing  on “one DuPont” sales, marketing and growth activities in these key markets.

During a career of over 30 years at DuPont, Luigi has held previous European and global leadership positions in DuPont’s printing and publishing, imaging, medical X-ray and industrial films enterprises. Accomplishments include helping guide the transformation of DuPont Teijin Films into the world's largest PET film manufacturer in his role as President of DTF Europe, and, most recently, achieving significant growth for the company’s Packaging and Industrial Products business unit as EMEA Regional Business Director and as global VP of the Glass Laminating Solutions business.

A graduate in Business and Economics at Milan University, Luigi spend his careers in Italy, Germany, USA, Luxembourg and now in Switzerland and he was appointed Commandeur de l’Ordre de Merit by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Cavaliere Ufficale by the President of Italy.

Leo van der Heiden is Marketing Direcor for the EMEA Region at Eastman Chemicals, responsible for all marketing and market development activities in the EMEA Region, including Regional Market Reserach, and MarComm functions Leo graduated from Technical University as a Chemical engineer, got his MBA at IMI in Geneva, Switzerland and received his Post Doc. Financial training at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. During his career worked in a number of technical and commercial functions, mostly at multi nationals such as DSM, GE Plastics Europe, Reichhold and currently at Eastman.

Nigel writes daily on the chemical industry for ICIS news and ICIS Chemical Business. In the widely read Insight column he analyses and comments on the sector. He contributes regularly to Chemical News Central the ground-breaking ICIS Radio podcast and is European Course Director for the ICIS Training business. He says he is as fascinated by chemistry now as he was as a 15 year old and by the chemical industry at 25. He has been involved with ECMSA since the 1980s, was president of the association at the start of this decade and latterly its treasurer. Now an Advisory Board member he firmly believes the association can continue to offer its members, and the sector, a great deal. In his day-to-day life the satisfaction of digging out detail and the background to a good story still drives him after 29 years of editing and reporting. Nigel says his young family help him to look on the bright side.