A passionate Circular Economy scholar, system thinker, activist and intrapreneur (with over 15 years of experience in design and innovation in the food industry).
‘I made it my mission to be a driving force in a food revolution, a paradigm shift. I believe in a future of food as a force for good. I want to leave a world, in which economic, social and ecological interests are aligned. Food can fuel this system shift through innovation, the adaptive power of the system, towards a resilient food system with a positive impact, by design.’
Merijn holds a Bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering and studies Circular Economy at the Bradford School of Management as one of the first to specialize in the Circular Economy for Food.

‘I strive to further the understanding and catalyzing the adoption of Circular Economy principles in food and the food industry, every day, leading Open Innovation and Circular Economy at Danone.’

Prof. Eyal Shimoni is one of Israel’s top food engineering & technology experts, with vast academic and industrial experience. He serves as the CTO of Strauss Group as of 2010. He is in charge of the Technological strategy for the group, as well identifying, evaluating, and developing innovative technologies with Alpha-Strauss, the Food Tech Community. Currently he is also a board member of The Kitchen, the first FoodTech incubator in Israel, established by Strauss.

Eyal is a proud Technion graduate (BSc, MSc, DSc), with a post doc in the university of Minnesota. He was a research professor in the Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering of the Technion 2000-2013, performing many studies and projects with industrial partners, as well as basic research, mostly in food biophysics and food nano-science. In 2017 Eyal was elected as the European CTO of the year by European industrial research management association and Spinverse.

Noam focuses on entrepreneurship that creates business value with environmental values.

His career has combined founding of purpose-driven companies, early-stage impact investing and environmental consulting. He is the CEO and co-founder of ECO-OS, an online solution for sustainability management and a data-driven circular economy. In 2001 he founded his first company, Assif-Strategies, an environmental management, strategy and innovation firm and has since co-founded, advised and invested with numerous early-stage cleantech, energy and food companies, including: DouxMatok, Elysium Carbon, EnStorage, Panoramic Power and TransAlgae.

Noam earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley & a B.Sc.Agri at the Hebrew University.

Experienced entrepreneur, founder of several start-up companies in the fields of internet, new media and out-of-home gaming. Eran has vast experience in product development, and his skills range from management, business development and marketing to technical know-how. Eran sold his latest company, StarShow, which was founded in 2011, to an American investors group. Eran holds a BA in Business Management and Marketing and an MBA in Finance.

Before joining EIT Food, Andy built and turned around several businesses in Europe and the USA, and most recently engineered a successful exit for Open Innovation Service Leader NineSigma, which he ran for 10 years. The majority of NineSigma’s clients are from the Agri-Food Industry. Other stations in his career include 6 years at KPMG Consulting, where he built an international telecommunication strategy practice, and 5 years at Vanco plc, where as CEO North America and Central Europe he was part of the Executive team that took the business public on the London Stock Exchange. Andy joined EIT Food as CEO in November 2018.

Andy holds a Master’s degree that combines Business Administration and Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin, and he earned a Doctorate’s Degree with a thesis on (Open) Innovation Management from RWTH Aachen.

Isabelle set up ID Capital  in 2012 in Singapore.

In 2014 she started investing in the agrifoodtech start-ups whose technology can help disruption and progress sustainability. Realizing the untapped potential of Asia-Pacific, she launched the Future Food Asia platform mid 2016, and decided to focus on this high growth region.

The platform is accelerated by the Future Food Asia Award, a regional start-up competition culminating in the annual Future Food Asia Conference.

In January 2019 ID Capital has been appointed as a co-investment partner in agrifoodtech start-ups by SEEDS Capital and is furthering its investment activity focused on APAC.

Rodrigo leads the Global & Zone Innovation & Technology Centers, focused on development of Commercial and Technical Innovation across ABI

Maya is the former coordinator at the Israeli Union of Environmental NGOs, a coalition of NGOs which promotes Sustainable Development related policies, with a focus on climate change. Organizer and coordinator of the civil delegations to the UN climate and SD conventions. A former co-chair of Green Course, a nation-wide environmental NGO based on youth volunteers, a national campaign coordinator in Green Course and an active member of the Israeli Biomimicry Organization.

Emma is a brand and marketing leader with a track record of working at the intersection of strategy, consumer insights and product innovation. She is currently the Director of Brand Marketing for Brightseed, which is meeting consumer needs for healthy, natural and increasingly personalized food and beverage products through discovery of new plant-based nutrients using systems biology and machine learned-based ForagerTM intelligence. She was formerly a consultant at Prophet Brand Strategy, Egg Strategy and TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, where she advised food, beverage and technology companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s. She holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.