Adrian Feiler

Bundesverband Aquakultur e.V. (Germany)

From the early days, Adrian has dedicated his life to fish and aquaculture. This passion has led him to focus on aquatic topics during his Bachelor and Master degree at TU München. From that educational side, he started his career at Kaeser Kompressoren, where he works as the business development manager in the sector of aquaculture.

Adrian Feiler has been a Board member of the Bundesverband Aquakultur e.V. since 2022. In 2023 he was elected as new President of Bundesverband Aquakultur e.V.

Michael Gusko

ZERO1 HEALTH GmbH (Austria)

Michael Gusko studied Economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Business Management at Indiana University in Pennsylvania, USA. After graduation, he worked for Unilever Germany in marketing (B2C), market research and sales. For 30 years, he has worked for the GoodMills Group in various management positions, most recently as Managing Director of GoodMills Innovation GmbH, Hamburg. Since 2020, Michael Gusko has been working as Global Director Innovation at the Holding Office in Vienne.

Kristal Golan

BayWa Venture GmbH, New Protein Solutions at BayWa AG (Germany)

Kristal Golan has been Head of New Protein Solutions at BayWa AG since March 2022 and Managing Director of BayWa Venture GmbH since the beginning of 2023. The multidisciplinary entrepreneur, manager and start-up investor is responsible for start-up cooperations and start-up investments of BayWa Venture GmbH and also heads the New Protein Solutions business unit. Kristal Golan holds a Master of Business Administration in digital technology management and entrepreneurship. She already had more than twelve years of professional experience as co-founder of a successful e-commerce start-up, senior manager at a Rocket Internet start-up, and senior consultant in strategy and investment consulting before joining BayWa AG in 2019 as "Senior Venture Manager" for the New Proteins division. In the meantime, BayWa is shaping the topic of "alternative proteins" in its own department, BayWa New Protein Solutions, of which she has been department head since the time of its founding.

Prof. Dr. Tilo Hühn

ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland)

Prof. Dr. Tilo Hühn, Food Architect, Doctor of Biology, holds an engineering degree in Viticulture and Oenology. His research focuses on regenerative process engineering, analytical science and technology of aroma components, bioactive substances and value-determining ingredients. Together with his team and in collaboration with other stakeholders he creates, varies, expands, and reproduces the information pathways to explore functional solutions for the food world. In cooperation with industrial partner’s, new solutions for extraction of more good ingredients from grapes, apples, oranges, olives, tomatoes, spices, herbs, coffee, insects, nuts, cocoa and plant cell cultures were created. Since 1997 he has been working at the Zurich University for Applied Sciences in Waedenswil, Switzerland and is Head of the Centre for Food Composition and Process Design.

Christopher Nigischer

consider it GmbH (Germany)

Christopher Nigischer has been an entrepreneur for over 13 years. His first company - consider it GmbH - was bootstrapped and today employs 40 people. This was followed by STOKR GmbH, funded by Venture Capital, and CHAINSTEP GmbH as well as Blockchain Research Lab gGmbH, funded mainly by public funding.

Christopher realized early on that public funding and grants were his preferred form of financing. Accordingly, Christopher has been using this tool for his own ventures and helping his clients use it for the past 10 years.

Supported by a team of experienced grant consultants he has now helped more than 100 organizations, primarily technology startups, to raise funding. He also shares his knowledge and experience openly on Linkedin, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as the "Funding Whisperer."

Dr. Stefan Pecoroni

GEA Westfalia Separator Group GmbH (Germany)

Dr. Stefan Pecoroni studied and obtained his doctorate in food technology at the University of Hohenheim. Since 1995 he has been working for GEA Group in various sales and development functions, including as head of the business lines beverage technology and renewable raw materials. Since 2020, Dr. Pecoroni has been Head of Process Technology & Innovation and Vice President of GEA Westfalia Separator Group GmbH, focusing on: process technology development and support and innovation management.

Prof. Dr. Katharina Riehn

Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Hamburg (Germany)

Prof. Dr. Katharina Riehn is a specialist veterinarian for food safety and meat hygiene. She completed her studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and received her doctorate at the Institute for Food Hygiene. Since 2012, she has been a professor of food microbiology and toxicology in the Department of Ecotrophology at the Faculty of Life Sciences at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Her research focuses on animal welfare aspects in the field of slaughter and food-associated parasitic zoonoses. Another research focus is on the identification of quality parameters in cocoa and mangoes. In November 2014, she additionally completed the training to become a Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Public Health (ECVPH) in the field of "Food Science".