Jos Berkien
AkzoNobel

Jos Berkien is the Expertise Leader of the Instrumentation & Automation department and a Process Automation Engineer with AkzoNobel Engineering & Operational Solutions in Arnhem, The Netherlands. He is responsible for the resource planning of the I&A team and project manager for process automation projects. Prior to AkzoNobel, he worked in succession for two main system integrators, Yokogawa and Invensys (Foxboro/Triconex) respectively as a Control Systems Engineer and Sales Support Engineer. Jos has 11 years of process automation experience within the Chemical and Pharmaceutical industry and has worked with various process control systems and information management systems.

Christian Stürmer
E.ON

Christian Stürmer is the leader of the C&I department of E.ON New Build & Technology in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. He is responsible for process control projects in E.ON and for external customers with special focus on coordination of personnel and work load, new build project support, mid term planning as well as interface management to project organisations. In addition he works as technical leader of E.ON`s procurement centre “process control”, with technical responsibility for processes like specifying, tender evaluation, contract negotiation and claim management. Christian has 20 years of process automation experience within the power industry and is a member as well as a trainer of VGB (European technical association for power and heat generation) and a member of VDI (Association of German Engineers). After he graduated from Hannover University in electrical engineering he started his career with commissioning work in nuclear and conventional power plants in Europe. Christian lives in Münsterland in West Germany with Annette and children Julius and Anna.

Ward Beullens
Bayer MaterialScience

Ward Beullens is an Automation Engineer with Bayer MaterialScience (BMS) and responsible for Process Automation Systems at BMS worldwide. Currently Ward is located at the BMS headquarter in Leverkusen, Germany. Before taking on his global responsibility, he held several control system engineering positions at BMS sites in Belgium, Brazil and China. Ward has 20 years of project and maintenance experience having worked with various control and information systems.

Francisco Diaz-Andreu
Repsol

Francisco Diaz-Andreu (Paco) is currently Director of Engineering Procurement and Contracting with Repsol YPF, an Spanish Oil & Gas company. He started his career in Repsol in the Instrumentation and Advanced Control department where he accumulated 20 years of experience. He has participated in tne most important projects Repsol has developed in different countries, specially Spain and Latin America. He is being teaching Instrumentation and Control in several courses. He was the first president of ISA Spain Section and he continues being active in the activities of the section. He holds an Electronic Engineering degree from Universidad Politecnica de Madrid.

Vincent Grindlay
Fluor

Vincent Grindlay is a Senior Director with the Fluor Supply Chain Solutions organization. Prior to his current role, Vincent has held numerous positions within Fluor including the Electrical and Control Systems Global Excellence Leader and the Electrical and Control Systems Department Manager in Camberley UK. His Engineering career includes a wide range of experiences across industries, including petrochemical, oil and gas facilities (onshore and offshore), pharmaceutical and nuclear. Vincent brings 30 years of professional experience in the process industry and 18 years with Fluor. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Measurement and Control as well as being a Chartered Engineer and currently undertaking a Masters Degree in Supply Chain Management in Capital Projects at Clemson University.

Peter Iles-Smith
GlaxoSmithKline

Peter is currently Technical Director for Manufacturing Execution Systems with GlaxoSmithKline and is responsible for the definition, design, development and implementation of MES within GSK’s manufacturing organisation. Prior to that, Peter was responsible for GSK’s primary supply (bulk active) automation centre of excellence, covering process control, instrumentation and allied systems. Before joining GSK, Peter held a number of consulting and engineering positions with a systems integrator (Zenith Technologies), Aspen Technology and (as projects director) with Yokogawa. Peter started his automation career with Fisher Controls as an engineer and project manager, way back when PRoVOX was new. Peter holds a BSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Leeds University and is the co-author of a number of books on project management. Peter lives in Warrington in the UK with his wife and (occasionally) his three children.

Marleen Kuipers
Organizer, Emerson Global Users Exchange
Emerson Process Management, Europe

Marleen is Director of Marketing, Emerson Process Management Europe and in charge of organizing the Users Exchange in Düsseldorf. She started her career in Schlumberger, working in upstream Oil & Gas as an offshore drilling engineer. In 2001, she joined Emerson Process Management and since then has held various positions in marketing. Marleen also worked in Strategy Development at Emerson Corporate, St. Louis for several years. In her last role, she was the Rosemount Marketing Director Europe and CIS. Marleen has an MSc in Mining and Petroleum Engineering from the Technical University Delft, The Netherlands and an MBA from INSEAD, France.

Matthew Reuter
PROMAN

Matthew is a project engineer at PROMAN GmbH, an EPC contractor for the petrochemical industry, located in Düsseldorf, Germany. He has been involved in the engineering and management of multiple projects over the last few years including the design and implementation of an upgrade project for one of the world’s largest Methanol plants in Trinidad and Tobago. Matthew has worked together with Emerson on all aspects of the plant instrumentation project cycle from design and purchase to expediting and inspection. He has participated in various Emerson workshops and continues to stay on top of the industry’s latest advancements. Matthew graduated from the International Engineering Program at the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering. His great experiences at the Braunschweig University of Technology during this program lead to his return to Germany.

Bernard Riviere
AREVA Mining Business Group

Bernard graduated from “Centre Universitaire de Sciences et Techniques” (CUST) at Clermont Ferrand (1979). He started his career as an engineer (Electrical and Diagraphy) in prospecting uranium deposit for COGEMA (now AREVA NC) until 1986. He then became a production deputy, followed by being responsible for maintenance at a plant for uranium treatment in France, until 1993. He supervised new projects and constructions on the COMURHEX Malvesi site. He was in charge of automation and modernization projects in various subsidiaries of AREVA in France, Niger and Kazakhstan. From 2006 t0 2008, he was project manager on COMURHEX II project. Since then, he is in charge of instrumentation and process control in the Expertise & Technical Services Department of the Mining Business Group of AREVA.

Mark Showler
BP

Mark is currently the Project Manager for the Main Automation Contract, delivering the Integrated Control and Safety Systems and instruments for BP’s Azerbaijan Development projects. Mark has been part of the Azerbaijan project management team for 7 years, delivering a number of assets in various roles based in Azerbaijan for 3 years, and then the UK. The latest Asset selected Emerson Process Management as the Main Automation Contractor providing Mark with detailed Delta V and Rosemount field equipment experience.

Mark graduated with an MSc in Control Systems and Automation from the University of Sheffield, UK. He spent the first 6 years of his career working for the systems integrator, Silvertech Ltd, on a number of offshore Oil and Gas projects. His experience included system design, implementation, commissioning and operational system support.

Mark lives in the UK with his wife Katie and daughter Aoife.

Nick Taylor
Emerson Process Management, Europe

Nick began his automation career in the car industry with the Rover group working on robotic assembly lines. He moved into the process sector with Kent Process Control in the mid eighties & since then has held a range of positions in sales, project management & sales management with several process automation suppliers. During his 13 years with Emerson Process Management he has worked with DeltaV, RS3 & Provox users on almost every aspect of their business including capital projects, expansion, MES, modernisation & migration, service & support, batch, computer system validation & terminal automation. In his current role, Marketing Director Europe, he works with the Marketing Communications & Sales teams in all divisions of Emerson Process Management across Europe. Nick is a graduate of the University of Warwick, England and holds both BSc & MEng in Manufacturing Systems. He is a member of ISA, ISPE & WBF. He lives in Bedford, UK, with Katherine & sons Jake & Daniel.

László Tóth
MOL Group

László Tóth is employed by MOL Group and has 30 years experience in the refining industry. He began his career as unit operator then was employed by UOP Plc. as technical advisor. Rejoining MOL he continued his carrier as process engineer. From 1998 to 2004 he was the project director of the Residue Upgrading, then the Ultra Low Sulphur Motor Fuels project programs in MOL’s Danube Refinery. As such, he played a role to introduce Foundation Fieldbus, the Operator Training Simulator solutions, and the Main Automation Contractor concept in MOL refineries. In the latest years he is the head of Project Development in MOL Group’s Refining and Marketing Division being responsible for the implementation of the refining and logistics investment projects. László holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering from Pannon University.

Joël Vaury
Total Petrochemicals

Joël joined Total in 1985 as a Control Engineer. He has held a variety of positions leading projects for process control for the Engineering Department. He has worked in Fertilizer, Chlorine, Styrene facilities on several areas of expertise including the migration and the life cycle of legacy Process Control Systems. Joël has been responsible for many Brownfield projects driven by reliability and safety requirements. He is also involved in numerous Greenfield and expansion projects. His expertise is to design Control System and implement Safety Instrumented Systems and Cyber security solutions in many polymers plants.

Ali H. Alawadhi
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC)

Ali Alawadhi is a specialist working for Reliability Management in MAB refinery of Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC). He has started his professional career as instrument maintenance engineer working with maintenance and shutdown activities. He was involved in different projects related to the field of maintenance, reliability, and functional safety. Mr. Alawadhi obtained his BSc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Portland and holds MBA from Maastricht School of Management. He is certified as Functional Safety Expert by the CFSE Governance Board, certified as Maintenance & Reliability Professional by the SMRP organization, and a TUV FS Expert in Safety Instrumented Systems. In addition to his work with KNPC, he is the chairman of Kuwait National Committee of Electrical & Electronics, founder & leader of Automation Community, and the vice president of the ISA Kuwait section. In addition, he is currently involved with the technical committee of IEC 61511 and with KNPC engineering standards committee.

Gaspar Sánchez Belchí
SABIC Innovative Plastics

Gaspar Sánchez is a Process Automation Engineer in SABIC Innovative Plastics in Cartagena, Spain. Currently he is responsible for large automation projects such as DCS Migration in Cartagena and DCS & Proccess Contol definition for a new Polycarbonate Plant in China. He has over 25 years of professional experience in Automation and IT projects from design to commissioning and start-up in several industries, including Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Engineering. The last 15 years he has worked in SABIC in several roles related to automation. He holds a Degree in Physics from Complutense University of Madrid, a Master Degree in Business (PDD) from IESE- Navarra University and is Black Belt Certified in Lean Six-Sigma by General Electric. He lives in San Javier (Murcia-Spain) with his wife Carmen, his son Adrián and daughter Paula.

Roel van Doren
Executive Sponsor, Emerson Global Users Exchange
Emerson Process Management, Europe

Roel Van Doren is the Executive Sponsor for Emerson Global Users Exchange. The Executive Sponsor’s role is to provide guidance and support to the User-led Emerson Exchange organization. Roel has over 20 years of experience with Emerson Process Management and has held a variety of positions at Emerson including Engineering, Operations and Sales Management in various countries in Europe as well as in North America. Roel currently is the Vice President for Emerson Process Management Northern Europe, based in the European Head Quarters in Baar, Switzerland. His educational background includes a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Gertjan van der Ven
Executive Sponsor, Emerson Global Users Exchange
Emerson Process Management, Europe

Gertjan van der Ven is currently General Manager Sales & Marketing at Emerson Process Management Germany, prior to this position he had a similar role in the Netherlands. He has extensive experience in Project Management and worked several years for the Emerson Project Management Office as PMO Director Europe. In that job he was also responsible for the modeling and roll out of global Proposal Processes, Templates and Tools. One of his key areas of interest is helping Project teams in the early and fuzzy phases of Project Definition through Project Start Up sessions.

Before that he was responsible as a Sr. Project Manager for MAC Projects in the Oil and Gas business. Gertjan started in 1996 Emerson as a Control Systems Engineer. Before Emerson he worked in the EPC environment and dredging industry. He holds a Master’s of Science degree in Measurement and Control at the Delft University of Technology.