Corporate Venturing & Entrepreneurship Summit 2023

Sophie Manigart

Sophie Manigart is a professor of entrepreneurial finance at Vlerick Business School and Ghent University. She has researched the entrepreneurial finance landscape for more than three decades, published over 50 academic papers on the topic and was recently recognized as a top-10 “most influential researcher worldwide” in both venture capital and private equity. She is also actively involved in practice, as board member of the Belgian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, of ParticipatieMaatschappij Vlaanderen, and of two scale-ups, Energyvision and Ovinto, amongst others. She consulted for the European Commission and for various regional government agencies in Europe on the topic

Corporate venture capital (CVC) and independent venture capital (IVC) investors bear many similarities, but differ on important aspects. A recent pan-European investor survey highlights these along the full investment process, including deal sourcing, investing and term sheets, the post-investment relationship with the portfolio companies, and exit behaviour. Additionally, we will compare syndication practices and compensation schemes. Understanding these similarities and differences is important to create fruitful cooperations with portfolio companies and with syndicate partners

Joost Matthijsen

Joost Matthijssen is Chief Strategy Officer at Nutreco, a global leader in animal nutrition and aquafeed, where he is responsible for strategy, M&A and corporate venturing. Previously he set up Nutreco’s corporate venturing efforts, which leverages open innovation to deliver on Nutreco’s purpose of Feeding the Future by collaborating and developing new business with partners across the protein value chain. Prior to joining Nutreco, Joost worked as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. He holds degrees in Animal Sciences (BSc, Wageningen University), International Management (MSc, Rotterdam School of Management) and Business Administration (MBA, Columbia University).

Paola Criscuolo

Professor Paola Criscuolo is Head of the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship and Professor of Innovation Management. Her research examines how large organisations manage the innovation process, including overcoming the challenges of open innovation initiatives, the selection of R&D projects, the organisation of the R&D function, and the management of R&D staff and patent portfolios. Her research has been published in international academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Research Policy, and in practitioner journals such as California Management Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. She has been the recipient of two prestigious industry awards for best research publication in innovation management, and she is on the Academy of Management Journal editorial board and she was an associate editor of Research Policy.

Title of the talk: “Responding to the challenges of open innovation”

In her talk, Prof Criscuolo will present different coping strategies that organizations can put in place to address some of the most common challenges that R&D professionals face when identify external partners, when building partnerships, and when taking advantage of such collaborations. She will also highlight new roles that R&D professionals need to play to been effective open innovators in each of these different stages of engagement with external partners.

Rob van der Horst

Rob van der Horst is Managing Director New Business at Alliander, the largest grid company in The Netherlands. In this role he is responsible for all non-regulated activities within the network company. This means all corporate venturing activities, but also managing the new business portfolio of around 20 companies (all part of the Alliander group). These companies are in different stages of maturity, but all contribute to the challenges of the energy transition. Corporate Venturing is an important instrument in adding value to Allianders strategic challenges and is seen as a key activity in speeding up innovation, but also in leveraging the necessary eco-system partners.

Rob holds a MBA degree in Management & Innovation and  Bachelors in both E-Commerce and Business Economy. His career before Alliander was always focused around leadership roles in the business-digitization-innovation triangle. His leadership motto: “True leaders allow others to lead”

Rob is all about ‘walk the talk’ and is also an entrepreneur himself. Before his role as Managing Director he founded one of Allianders first corporate ventures ENTRNCE in 2016. ENTRNCE is Europe's first independent P2P Energy Trading platform. He managed to grow ENTRNCE into an international organization and guided the company as corporate venture from start-up to the current scale-up phase and is still CEO.

Yu Liu

Yu Liu is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. She holds a Doctor of Science Degree from Aalto University, Finland. Her research is at the nexus of network strategy and entrepreneurship and focuses on how network resources affect venture outcomes. Her recent empirical interests range from cross-border venture capital, unicorn firms, to entrepreneurial ecosystems. Her research has been published in top management outlets such like Academy of Management Journal and Research Policy. She serves as ad-hoc reviewer for many top management and entrepreneurship journals including Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and Research Policy. 

Luca Berchicci

Luca Berchicci is an associate professor at the department of Strategy Management and Entrepreneurship, Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University). He received his Ph.D. in Innovation Management at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology. He worked as a research fellow at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. His primary interest lies at the intersection of strategy, entrepreneurship, and innovation. He investigates how managers and entrepreneurs develop, exploit and transfer the firm's capabilities for greater performance, either market-based or non-market based (i.e., environmental performance). His research has been published in journals such as Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Research Policy and Academy of Management Annals. He is co-editor of Strategic Organization and associate editor of Organization and Environment. His teaching focuses on strategic management, venture creation and growth. He also acts as business advisor to new ventures to help them start and grow.

Wim Vanhaverbeke

Wim Vanhaverbeke is professor Digital Strategy and Innovation at the University of Antwerp. Previously, he was visiting professor at NUS (Singapore) and Esade (Spain). He is co-editor in chief of Technovation. His current research focuses on digital strategies and transformation, innovation ecosystems and open innovation. He published in different international journals such as Organization Science, Journal of Management, Research Policy, California Management Review etc. He was co-editing four books on open innovation and wrote a book about managing open innovation in SMEs. He was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Research Center for Technological Innovation of the Tsinghua University. 

In a recent study (JET-M) about 20 years of research on innovation and NPD in TIM journals, he was ranked 3rd in the most published authors list, and 6th in the most cited authors list.

Christopher Tucci

Aruna Subramanian

Aruna has over 28 years of international work experience spanning a range of management functions.  Her first 11 professional years were with Schlumberger Oilfield Services, where her career progressed from field operations on oil rigs and culminating in general management in Australasia. She then completed her MBA at IMD, Lausanne before joining Shell Technology Ventures - a corporate venturing vehicle backed by Royal Dutch Shell. She also founded her own consulting company in 2013, assisting Middle Eastern companies with acquisitions and investments in the oil & gas sector and technology startups in the Brainport Region. Later, she worked with Chemelot Ventures, focusing on regional development through investments in performance materials and life sciences technologies, before joining SABIC to manage its European investments. Aruna is currently the Managing Director of SABIC Ventures, managing the corporate investment footprint and is on the Investment Committee of the Dutch DeepTechFonds and Energie Transitiefonds.

Deepti Panicker

Dr. Panicker is the founder and CEO at SparkHealth; an innovation group, based in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), dedicated to bringing proven and sustainable big-data analytics and artificial-intelligence (AI) solutions to healthcare. 
The group provides mentorship, global-distribution networks and support to mobilize funding (Series A and B rounds) for young innovative technology companies that have proven product and market.
Dr. Panicker is a medical doctor who ran her clinic in Mumbai, India. Having accrued experience in hospital and clinical medicine, she moved to the Netherlands and obtained a Master’s in International Health from the Vrije University (VU) in Amsterdam. Since this graduate degree was offered across tropical-education member institutions, Dr. Panicker honed her skills in shaping strategy and implementation in public health across several European universities besides VU Amsterdam; namely, the University College of London (UCL, United Kingdom), the Rupert-Karls University in Heidelberg (Germany) and the University of Bergen (Norway).
As project coordinator and facilitator, Dr. Panicker has partnered with the Ministry of Health in India and academic hospitals in designing field trials for point-of-care screening in infectious diseases and big-data analytic studies. She is a member of the editorial board of the Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health

Ajlin Dizdarevic

Ajlin Dizdarevic is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at Rotterdam School of Management Erasmus University. Her research explores corporate-startup collaboration, an increasingly frequent mode of corporate innovation. She has extensive industry practice working in startups, SMEs, and a large corporation, managing diverse strategic and operational areas.  

Description of the workshop  Corporate-startup collaboration tensions, paradoxes, and their coping mechanisms 

An asymmetric partnership between two very different types of organizations, a large incumbent and a small, novice venture, brings innovation opportunities and, at the same time, organizational challenges. These challenges, with their different natures and manifestations, often present prominent organizational tensions and paradoxes that impact collaboration. In this workshop, we will uncover them and their coping mechanisms.  

Joshua Eckblad

JOSHUA ECKBLAD (Blois, France 1974) is a tenured faculty member of the Tilburg School of Economics and Management (TiSEM) at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He received a research master’s degree in organization and strategy, and a Ph.D. in strategy and entrepreneurship from Tilburg University. His research focuses on behavioral management aspects of decision-making in the corporate venturing context, from deal flow to selection and innovation outcomes. Joshua worked as a high-tech startup entrepreneur in Madrid, London and Paris for 15 years. He co-founded six startups (three of which were subsequently acquired) that leveraged machine learning and natural language processing technologies (AI) to facilitate team collaboration. His role was geared towards product and market fit, and involved ethnographic field research to observe complex business processes in large, decentralized organizations across Europe and the US. He also worked in management consulting specializing in digital innovation and served as the director of innovation at a boutique consultancy in Paris, before moving into academia.

Workshop: How stable are firms' search preferences over time?: A practice-driven discussion

How stable are dealflow preferences within firms? Within any given venturing unit? What are some of the decision-making consequences of unstable preferences? These are some of the questions that we can address empirically using a proprietary dataset in relation to the digital transformation efforts at a major European firm. We will begin the session with a brief overview of our evidence-based findings, based on observed deal flows in a corporate venture capital (CVC) unit. We then look forward to a long and interactive discussion to hear more about your experiences and thoughts on the subject — How are informal/formal search criteria for external startups first developed, communicated inside the organization, and then (un)intentionally revised over time?

Christopher Sabel

Dr. Christopher Sabel is an Assistant Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at RSM in the department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship. He holds a Ph.D. from BI Norwegian Business School and an MSc from Stockholm School of Economics. Before starting an academic career, Christopher worked as a consultant for Monitor Deloitte, focusing on commercial strategy and M&A in the pharmaceutical industry. Christopher’s main research interests are in corporate-startup collaboration, particularly focusing on employee allocation, corporate venture capital investments, and corporate spinouts. Christopher is also very interested in hearing about startup M&A, so chat him up if this is of interest to you too!

Workshop: Corporate Venture Capital: Which investment practices generate value for startups?

Corporates often struggle to communicate their value to startups and are sometimes even perceived as “too dangerous” to partner with. However, some approaches to venture investing do unlock more value for startups than others. This session brings practitioners and academics together to discuss how corporates can impact ventures and to discuss practical approaches for how managers can make their corporate venture capital more attractive for startups and venture capitalists.  

Roger van Hoesel

After studying economics and obtaining a PhD in Rotterdam (Erasmus University), Roger van Hoesel held various positions in the business world, particularly in the field of international consultancy. At the official start of the Foodvalley organization in 2004, he was asked to become director. Since then, Foodvalley has developed into one of the leading innovation hubs for the agri food wordwide. Foodvalley has been at the forefront of many national and international collaborations. In 2008, Roger was identified as one of the key figures in the Dutch AgriFood sector. Since 2014, Roger is also involved in setting up food clusters inside and outside Europe.

In 2020, he co-founded Ecosystem Navigators. This international partnership utilizes the power of top-level seasoned experts in the field of innovation in AgriFoodTech, working in the world’s innovation hotspots. We very much believe that combining best-in-class experiences from different parts of the world leads to a much better result than re-inventing the wheel. In 2022, Roger also became the general manager of FoodX, a new initiative in the Netherlands acting as a gateway to connect with new ideas, solutions and partnerships from the Dutch agri-food sector. Meetings between parties from the Netherlands and far beyond in search of partnerships focused on food system transitions are organized and facilitated.

In addition, Roger acts as a board member at Roots Innovation Hub and The National Week Without Meat. Moveover, he is active as an advisor to several national and international food programs.

Workshop: Navigating your innovation ecosystem

In today’s economic landscape, companies more and more need to coordinate and collaborate to create and capture value from innovation. Joris Meijaard and Roger van Hoesel, together with Vareska van de Vrande, are working on a methodology and toolbox to help you navigate in your innovation ecosystem. During this workshop, you will learn more about the steps involved and get some practical insights. We also hope to learn from the participants how they are currently organizing their innovation ecosystems.

Joris Meijaard

Joris Meijaard is the Academic Director of the MSc Strategic Entrepreneurship at RSM, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Academic Liaison for Erasmus Enterprise. Joris has a long career in research and consultancy on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and New Business Development. Joris was responsible for a wide range of projects for the Ministry for Economic Affairs, the European Commission, Dutch Provinces, big consultancies, trade organizations and medium-sized companies. His work has centered on aspects of company performance and growth in relation to innovation and technology. Joris has lectured at Erasmus University, Utrecht University and University College Roosevelt. He holds a PhD from Tinbergen Institute and an MSc in general econometrics.

Workshop: Navigating your innovation ecosystem

In today’s economic landscape, companies more and more need to coordinate and collaborate to create and capture value from innovation. Joris Meijaard and Roger van Hoesel, together with Vareska van de Vrande, are working on a methodology and toolbox to help you navigate in your innovation ecosystem. During this workshop, you will learn more about the steps involved and get some practical insights. We also hope to learn from the participants how they are currently organizing their innovation ecosystems.

Petrit Ademi

Petrit is a PhD Researcher and Teaching Associate at the Justus Liebig University of Giessen in Germany. His research focuses on corporate venture capital, open innovation, and digital transformation. He was a Visiting Scholar at Babson College (USA) and has previously worked in the Consulting practices of IBM and KPMG.

Vareska van de Vrande

Vareska van de Vrande is Professor of Collaborative Innovation and Business Venturing at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM)

Vareska joined RSM in 2007 after completing a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Management Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her expertise focuses on the areas of corporate venturing and collaborative innovation, including external technology sourcing, corporate venture capital investments, strategic alliances, and corporate-startup collaboration. Other research interests include (corporate) entrepreneurship, patents, and venture capital. She has published articles in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Operations Management, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the Journal of Business Venturing. At RSM, Vareska teaches courses and modules in Strategic Management and Corporate Venturing at the graduate and post-experience level.

In addition, Vareska is also the Academic Lead at Erasmus Enterprise and a certified LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator.

Corina Kuiper

Corina is the Managing Director of Corporate Venturing Network and auteur of the book “Corporate Venturing, managing the innovation family”. Over the past 25 years, Corina has held a spectrum of strategic management, business development and financial management positions. She has worked in different functional areas, in start-up environments as well as in established business settings. Her company the Innovation Family supports several large corporations on Corporate Venturing and New Business Creation. She regularly lectures as a guest speaker across several international universities and business schools and speaks at international conferences and seminars.