Corporate Venturing & Entrepreneurship Summit 2026

Albert Maas

Born on the coast of Zeeland, Albert Maas grew up as the son of a boat and mast builder and a mother who introduced him to a love for art and music from an early age. Technology and design have been in his blood ever since. At his parents’ beach pavilion, he was exposed to a wide range of people from a young age, which helped shape his curious and inquisitive nature.

At just 13, he became proficient in CAD and built his first combat robot, inspired by the 1990s TV show Robot Wars. It marked the beginning of many projects where technology and design came together.

In 2009, together with his fellow students from Hogeschool Utrecht, he was inspired by Formula Student, an initiative in which students from universities around the world design and build race cars in large teams, with engineering and reliability as key pillars. They soon realized they would barely fit into the small cars and decided to go beyond engineering alone, placing equal emphasis on marketing and design. This led to the idea of building a full-scale circuit race car powered by bio-ethanol, initially named ” ‘Formula Bio’ and later renamed ‘The Ignition’. The choice for bio-ethanol, unique at the time, served as a strong marketing statement. What many believed to be impossible, the team ultimately achieved, graduating cum laude.

He later moved to Eindhoven, where he studied Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e). Soon, he felt the need to start a new project. Drawing on his previous experience, Albert assembled a multidisciplinary team with the ambition to design one of the most innovative racing cars in the world. This led to the founding of InMotion, a pioneering team of students from different faculties that brought together expertise from different fields. The first of its kind. To this day, Albert remains involved as an advisor.

These experiences ultimately led to the founding of Avular. The idea was simple yet powerful: apply advanced technologies from automotive engineering to autonomous robotics. This includes compact system integration, lightweight yet robust design, and embedded software combining AI, control systems, and power electronics. Resulting in robotics that are both highly functional and distinctly recognizable as Avular.

As CEO and co-founder, Albert focuses on the design of the robots, branding, and the strategic direction of the company, shaping its roadmap while fostering a strong culture of creativity and innovation

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.

Christian Hüttenhein

Christian Hüttenhein operates as corporate advisor and General Partner of Pexus Ventures, an advisory boutique for Corporate Venturing. He is a renowned expert in Venture Clienting and advices large corporations in establishing corporate startup readiness to use startups as a source for entrepreneurship and technology and to realize sustainable innovation.

His career began at Bosch in 2009, where he held various business development roles. In 2016, he founded and led Bosch Industry Consulting, a process and technology consulting boutique for digital transformation in manufacturing and logistics.

In 2019, Christian joined Bosch Ventures, a global venture capital firm with more than $1bn in assets under management, serving as Venture Partner and Co-Founder of Open Bosch, the Venture Client Unit of the Bosch Group. In addition to his corporate endeavors, he founded startups and sold his third startup in 2022.

Christian holds a Diploma in East-Asian business administration from the University of Duisburg and Keio University in Tokyo and speaks Japanese. His deep understanding of intercultural communication and passion for systems theory further enrich his professional profile. Additionally, he is certified in systemic organizational development coaching.

In 2022, Christian initiated the Corporate Venture Client Roundtable Community, facilitating quarterly open space and exchange events to advance corporate venturing processes. His extensive experience and diverse skill set make him a distinguished figure in entrepreneurship, innovation management, and organizational development.

Pieter Waasdorp

Pieter Waasdorp is Director Business Climate at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs with more than three decades of experience. He has extensive expertise in entrepreneurship, innovation and economic policy, with a particular focus on the Dutch and European business environment. Pieter also serves as the Netherlands’ SME Envoy within the European Commission’s SME Envoy network

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.  

Esther Peters

Esther Peters is Director of the Leiden Bio Science Park, the Netherlands’ largest life sciences and health innovation district. With a background in law from Utrecht University, she has built a career spanning corporate, academic and governmental sectors, with previous positions at Loeff Claeys Verbeke, VNU Business Publications, Achmea, Erasmus University and the municipalities of Leiden and Oegstgeest.

Prior to joining Leiden Bio Science Park in October 2023, Esther was Director of NL Space Campus in Noordwijk, which under her leadership grew into a leading European space hub with a vibrant, internationally oriented innovation ecosystem.

In her current role, Esther is dedicated to advancing Leiden Bio Science Park’s mission of fostering innovation in life sciences and health, with a strong emphasis on collaboration between academia, industry and government.

Robert Schuman

Schuman has a background in investment banking, corporate finance, and entrepreneurship. His previous roles include Director at NIB Capital, co-founder of Nielen Schuman, CFO of G-Star, and co-founder of impact investment fund Health Investment Partners (HIP). Since March 2025, he had already been serving as interim Director of Capital at Invest-NL.

Alexander Vos

Alexander Vossen is Associate Professor of Data Science and Entrepreneurship at Tilburg University, where he leads the Data Entrepreneurship Unit at the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS). His research in strategic entrepreneurship starts from a tension every new venture faces, since it has to be different enough to offer something new and at the same time recognisable and legitimate enough that investors are willing to fund it and customers are willing to buy from it. He studies how entrepreneurs strategise to balance these two demands by analysing large collections of pitches, crowdfunding campaigns and product descriptions with computational text and image methods. His work on this topic has appeared in major entrepreneurship journals such as the Journal of Business Venturing and the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. He came to Tilburg after positions at BI Business School in Oslo and the University of Siegen, having earned his PhD at RWTH Aachen.

The title of his presentation is "Who Wins When a Blockbuster Hits? How the ChatGPT Release Reshaped Venture Funding in AI and Beyond"

The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 led investors to redirect attention and capital toward artificial intelligence. It is tempting to assume that such a breakthrough lifts every venture connected to it, yet the funding that followed was distributed far less evenly than this suggests. Drawing on data from more than half a million ventures, the talk looks at which kinds of start-ups gained from the boom, which were left behind, and why the effects reached well beyond AI itself. It closes with what these patterns mean for corporate venturing teams that have to decide which ventures to back and how to position their own when the next breakthrough reshapes their market.""

https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/staff/a-vossen

Fabian Dudek

As Founder & CEO of GlassDollar, I help global corporations turn startup collaboration into a repeatable business capability. We enable companies to identify, test, adopt, and scale innovation that creates measurable business impact. I believe one shift could fundamentally change the future of innovation:
If corporations spent just 1% of their procurement budgets on startups, they could create as much growth capital as the entire venture capital industry.  https://www.glassdollar.com/

Marlieke Lingmont

Marlieke Lingmont is Head of Startup Innovation at Lely, a family-owned company that develops and produces innovative robotics and digital solutions for dairy farming. From automated milking and feeding systems to data-driven farm management tools, Lely supports farmers worldwide in making their operations more profitable, sustainable, and enjoyable.

Marlieke joined Lely ten years ago and, four years ago, took on the responsibility of leading the company’s corporate venturing activities. In this role, she is building a global network of startup partnerships to complement Lely’s own innovation department—strengthening its position as a pioneer in the future of farming.

Marlieke holds a master’s degree in Law and started her career as an M&A lawyer at top-tier firms in Europe before moving into agricultural innovation.

Toam Jaber

Liying (Crystal) Chen

Liying (Crystal) Chen is a PhD Candidate at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and a Visiting PhD Researcher at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Her research focuses on corporate–startup collaboration in the context of external corporate venturing, with particular interest in the tensions that arise in these collaborations and how they are managed.

She holds a master's degree in international management from the CEMS programme, with studies at ESADE Business School and Copenhagen Business School, as well as a Master of Research from ESSEC Business School.

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.

Felix Zwart

Felix is Director of Research of NVP ( (Dutch Private Equity & Venture Capital Association) & Part-time PhD at RSM/Erasmus University

Felix' research interest has always been at the crossroads between markets and government. At Utrecht University, he obtained an undergraduate degree in sociology, a graduate degree in public economics, while also pursuing history courses. Since 2011, he has been involved with all the research efforts of the Dutch Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, NVP. The research programme of NVP is part of the European Data Collection, a pan-European data collection effort and one of the largest databases on private equity and venture capital activity in the world.

At RSM, he combines his interests and mixed methods background with two distinct research projects. The first is a government policy history of Dutch equity financing policies for SMEs since the 1930s. The second is a quantitative paper on the influence of private equity ownership on toxic waste emissions and process innovations in US production companies.