National Coaches Meeting 2024

Maria has an international background in the Digital, Data and Analytics: lately as VP of Global Data Partnerships at Dun & Bradstreet. Till 2020 with the Swedish multinational Bisnode as Managing Director Data, CEO of Central Europe and Competence Centre Director. She has experience as Board Member in Fintech in the EMEA region and US and has been a mentor for tech start-ups for the last 10 years. She has PhD education in Linguistics & Semantics and holds an MBA.

John Antonakis is Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne. He has been named a highly cited scientist by various research groups, and is an expert on charismatic leadership. He is a dynamic speaker and his research is regularly quoted in various media outlets including including TV and Radio.

As the Founding CEO of Komed Health AG, a dynamic Zurich-based company, I am fully committed to revolutionizing clinical collaboration and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of both patients and healthcare professionals. Beyond the realm of our organization, I am a strong proponent of collaboration and community engagement. I actively seek connections with fellow innovators who share my vision of driving meaningful change in the healthcare landscape and society as a whole.

Annalise Eggimann, CEO of Innosuisse was born in 1960 in Eriswil near Bern. She was admitted to the bar at the University of Bern in 1987 and completed an Executive MBA at the University of Zurich in 2003. After a few years working for companies as a legal assistant, she took on senior positions at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) before becoming CEO of the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI), the predecessor organisation of Innosuisse, in 2015.

Christopher Engman is a serial entrepreneur, author of Megadeals, investor and large deal advisor in sustainability scale-ups. He is co-founder and managing partner of the Advisory Megadeals, Mine Storage and Venizum Marketing Technology where he serves also as Board member. He holds several board positions in Swedish companies.

Christoph has been working in the field of science-based innovation for more than a decade. In various roles, he designs, develops and manages initiatives and programs to support and promote the creation and development of start-ups. Currently, he is the head of Startup Coaching at Innosuisse.

After a long career in senior corporate finance functions in the chemicals and telecom industry, Jörn joined Innosuisse in August 2022. His main responsibility is to design and implement the financial due diligence for those Innosuisse programs where projects of individual start-ups and SMEs are supported by direct funding. He thrives on financial management, digital transformation and entrepreneurial topics.

As Scientific Officer, Marcel manages the start-up internationalisation programmes at Innosuisse. Prior to that, Marcel worked several years in a large multi-national pharma company in various capacities and across different countries. His first contact with Innosuisse, however, dates back to 2012, when he joined the coaching programme in 2012 as designated CEO of a University spin-off while graduating as Biomedical Scientist.

Stefan Kyora has been covering the Swiss innovation scene as a journalist for over 20 years. After working for business magazines including Cash and Bilanz, he was one of the co-founders of the news portal Startupticker in 2011, which he now runs as editor-in-chief. He is also co-author of the Swiss Venture Capital Reports and the Swiss Startup Radar.

Gnanli Landrou is a Co-Founder, at Oxara. Oxara's mission is to enable access to sustainable & affordable housing for all developing a cement-​free concrete made from clay-​based excavation material. Gnanli is a Ph.D. graduate from the chair of Sustainable Construction at ETH Zürich, an ETH Silver Medal and Forbes U30.

Jaka is a seasoned entrepreneur, consultant, and mentor with extensive experience in business modelling, product strategy, customer discovery, product positioning, and company building in the tech and digital space. He is the Founder and CEO of D.Labs, a company that provides support to new ventures, including both corporate and founder-led initiatives, in their early-stage of product and customer development.

Dr James Miners is an international innovator who has set-up and managed tech startups in France, Israel and Switzerland, including High Power Lithium, an EPFL spin out which exited to Dow Chemical. James has a unique perspective: having been coached by CTI, worked as a CTI coach and contributed as an Innosuisse expert since its launch where he has evaluated 100+ startups.

Phil leads the commercial strategy at medtech startup machineMD, alongside his role leading scaleup enablement at digitalswitzerland. He is the former VP Global Marketing at Zurich-based VirtaMed, and worked on the flying symbol of Swiss cleantech innovation, Solar Impulse. Phil holds an Executive MBA from IMD and a degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge.

Samuel is active as entre- and intrapreneur in Switzerland and in Israel. He is board member and investor in 2 start-ups. In Switzerland, he coached deeptech startups at ETH and at Innosuisse. In Israel, he has spent the past 5 years accompanying corporates in setting up their open innovation activities. He currently leads Novo Nordisk‘ open innovation activities in Israel and the EMEA region.

Ana is currently responsible for the Scale-up Coaching program at Innosuisse. She has a background in Management of Technology and Innovation and before joining Innosuisse she has spent 6 years in a Swiss Scale-up company.

Richard Splivallo is the co-founder & CEO of Nectariss, a foodtech startup of the Vaud canton. As a former professor in fungal biotechnology, Richard has developed the technology behind Nectariss´ innovation, pushing the boundaries of fungal fermentation for novel food and flavor applications. Since 2023, he also acts as an expert for Innosuisse.