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Experts

Kevin Guillet

Avocat au barreau
Associé chez sigma legal
 

Expertise
Droit du travail, droit commercial et droit de l’informatique

Laurent Balmelli

Co-founder at Sana Elias

Expertise
business plan, market strategy, product development & DevOps pipeline, cyber security (information security, product security, mobile security, infrastructure security and privacy)

 

Laurent is a passionate entrepreneur who has advised many startups and mature companies, as well as created and sold his own to a major mobile internet player in 2016. His unusual life path has led him to live and work around the world in cities such as New York and Tokyo. His work experience spans from software product development to business and market strategy. In the last 5 years he has specialized on DevOps and several areas of cybersecurity, such as product, mobile, infrastructure security. He's a very hands-on person spending his week and weekends building PoC's in technology. He's also consulting for multiple universities in Switzerland in Japan, in particular with EPFL, where he received his PhD in 2000.

Barakat is a partner at Sana Elias Sarl, an advisory firm focused on technology, finance, strategy and innovation. Prior to that, she has extensive experience in the field of financial services working at world class firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. She has worked in North America, Asia, Europe and sub Saharan Africa.

Barakat Balmelli

Partner at Sana|Elias

Expertise
Accounting, taxation, auditing, financial planning, budgeting, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, international business

Diego Braguglia

Managing Partner at VI Partners

Expertise
Fundraising, investment

Diego joined VI Partners in January 2003 as Partner focusing on Healthcare investments.

He brings over 20 years of experience in life science, medical devices and pharmaceuticals in Europe and the US. Prior to his entry into the VC industry Diego has held various managerial positions in the pharmaceuticals and medical devices sectors, as well as in biotech start ups in Europe and the US.

Diego holds an M. Sc. in Microbiology from the Biocenter of the University of Basel and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the Swiss Cancer Research Institute (ISREC) in Lausanne. He is fluent in English, French Italian and German.

Diego carries the prime responsibility for the following portfolio companies: Amal, Covalys, Edimer, Genkyotex, Merlion, Sequana and Xeltis.

Olivier Bloch is a founding partner of the law firm BLOCH AVOCAT. He mainly advises Swiss and foreign clients in corporate law and commercial matters. He advises companies on their corporate restructuring and contract law. He represents clients in financing transactions.

Olivier Bloch has published a thesis on shareholder agreements under Swiss law, as well as articles in the field of company law and financial market law. He regularly gives conferences in these fields. He teaches financial market law at EXPERT Suisse for expert accountant and is a mentor for start-ups and entrepreneurs at EPFL Alumni.

Olivier Bloch is also Chairman of the Board of several associations, respectively Secretary of several boards of pure public utility foundations.

Olivier Bloch

Lawyer at Bloch Lawyer

Expertise
Contract law

Pierre Comte

Founder and President at Sigma Professional Sàrl

Expertise
Marketing in Switzerland, sales cycle, valuation, industrialization, financial model

  • Dr es sciences, Harvard Business School AMP
  • President and CEO of Sigma Professional Sàrl
  • Chairman of the board of directors of several start-ups
  • Innosuisse coach
  • Lecturer at EPFL and Innosuisse Entrepreneurship
  • Jury member of VentureKick

 

“Our main objective is to make innovation-based startups attractive to customers and investors in a minimum amount of time.”

Canadian and Swiss nationalities, Erick Caron held several Sales Senior Executive & Global Marketing positions with start-up, mid-stage and large multi-national corporations.

He lived and worked in Asia Pacific (Beijing), Switzerland (Geneva) & North America (Montréal). He established the execution of an IPO's on North-American market at Toronto Stock Exchange.

He has experience in Artificial Intelligence, Data, Analytics, ICT Portfolio, MedTech & Finance Services and has been notably negotiating/presenting/selling to CxO level internationally, Governmental Authorities, Partners International Organizations. Finally, he has strong knowledge of International Business Culture, customs, protocol, etiquette, multicultural network and expertise

Erick Caron

Data, Analytics & AI - New Business Management Team at Swisscom

Expertise
Chinese and North American markets

Vincent Dessenne

Expertise
business development, corporation, mergers & acquisitions

  • Depuis 2017 : Co-founder Light4Safety SA
  • Depuis 2015 : Advisory Board, Swiss Integrative Center for Human Health (SICHH)
  • Depuis 2015 : Board Member, Y-PARC Swiss Technopole SA
  • Depuis 2011 : Delegate, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vaud
  • Depuis 2009 : General Manager, Heraeus Materials SA
  • 2008-2011 : Board Member, Müller Feindraht AG
  • 2006-2008 : CFO, Heraeus Materials SA
  • 2004-2005 : Business Development Manager, Heraeus Materials SA
  • 2004 : MBA
  • 1997-2003 : CTO, medical startup, Medivision AG
  • 1995-1996 : medical startup, Praxim SA
  • 1996 : PhD Biomedical Engineering

With more than 30 years' experience in the banking sector (Corporate Banking), Martial Décoppet has spent most of his career in two major groups (BCV and Crédit Suisse).

He is well informed about the local, regional and cantonal economic environment (large companies, SMEs & real estate professionals) and is an active member of several economic committees.

Martial Décoppet

Head of Credit Suisse (Suisse) SA for the Vaud region

Simon Faneco

Founder – ratioX Sàrl

Expertise
Concept development, engineering design, product industrialization and corporate business development

 

Global experience in automotive, food and consumer product industries. Successful, positive and efficient engineer with strong presentation and relationship management skills. Wide range of experience including cost modeling and analysis, operations optimization and product development.

  • Founder of ratioX – Swiss based company developing automatic bicycle transmissions
  • Operations Strategies consultant at Nestlé S.A.
  • Senior Engineer on Tesla seating program for Model S & X
  • Project Manager and Logistics Business Specialist at Toyota Motor Europe
  • Award winning Product Design Engineer for Häfele “Ellipta” monitor arm
  • Patented mechanism design for the Philips Senseo coffee machine

 

During his professional career of more than 25 years with technology companies in Switzerland and abroad, Jean de Wolff has held various positions, successively as a company founder, director and finally as a director of various companies.

He has extensive experience in the sales field and has developed his skills in organisation and crisis management, which enables him to support innovative companies in a very concrete way.

He is currently engaged as a director and consultant in various technology companies that he supports in their business development and organizational projects.

Jean De Wolff

Managing Partner at Human For Success Sàrl

Expertise
Marketing Switzerland, board of directors, business plan/model, trade in the Middle East and Europe

Katia Gutknecht

Fondatrice et Directrice de KG Consulting Sàrl

Expertise
Supply chain, achats, négociation, gestion de projets

Katia Gutknecht is a tangible and sustainable value agitator in Supply Chain and Purchasing who puts her expertise and passion at the service of French-speaking companies, after having worked for 15 years in the industry as a Strategic Purchasing Project Manager.

In parallel, she is responsible for training in Supply Chain, Purchasing, Negotiation & Project Management in several entities.

Nanci Govinder is an astute, influential and highly motivated Senior Executive, Startup Coach, Business Angel and Board Member with a wealth of international business, R&D and marketing expertise. She has more than twenty years’ executive experience in the medtech sector working for corporates such as Medtronic and Johnson&Johnson and held executive positions in startup companies such as head of business development of a medtech startup and most recently, as CEO and Board member of a digital health company.

As a CTI coach, she coached many companies in life sciences, engineering and cleantech. In her current role as Startup Advisor for Innosuisse, she supports a team of business coaches and about a hundred high tech startup companies in the French speaking region to bring their ideas to commercialization.

She is also the Deal Leader Switzerland for Rising Tide Europe, an angel investment group of women investors in Europe.  She also founded the Suisse Romande branch of the Healthcare Business Women’s Association, an international organization promoting the success and leadership of women in healthcare, was on the Board and a mentor. She is passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship and generates high energy, motivation and enthusiasm in teams. Nanci holds a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry and Applied Chemistry; an MBA; an Executive Coaching diploma and a B.Sc. degree in Holistic Counselling.

Nanci Govinder

Startup Advisor for Coaching Impact, Strategic Advisor at Y-Parc SA

Expertise
B2C strategy, digital health, mobile healthcare, medtech, start-ups, business strategy, branding and brand positioning, marketing pitch

Soufian Mahlouly

CEO & Founder, Furinkazan

Expertise
Gaming

Soufian Mahlouly is the creator of Opticale, a mobile game whose goal is to explore a parallel universe to ours and discover the extraordinary creatures that hide there. After studying communication and marketing in Lausanne, he worked on the strategic planning of an advertising agency in Paris and then became manager of digital marketing for a hotel group.

Passionate about the possibilities offered by new technologies, he started his entrepreneurial adventure in 2014 by founding the Furinkazan studio. Sufian is also a Ju Jitsu qualified instructor and Swiss karate champion.

Ru Hoang-Li studied international relations at Nanjing International College and also business administration in Switzerland. She than finished her MBA and started to work in a Swiss enterprise. During 10 years of working, she has accumulated a great deal of experience in working with Chinese companies and factories, mainly in tools and construction industries.

Ru started her business of trading i 2008, mainly exporting Swiss health products to China. Beside her company, she also helped other European and US companies to develop their project in China.

Ru (Michelle) Hoang-Li

Founder of Swiss H&T S.à.r.l.

Expertise
Commercialisation en Chine 

Victor Pantet

Expertise
Web & mobile app design, UX/UI design, interaction design, art direction, graphic design, illustration

Raised in Yverdon-les-Bains, Victor Pantet lived in Seattle (WA, USA) between 1997 et 2013, where after receiving a Bachelor in visual communication he worked in the tech industry for companies and on projects for well known names such as : Amazon, Microsoft (at GreenRubino), Ford Motor Vehicles (at Airbiquity Inc.) to name a few. Victor joined Wavemind Sàrl in 2018 as their creative director, he oversees the quality of all visual products that come out of this digital creative tech agency.

Bill Muirhead has an Electrical & Electronic Engineering degree and is a UK chartered accountant.

He has worked for over 30 years to help the development and improvement of both small companies and major international groups. Bill has extensive experience as a CFO, CEO and entrepreneur, particularly with companies in the watchmaking and medtech sectors.

Together with his in-depth corporate finance experience, Bill has the ability to work with teams to make critical strategic decisions whilst also improving the operational excellence of an organisation. His real strength is his capacity to ask the difficult questions.

Bill Muirhead

Co-founder at VFM Conseil

Expertise
Investment, audit, fiduciary

Christophe Pian

Cofounder & Designer UX at The Colony

Expertise
Design thinking

Expert in human-centred design, agile practices and lean management. He has been working with start-ups on a daily basis for more than 6 years, both in their management and in their support as a service provider.

He helps entrepreneurs on a daily basis to accelerate the launch of brands, products or services and reduce the risks associated with them, whether through consulting mandates, private worshops or coaching in business competitions.

Since 2011, Sylvain Pasini is Professor at the HEIG-VD (University of Applied Sciences - Western Switzerland). His main activities are applied research and teaching, both in computer security. He is leading the information security group and is responsible of the information security education.

Previously, he was working as cryptography expert and security architect for Nagravision (Kudelski Group), world leader in digital pay-TV industry. He holds a Ph.D. in cryptography from EPFL, a Master's degree in Communication Systems from EPFL, and a Bachelor degree in Electronics from the Engineering school of Geneva (University of Applied Sciences - Western Switzerland).

Sylvain Pasini

Professor at the HEIG-VD
Head of the Cybersecurity group of HEIG-VD

Expertise
Cryptography, both academic and industrial aspects, Security architecture, Information / Computer / Software / Hardware security

Irina Sakharova-Quitt

Company Advisor, Euresearch Region Vaud and SME Advisor, EPFL Vice Presidency for Innovation

Expertise
Financement, Horizon 2020

Irina Sakharova Quitt is the Company Advisor for Euresearch Vaud Region. In this role she is responsible for informing and advising enterprises (SMEs, as well as big corporates and start-ups) on the best R&D and innovation mechanisms and financing tools available through Horizon 2020 European framework program. This framework allows companies to benefit from direct non-dilutive financing supporting their direct internal R&D innovative projects, recruitment of experienced researchers as well as work in collaborative projects at the international level. These services are public and free of charge, provided through the Euresearch association.

As an advisor for SMEs at EPFL, Irina also supports companies in discovering collaboration opportunities available with EPFL and in establishing links with appropriate EPFL services.

Irina has a background in strategy & management consulting and worked many years in economic development in Romandie. Her professional interests cover mostly business innovation. Married and mother of 2 boys, Irina is a mushing and ice hockey fan and loves dancing and swimming.

Frédéric is an HR expert and has founded or co-founded 3 start-ups since 2008, which all are still running. Frédéric has a strong track record in managing HR Strategy and Operation for both startups and international group. As an HR Business Partner with a demonstrated history of developing solutions linking HR outcomes to business strategy, he has successfully supported some of well known startups players in Romandie such as Netguardians & BestMile among others. Frédéric speaks French, English and Portuguese.

He holds a HR Specialist Federal Diploma of Higher Education with option in International HR Management and completed a Master in Advanced Studies in « Human System engineering » from the HEIG-VD (not graduate yet as the thesis still need to be submitted). Frédéric is also certified in ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), in Neuro Linguistic Programming and transactional Analysis.

Frédéric Roger

CEO & Founder at AIR HR Global Solution

Expertise

Recruitment and Staffing, Organisational Development, HR projects standardisation and implementation of HR processes and HR operation such payroll, employee and off-boarding, work permit and Relocation.

Jean-Michel Stauffer

Innovation adviser at Innovaud, economic promotion of canton of Vaud, Switzerland

Expertise

Innovation, public financial support, microtechnolog

Swiss EPFL Master of Sciences in Microtechnologies in 1988

Numerous activities in Photomask manufacturing (R&D manager, Sales and Marketing, Site director) during more than 10 years at CSEM (Swiss center for electronic and micro technologies) and Photronics Inc.

VP Sales and Marketing during 13 years at Colibrys, one of the largest spin off of CSEM, active in MEMS / Microsystems design and manufacturing

Currently and since more than five years, Innovation adviser at Innovaud, dedicated to the support of Precision Industry

Penny Schiffer is a business angel with strong network into Swiss and Silicon Valley investor scene. She has a passion for deep tech and B2B startups and serves as board member and advisor for several start-ups. Penny has been on the buyer side in a corporate (M&A unit), contributed in a corporate venture capital arm and built bridges between startups and corporates. She has been with Swisscom for over a decade and has now started her own career as startup founder after being infected by the entrepreneurial virus.

Penny Schiffer

Business Angel

Expertise
Investment, fund raising

Pascal Zomer

Company Sales Manager, Vaudoise Assurances

As a native of Yverdon-les-Bains and a long-time resident of the region, Pascal Zomer is married and the father of two daughters and recently grandfather of a little boy.

He has been an associate with The Vaudoise Insurance for more than 25 years, including ten years as head of personal insurance underwriting and nine years as Commercial Manager for the regions of Nord Vaudois, Jura, Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds and, incidentally, in Ticino.

He holds a federal certificate in private insurance and is also a lecturer at the CVFA (Commission vaudoise de formation en assurances) for apprentices and at the IRFA (Institut romand de formation en assurances) for the brevet.

Stéfanie Brun Poggi

Lawyer / Co-founder of G-BP avocates

Expertise

Labour law (private and public) and social insurance law, contract law and judicial activities

Stéfanie has been a lawyer since 2009, after having worked for 10 years in the banking sector in Geneva in the field of Compliance. Today, she has, in particular, developed her skills and experience in labour and insurance law, by following a training, in 2016, provided by the Fédération suisse des avocats, and acquired the title of Specialist FSA Labour Law. She advises employers and employees in the Northern Vaud region, both in judicial and advisory matters. In particular, she has drafted employment contracts and company regulations. She also negotiates, on behalf of her clients, insurance contracts (loss of earnings, sickness, accident) with service providers in the region, according to their needs.

 

She has recently joined the Board of Fondation du Repuis, a long-established institution in Grandson, active in the training of young people receiving disability insurance benefits. She has also recently been appointed Vice-President of the Labour Court of the Broye and Nord Vaudois district, which judges labour law cases with a maximum litigious value of CHF 30,000.00.

 

Oliver Chmiel, received his MSc (Dilpoma) from the ETH Zurich in Biochemistry. Later on did his PhD in Food Technology at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart on Lipases. He joined Nestlé in 1991 at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne. Over the years, he has been based in several different countries including the US, Ivory Coast and India. Within Nestlé he has confirmed capability of leveraging innovation to execute strategies, particularly R&D product and process development. Successfully leading the translation of Consumer Insights into delivering on competitive products. Leading of “Creating Shared Value” activities in Africa and India. Ingredient knowledge in chicory and cocoa. Leadership experience and effective project management in various working cultures (Europe, US, India and Africa).

 

His hobbies are family (married + 3 adult children), sports and food.

 

Oliver Chmiel

Senior Manager Open Innovation and Venturing at Société des Produits Nestlé SA

Expertise

Agronomy, Food technologies, Product Development (food), Interactions of Start-ups with Multinational companies

Florian Ducommun

Lawyer / Founder of the law firm HDC 

Expertise

Intellectual Property Law, Innovation and Technology Law
 

 

 

 

 

 

Florian Ducommun is a lawyer and founder of the law firm HDC in Lausanne. During his training (Lausanne, Berlin, Montreal), he worked on open source licenses and on the valuation of intellectual property rights in a global context.

As a lawyer, he has ten years of experience in innovation and technology law. He advises companies and/or founders in connection with the protection and enhancement of their intellectual property as well as on contractual and corporate law aspects, in particular with regard to fund raising.

 

 

 

 

A graduate of IDHEAP, Nicolas Rogivue is "Head of Digital Office" at Vaudoise Assurances. In this capacity, he is in charge of developing the Vaudoise's relations with local and European start-ups and strengthening innovative practices within the company.

Business-oriented, he also collaborates on various projects at strategic levels to develop "ecosystem" thinking.

As a member of the Sounding Board of Credit Exchange, Nicolas has the opportunity to share his point of view on the future developments of the start-up. He has also organized several SICTIC events to promote various Swiss start-ups to local Business Angels.

His professional interests are mainly focused on business innovation and the realization of strategic development plans. He pays particular attention to the realisation of Business Models and Business Cases favouring customer-centric methods.

Nicolas Rogivue

Head of Digital Office at Vaudoise Assurances

Expertise
Corporate Investment et Business Development

Daniel Ramos

CEO of Swisstems SA

Expertise

Home automation, IT, telecommunications, digital signage, video surveillance, access control and centralized technical management

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel Ramos, son of a Spanish immigrant, has dual Swiss and Spanish nationality. He was born in Yverdon-les-Bains in 1976, married and father of 4 children.

Already at a very young age, Daniel took up challenges such as Expo.02 (IT Manager at 24 years old) and then founded his first company at the age of 26.

Team leader, Consultant and Expert for large groups such as VINCI or SPIE in which he participated in integration projects on a worldwide scale.

With a great experience in technology, Daniel has preferred to put his skills to the benefit of SMEs in French-speaking Switzerland in order to remain close to his clients with whom he maintains a relationship of trust.

A natural go-getter, Daniel has also found a balance in his "work-life balance" allowing him to combine an intense professional life with a busy family life.

With more than 25 years of experience in complex systems integration, and thanks to his large network of partners, Daniel will be able to advise you in a pragmatic and professional way.

Passionate about sports and technology, he is also an active member of several associations in the region.

To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often. (Winston Churchill)