Meet the speakers and moderators

Speaker in the Paper Session on Welding
Florin Room, Tuesday, 27 September, 12:00 pm

Alberto Bejarano is a lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru where he trains new welding engineers under the banner of the International Welding Institute and the European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting requirements. He also works as an independent welding consultant design-ing welding procedures, qualifying welders and operators, calculating welding joints, and of course doing supervision in the field – most of the time for mining projects and thermo-electrical installations and structures. He is also Finally, I am a ASME mentor for mechanical engineering students.

He previously worked for Praxair (now Linde) for five years as an Applications Engineer in Metal Fabrication and as a lecturer he has worked for many institutions including the National University of Colombia where he studied Mechanical Engineering. His core competency is in Mechanical Engineering but he has worked in welding for the last fifteen years. During this period he obtained the qualifications to be an International Welding Engineer, a European Welding Engineer and a Certified Welding Inspector (American Welding Society). His special interests within stainless steel have revolved around supervising repairs for cryogenic tanks, design procedures and qualifying welders for sanitary piping and structural applications, and supervising the fabrication of tanks etc. He also did research into the welding of hyper duplex stainless steels.

Mr. Barinder J S Ghai is the Regional Technical Marketing, EMEA at Alleima based in Birmingham UK. Mr. Ghai holds a degree in Production Engineering and a post-graduate degree in Sales & Marketing. Before joining Alleima, Barinder had varied experience in industry including project execution, maintenance, customer’s service and sales with reputed MNC’s. Mr. Ghai has already presented papers at Duplex Conference, Stainless Steel World, IRPC Abu Dhabi & Milan, Refining India, Petrotech Bahrain etc. and supported several other papers. He is also a Steering Committee Member and a member of the Advisory Board for key conference committees.

Moderator of the Discussion/Workshop on the contribution of Stainless Steels to Sustainability
Euro Room, Wednesday, 28 September, 14:30 pm

Benoît van Hecke is the Nickel Institute’s Market Development Manager for Europe based at their offices in Brussels. He is responsible for the Nickel Institute’s Market Development activities and partnerships related to the European market. He joined them in June 2018, after previously working for Aperam Stainless Europe where he was latterly Head of Project Sales for capital goods. His previous experience includes a four-year secondment to Euro Inox as Technical Director. He is a Belgian citizen and speaks six European languages. He has a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering as well as a Post-graduate Business Management degree.

Geoff Warburton is a Materials Engineer and Metallurgist with over 35 years’ experience in the research and development of new product routes and applications for Super Duplex and Duplex Stainless steels. He has a particular interest in product metallurgy, forging and fabrication, developing processes and procedures to manufacture and utilise the steels in many applications. He currently works part time as a consultant and have carried out several interesting projects for clients around the globe. Many of these experiences have been written up in academic papers over the last thirty five years .

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Oil and gas
• Super Duplex SS
• Forgings
• Processes and procedures
• Quality Control
• Fabrication

AFFILIATIONS

TWI

IOM3

NACE

Plenary Lecturer, How a 3D printed bridge impacts on the stainless steel industry
Tuesday, 27 September, 10:30 am
Panelist in the Discussion/Workshop on Additive Manufacturing Euro Room, Tuesday, 27 September, 11:30 am

Gijs van der Velden has a master’s degree in Dutch and International Law. He has led MX3D, a large scale metal 3D printing company, since its beginning in 2015. MX3D gained fame by 3D printing a 6 ton stainless steel bridge for the city center of Amsterdam. Until 2017 he also held the position of General Manager at the Joris Laarman Studio. This Dutch Design company initially developed the large scale robotic printing technique now used by MX3D.

Plenary Lecturer, Advanced GW Green hydrogen Plant, Conceptual Design and Material Selection
Thursday, 29 September, 10:00 am

Hans van’t Noordende is assigned as a Technical Project Leader to the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (www.ispt. eu) in Amersfoort (NL). He is an independ-ent engineer, having a M.Sc. at Wageningen University&Research , and has more than twenty-five years of experience in engineer-ing and energy transition. He was previously employed by Bilfinger Tebodin as a Senior Process Engineer and Business Development Manager Chemicals. For the past two-and-a-half years he has been working in close cooperation with partners from industries and knowledge institutes to deliver a conceptual design with a cost reduction factor 2–3 for a (future) gigawatt green hydrogen plant with PEM and Alkaline WE technol-ogy. The material selection is clearly a challenge.

Since 2018 Dr. Iris Rommerskirchen is working with EBK as Business Development Director. Additionally, she is managing shareholder of the Rommerskirchen GmbH. Before she was working as Senior Vice President Business Development and Quality at the W. Schulz Group. Between 2002 and December 2014, Dr. Iris Rommerskirchen was Managing Director in different companies and holdings of the Butting Group covering responsibilities for sales, purchasing, quality, product and market development for all kinds of stainless steels, nickel alloys, clad and lined pipes.

Since graduating from Delft University of Technology as a metallurgical engineer in 1986, Mr. Jacko Aerts has been working for DSM, now dsm-firmenich. Materials & Corrosion have always been the red line throughout his career path within dsm-firmenich. He started in the materials & corrosion research department, moved to the maintenance group of the caprolactam plant in Geleen, NL, in 1997 and since 2005 he works in a global competence role for materials & corrosion / Life Time Extension, supporting all dsm-firmenich plants worldwide. LTE is essentially predicting when equipment needs to be replaced, thus providing input for strategic investment programs. Representing a small discipline within dsm-firmenich, Mr. Aerts emphasizes the importance of keeping in touch with peers outside your own company: he is chairing two networking groups in The Netherlands: “Studiekern Corrosie” and (until 2022) “Contact Group Corrosion Dutch Process Industry”.

Jan van de Wetering studied Materials Science at Delft University in The Netherlands. Joining AkzoNobel in 1992 (now Nobian), he worked as a corrosion prevention consultant in the materials and corrosion technology group. In his first years, he focused on cooling and boiler water treatment and participated in a Dutch national project of the water treatment and chemical process industry to set up a standardized test for cooling water treatment programs. He has been involved in EC funded research and has development projects on the advancement of new electrochemical monitoring techniques for the CPI. He has also been a member of several user committees of Dutch government-funded material and corrosion research projects.

Mr Jan-Willem Rensman is a Fellow for Metallurgy & Welding at Fluor BV in the Netherlands. He is a certified International Welding Engineer and has a Master of Science degree in Mechanical and Materials Engineering from Twente University in Enschede, the Netherlands. His work consists of selection and specification of materials for industrial chemical facilities and refineries, as well as review of vendor documentation for fabrication, non-destructive examination, and welding. Some special interests of his are fabrication technology, materials performance, and failure mechanisms of structural and pressure vessel materials.

Joelle Greenwood graduated with a master in modern languages in Toulouse (France) and post graduated in Birmingham Aston University UK. Soon after graduation, in the early eighties, she joined Creusot Loire Steel Company (UK) where she engaged in the field of metallurgy for flat and forged products in various chemistries.

Over several years, she developed her activities in the energy market with focus on the power generation and oil & gas (with par-ticular emphasis on offshore) applications. From the late 80’s on-wards, Joelle developed her experience and expertise in sales and project management to include tubular products in carbon, low alloys, corrosion resistant alloys and titanium with the Vallourec Group. Since 1994, Joelle Greenwood has been working exclusively on Tubular seamless products in CRA materials for Mannesmann Stainless Tubes (formally DMV stainless). Based at MST’s French mill since 2003, she is global Key Accounts Manager for the Oil & Gas market including E&P, Upstream and Downstream applica-tions. She is participating in defining suitable approaches in the manufacturing and selection of such materials. She is active on several international normalization committees as well as contributing to key industry events with a passion for CRA materials and the Energy sector. In 2018, she received the Duplex World Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the global materials industry.

Panelist in the workshop on welding
Florin Room, Tuesday, 27 September, 14:30 pm

Mr Justin Geraerds has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Management. He has over 25 years experience in robotic arc welding. He has been CEO of Kranendonk Smart Robotics since 2016. Previously, he was Senior Expert & Business Development Au-tomation Head at Lorch System Integration, and Head of flexible automation (Robotics) Europe for Lincoln Electric Europe.

Lena Wegrelius holds a PhD in Engineering Metals from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, where she studied passivation of stainless steels with help of electrochemical methods and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Lena joined Outokumpu in Avesta in 1996 as a corrosion engineer. From 1996 to present, Lena has held several positions within Outokumpu Stainless, within the area of corrosion science and technical marketing of stainless steels. Lena has years of experience in material selection for different industry sectors, especially the pulp and paper industry. Lena is an experienced lecturer and teacher in various forums and author of many technical papers. Since 2014 Lena is heading the Global Corrosion Department within Outokumpu’s R&D.

Panelist in the Workshop/Discussion on Welding
Tuesday, 27 September, 14:30 pm

Loïc Amadu is a welding engineer at the Friedlander Contracting International ORTEC Group. He provides technical support for quotations on oil & gas projects clients and suppliers, studying customer specifications, norms and standards, selecting welding processes and welding and cutting/beveling machines, selecting WPQR, and estimating welding time, and also procures welding consumables. He also provides technical support to the company’s subsidiaries in Africa and handles welding discussions between clients and suppliers.

Panelist in the Discussion/Workshop on Additive Manufacturing
Euro Room, Tuesday, 27 September, 11:30 am
Panelist in the Plenary Discussion Session (Questions & Answers)
Wednesday, 28 September, 14:30 pm

Marc Wilms is a Principal Materials & Corrosion Engineer working at Shell’s Technology Centre in Amsterdam. He supports upstream assets, and new projects, as well as the development and deployment of new technology. His research activities include oil & gas production but focus mainly on New Energy technologies. Marc is the Global Subject Matter Expert for sour service materials and for pipeline materials at Shell. He is a Mechanical Engineer (M.Sc.) and holds a Ph.D. in corrosion. Next to close involvement in the Stainless Steel World Conference, he is an industrial research fellow at the University of Delft, Chairman of the Oil & Gas Section of the European Federation of Corrosion, and has several roles in NACE/AMPP and other industrial networks.

Markus Kind is the commercial Managing Director of Rolf Kind GmbH. Markus holds a Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA). Before that he completed a Bachelors degree in Commerce in Cologne, Germany in 2002. He entered the family business in 2005 and took over the lead of the company together with his brother Ralf Kind (Technical MD) in 2014. Markus is responsible for international sales and the development of the company in the global marketplace.

Dr. Nicole Kinsman has been Technical Director of the International Molybdenum Association (IMOA), a non-profit trade association based in London, UK, since 2002. Before that she was Market Development Manager for TMR, a stainless steel consulting firm, based in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Dr. Kinsman holds a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering (1991) and a PhD in Metallurgy (1994) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland and an MBA (2001) from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. She has specialized in stainless steel technical market development for over 25 years.

Raymond Cordewener graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and has fulfilled many technical and managerial functions in several companies. He is on the Steering Committees of Stainless Steel World and Duplex World. Raymond’s broad metallurgical experience and materials knowledge covers forming, forging, casting, welding and machining. He has given training and workshops/masterclasses in the fields of quality, heat treatments, stainless steels, and duplex. He began his own consultancy company in 2005, in his expert fields of metallurgy, cold and hot forming/forging, and overlay and multi-layer steel welding. He also performed Assessments and improvement projects related to the Oil & Gas industry. He is performing QE and QC projects as well.

Dr Francis has been a corrosion engineer for over 40 years.  He has wide experience in the fields of marine corrosion, desalination, sour oil and gas corrosion, mineral processing, and the chemical and process industries.  He has published over 100 technical papers in all these areas, particularly on copper alloys and duplex stainless steels.  He has written six books on various aspects of corrosion and has jointly edited three others. The most recent was on corrosion in desalination plants.  The author has served as the NACE (now AMPP) European Area director.  He was made a NACE Fellow in 2005 for his work in marine corrosion.  In 2014 he received the T J Hull Award for his work in publications.  In 2012 he set up his own corrosion consultancy business, RFMaterials, and also works as a consultant to the Nickel Institute.

Panelist in the Discussion/Workshop on Welding
Florin Room, Tuesday, 27 September, 14:30 pm

Sandra Le Manchet joined Industeel, which is part of the ArcelorMittal Group, in 2010. She works both in the R&D and marketing teams. Before this, she worked for ArcelorMittal in its Montataire plant (near Paris) on the corrosion resistance of galvanized steel for the automotive industry.
Ms. Le Manchet is a graduate from the University of Technology of Compiègne (near Paris) and has a Ph.D. in Electrochemistry and Corrosion Science. Her special interests in stainless steels are related to corrosion resistance, mechanical properties of stainless steels and their weldability, including duplex, austenitics and heat-resistant alloys. On the marketing side, she works on the market development for all stainless steels in Industeel’s portfolio, focusing increasingly on energy transition markets.

Mr. Sunday Okoro is a materials and corrosion specialist within the materials and mechanics department, at GRUNDFOS – a premium pump manufacturer with headquarters located in Bjerringbro, Denmark.

Prof. Dr. Thomas L. Ladwein studied chemistry and metallurgy at Münster University, and graduated with Diploma and PhD degrees. Prof. Ladwein worked for 19 years in various positions in R&D, application engineering and technical marketing in the stainless steel division of Thyssen, later Thyssen Krupp Corporation. From 2003 – 2021, he was full time professor for electrochemistry, corrosion and corrosion control at Aalen University, Germany Prof. Ladwein is the owner of consulting firm Steinbeis Transferzentrum Korrosion und Werkstoff. He has also been active in NACE International (now AMPP), VDI, DECHEMA, VDEh, GfKorr, and was a member of NACE International Board of Directors 2015-2018. In 2011, Prof. Ladwein was the recipient of the NACE Herbert H. Uhlig Award for Excellence in Corrosion Ed-ucation, and he was a Fellow of NACE International. Prof. Ladwein has served in the steering committees of all Stainless Steel World and Duplex World conferences since 1997.

Plenary Lecturer, Global Stainless Steel Market

Tuesday, 27 September, 10:00 am

Tim was born and grew up in the home of UK stainless steelmaking, Sheffield. Whilst at school he worked part-time for his father making steelworks thermocouples and laboratory furnaces. After leaving school he studied metallurgy at university and joined British Steel Stainless immediately after graduating. A succession of industry mergers saw Tim undertaking senior stainless technical, operations and supply chain roles in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK before joining the world stainless association in August 2019. During his career Tim also found time to study Goldratt’s teaching on lean flow and operations, gain a post-graduate diploma in operations and inventory management and a master’s degree in business administration. Away from work Tim still supports his boyhood football club, Sheffield Wednesday and enjoys rock music, cycling, fine wines and craft ales.