Meet the Steering Committee

Andrew Balev is a Dpl. Materials Engineer, Head of R&D of CENTRAVIS PRODUCTION UKRAINE PJSC. He has published more than 50 scientific papers including 10 patents.
He is a technical expert with 18 years of experience in mechanical and material engineering.
He is also a developer of next – generation materials BALEV 304L and BALEV 316L for automotive, hydrogen and industries where high and ultra-high pressure are applied.

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.

Robin Wang, International Business Director of JIULI Hi-Tech Metals in China. He has worked in JIULI since 2003, and supported JIULI for global project business for last 17 years.

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.

John Houben has over 20 years experience in material selection, corrosion prevention, troubleshooting, welding and maintenance of petrochemical plants. From 1997, he is responsible for the materials engineering support, including failure analysis of chemical facilities of ExxonMobil Chemical in Europe, Middle East and Far East. In this period a major effort was implementation of Risk Based Inspection Strategies.

John Houben has a Masters degree in Materials Engineer from Technical University of Delft in The Netherlands and is a certified Level III Inspection Engineer in The Netherlands. He joint Exxon Chemical in 1986 in The Netherlands and is part of ExxonMobil Chemical Core Engineering Materials since 1994.

I’m a master of science in metallurgy and I’m also a welding engineer.
I have worked for Stalatube 12 years.
I’m responsible for product development and manufacturing technology.

Dr. Lars Rose is Manufacturing Technology Guardian and Regional Materials Engineering Manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa within DowDuPont Engineering Research and Technology, a global team of materials experts and engineers involved with professionally addressing engineering issues in ageing plants worldwide, centrally directed from the DowDuPont headquarters in the USA. He previously worked as a lab manager at the National Research Council, as researcher and QA manager at the Max Planck Institutes for Polymers and Physics and research engineer at the Haldor Topsøe Risø facilities. He used to direct the Canadian engineering outreach division of Let’s Talk Science in British Columbia and the Yukon and has published several books on modern energy technologies and engineering and science “kitchen experiments”. His favourite type of Stainless Steel is the type that actually does not rust, stain, or pit – and he is still looking for one that fits this bill in all chemical services.

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.

Mr. NAGAO Mamoru has been general manager of R&D department in Maruichi Stainless Tube specialized to seamless stainless steel tubes & pipes production in Japan.

He was born in Kyoto, earned his master’s degree from Kyoto University in 1990, majored in material science about microstructure control of duplex stainless steels.

He started his career at Materials Research Lab. of Kobe Steel, Ltd.  Since then he has dedicated Kobe Steel’s R&D in metallic materials science and engineering. His R&D field was for not only stainless steels but also carbon steels, non-ferrous alloys, long products, flat products, metallic powder and thin film materials for electronic devices.

Since 2016, he has been general manager of R&D department in Kobelco Steel Tube, one of subsidiaries in Kobe Steel. Since 2020, it has changed its name as Maruichi Stainless Tube because all stocks were transferred from Kobe Steel to Maruichi Steel Tube, one of leading companies for welded carbon steel tubes & pipes production in Japan.

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.

I am Group CEO of Damstahl and have +30 years of experience in stainless steel and two decades of leadership experience.
From an educational point of view, I hold i.e. an MBA in General Management and an MBA in Business Psychology. My core competences are within the fields of strategy including development of people, and market.
Through the last years, I have also been part of a large carve out and M&A´s where the latter invited me into a new world of i.e. aluminum and copper. I have a genuine interest in sustainability and digital development – always with focus on people.

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.

After gaining a civil engineering qualification at Bregenz Technical College [HTL Bregenz] in Austria, Mr Heinzle graduated in engineering, with a specialism in civil engineering, from the Technical University of Vienna [Technische Universität Wien] in 1991.

He then gained experience in various management positions in the textiles engineering, car supplier and pipework industries. He has taken responsibility for a wide range of departments over the last 20 years: from sales, to research & development, production, logistics and purchasing. As the Managing Director of Erne Fittings, he headed up international business for weld fittings.

Mr Heinzle has been a member of the Board of Management at the BUTTING headquarter in Knesebeck since 2015. Furthermore, he has taken over responsibility as business unit director for the business unit “clad pipes” since December 2019.

Peter van Gansewinkel is since 38 years active in metal processing and fabrication for Defense, Offshore, Subsea, Hydrocarbon, Petrochemical and PowerGen industries.

In 1998 he joined the business-to-business marketing and technical sales department of Brück Pipeconnections BV, with focus on Material Marketing in Oil & Gas.

Mr. van Gansewinkel holds metallurgical, mechanical and economic qualifications and  has 25+ years successful international experience in sales and fabrication of Open-Die Forging and Seamless Ring Rolling.

Since 2022 Peter is leading the Global Power Generation and Plant & Equipment Construction Sector within Brück GmbH.

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. Reza Javaherdashti is a metallurgical engineer and materials scientist with expertise on corrosion and microbial corrosion. He has been involved in 400+ Root Cause Analysis/FMEA projects. He has more several internationally referenced publications

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.

Mr. Sayee Raghunathan is an experienced, commercially focused technocrat, with specialization in the manufacturing and the energy sectors, as well as having experience across the entire product lifecycle and technology readiness spectrum. He is currently employed as a welding and metallurgical engineering consultant for Saudi Aramco, in Saudi Arabia. This role involves, amongst other things, materials selection consultations and run-repair-replace evaluations for assets and operating facilities and high-level studies and investigations. He is a non-executive director of the American Welding Society (AWS). At AWS, he is also the Chair of the Product Development Committee (PDC) and a member of four other committees including the Marketing Council and Membership Committee. Before Saudi Aramco, he worked as an Associate Director at TWI, Cambridge, UK and as a visiting professor for the Dalton Institute of Manchester University. He was awarded the 2012 Lidstone Medal and is a Fellow of eight UK professional institutes including the Welding Institute, Nuclear Institute, Energy Institute, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Institute of Corrosion and IOM3. He also actively volunteers for education, professional development and technology advancement causes.

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.

Mr Astad has worked at Equinor since 2010. His position is now Senior Engineer Materials Technology. Through his experience at Equinor has worked with stainless steels in different areas; material selection for subsea and topside projects, M-650 qualification of manufacturers of special materials, induction bending specifications and follow-ups to construction and welding activities on sites both onshore and offshore.

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.

Mr Dong has been pursuing stainless steel research and product development for almost fifteen years since he joined Baosteel. His interests were focused on the development and application of  ferritic, austenitic and martensitic stainless steels  in ABC, household appliances, houseware and heat exchangers.  Mr Dong hopes his experience may be helpful to the Conference.

Willem Maarten van Haaften holds a PhD in material science from TU Delft, after which he started his career at Tata Steel in IJmuiden, The Netherlands. After ten years of product development and process improvement in high strength hot rolled steels, he joined Shell in 2012. First in upstream technology, later in materials and corrosion technology; two areas in Shell that cannot do without stainless steels. All in all, more than 20 years of experience in application of materials technology. Outside work, he enjoys outdoor activities preferable together with his wife and two children.

Yuhei Suzuki is a General Manager of NIPPON STEEL EUROPE GmbH.

NIPPON STEEL is formed by the merger of Nippon steel and Sumitomo Metals on October 2012.

He earned his master’s degree from Kyoto University Graduate School of Energy Science.

He started his career as a pipe and tube engineer at Sumitomo Metals.

After ten years of material development and process improvement in stainless steel and Ni base alloy seamless tubes and pipes, in 2021, he was transferred to NIPPON STEEL EUROPE GmbH (Dusseldorf, Germany).

He has been engaged in the technical service for their European seamless tubes & pipes customers in the petrochemical, chemical subsea and power plant industries.