Steering Committee 2025

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”.

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.

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.

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.

Andrea Galperti, CEO of Galperti Group, is dedicated to continuing his family’s tradition of excellence in the oil and gas and industrial sectors. With a focus on teamwork and understanding client needs, he strives to guide the company toward innovation and sustainable growth while maintaining its commitment to quality and strong relationships built over generations.

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.

Saman Hosseinpour holds a PhD in Surface and Corrosion Science from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. After a postdoc period at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPIP-Mainz), Germany, he moved to the University of Erlangen as a group leader and later was appointed as an honorary adjunct professor in materials engineering at FUM. In 2016, Saman received the Morris Cohen Award for outstanding graduate research in the field of corrosion science and/or engineering from the Electrochemical Society. Saman joined Outokumpu in 2022 as the leader of the R&D corrosion department in Krefeld, Germany.

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.

Dr. Hua Yong is a Senior Engineer and PhD supervisor. He currently holds a position at Zhejiang Jiuli Hi-Tech Metals Co., Ltd., in Huzhou, China. Dr. Hua graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Bradford in 2009 and later graduated his master at the University of Sheffield in 2010. In 2015, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds, UK. Having returned to China in 2022, he now has over 10 years of research experience in the field of corrosion. Dr. Hua’s research primarily focuses on material integrity and selection in harsh environments, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), oil and gas industries, hydrogen embrittlement, deep-sea and deep-earth applications, and the semiconductor sectors. His work encompasses corrosion prediction, in-situ corrosion design, high-precision tubing, and surface treatment. Dr. Hua is a member of the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) and has served as the Chair of the TEG 121X Supercritical Corrosion Subcommittee in the U.S. He also chaired the High-Temperature and High-Pressure Subcommittee at the UK Corrosion and Science Symposium. Dr. Hua has led or participated in over 25 international and national projects. He has published over 70 SCI/EI papers, 10 patents, and has one software copyright.

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.

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.

Hervé Marchebois has a Ph.D. in electrochemistry and corrosion. He started his career working as corrosion and Risk based Inspection engineer for both downstream and upstream environments. Then, he moved to a steel making company as research head manager of a corrosion and surface treatment department, in charge of developing sour service grades as the main activity. Hervé currently works with TotalEnergies since more than 10 years as materials and corrosion specialist. He ovesees the metallic materials selection, research and innovation and the update of company guides and manuals and specifications. Hervé also serves as vice-chair of NACE MR0175 / ISO 15156 maintenance Panel among other activities.

Mr Stefan Müller-Bernhardt is working in the stainless-steel industry for 35 years. After his studies in Munich, he immediately entered the stainless-steel industry. His wealth of knowledge is based not only on his roles at well-known stainless-steel manufacturers, like Ugitech or La Meusienne, but also in international trading houses.
He spent almost 25 years in a managerial position in France, Voss Edelstahl, and Jacquet Metal (parent company of Stappert GmbH), where he built up or reorganised companies. After his return, he was managing director of Damstahl GmbH in Germany for several years. Since 2022, he has been running the ‘Stay-Stainless’ consultancy firm to share his extensive experience in technology and sales in seminars and missions.
In 2023, he founded his own distribution company, Venus Europe GmbH, a pan-European distributor and representation of seamless stainless steel tubes in close cooperation with and for Venus Pipes and Tubes, its Indian partners. He is also the co-author of the book ‘Pricing in Turbulent Times’, published by Haufe Verlag.

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.

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 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.

Raquel Rodríguez, PhD in Material Science, is a Research Scientist in TUBACEX GROUP since 2011. Her expertise lies on the metallurgy of stainless steels and nickel-based alloys. She is involved in the development of new materials and technologies for different applications (oil&gas, power generation, fertilizer and hydrocarbon processing industries), with also a strong focus on new developments for energy transition. Before joining TUBACEX, she was a researcher in CEIT-BRTA.

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.

Christian Schenk has been part of the BUTTING family since 1981, Christian Schenk first trained as an industrial clerk and then studied business administration.

His expertise is in project business. As a project manager in the Stainless Steel Welded Pipes business unit, Christian Schenk has successfully managed major international projects in the chemical, petrochemical, fertiliser, oil and gas and LNG sectors for over 30 years.

As a passionate networker, he maintains contact with customers as well as suppliers all over the world and visits them regularly at trade fairs as well as personally on-site.

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.

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.

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.