General Manger, Yoshino Laboratory
Dr. Yoshino, a native of Japan, earned a B.S. and M.S. in engineering from the Department of Petroleum Chemistry at Kyoto University in 1970 and 1972, respectively. In 1972, he joined the research organization of Asahi Kasei Corp. in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan, where he engaged in research on functional polymers and electronic materials. In 1981, he started a research effort on high-energy-density secondary batteries. In 1985, he invented a new battery system of C/LiCoO2, which would become known as the lithium-ion battery (LIB). In 1992 he moved to A&T Battery Corp., a joint venture between Asahi Kasei and Toshiba for commercial LIB manufacture. In 1996, he returned to Asahi Kasei and continued further LIB research. He is now Honorary Fellow of Asahi Kasei Corp. He also serves as President of the Consortium for Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Center (LIBTEC), Professor of Meijo University, and as Visiting Professor Kyushu University.

Senior Partner
Dr. Berhart is a Senior Partner at Roland Berger GmbH, based in Stuttgart Germany. As a member of its Global Automotive Competence Center, he is responsible for the Global Competence Cluster "Innovation & Technology". His focus lays mainly on business models and technologies around Automated Driving, Connectivity and CO2-reduction/eMobility including new energy storage systems such as Lithium-Ion batteries and Fuel Cells. In his role, he is taking care of business development and delivery for the global firm when it comes to technology driven strategies and transactional advisory for Automotive OEMs, suppliers, engineering service providers and investors.

Battery Survey Manager
Christophe has built up considerable expertise in the area of battery market. He joined AVICENNE 22 years ago and Spend 3 years in Japan making analysis on the Electronic, Mobile & Japanese battery market. Christophe gained large experience in marketing, strategy analysis, technology and financial studies for the battery and power management fields. He developed the Battery market analysis for AVICENNE which counts more than 200 customers worldwide. Christophe published several annual surveys like “The rechargeable battery market 2016-2025”. He is also the founder & chairman of Batteries congress in France since 1999. He is now Director of AVICENNE ENERGY.

Manager, Battery Benchmarking Program
From 2002 - 2008, Wenzel Prochazka studied Mechanical Engineering for Mechatronics at the University of Graz in Austria and the Institute of Applied Sciences in Rouen, France. During his PhD thesis at the University of Graz (2009 - 2013), he investigated ageing mechanisms of Lithium ion cells for PHEVs and EVs by means of experimental designs and electrochemical ageing modelling. Since 2004, he has been involved in modelling of energy systems at different enterprises and research centers (e.g. VA Tech Austria, ONERA France) and vehicle thermal management at AVL. In 2010 he joined AVL List’s Global Battery Competence Team as a junior expert for ageing of battery systems. In 2013 he switched to his current position as Product Manager for battery systems.

President & CEO
Mr. Takeshita graduated from a bachelor’s course at the Department of Reaction Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, in 1991. He has been involved continuously with investigation and consulting on the LIB market, as an investigative researcher for the Nomura Research Institute from 1991, and as vice-president of the Institute of Information Technology from 2000. Mr. Takeshita Founded B3 Corporation in April 2012, taking the post of President and CEO. Investigated LIB markets and the technologies of LIB cells and materials, as well as the mobile and IT market and the xEV market, and provided related business consulting and executive support.

Head of Forecasting
In 2018, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the market leaders in price assessments for the lithium-ion battery supply chain, signed Andy Leyland as its new Head of Forecasting. Andy joins Benchmark from Wood Mackenzie where as Product Suite Director he was responsible for the commercial vision and direction of the metals business group. Oxford-educated, Andy is a former Practice Area Leader at CRU Consulting and Associate Director at VTB Capital. He has over 15 years’ experience in supporting project finance in the metals and minerals sector.

Market Development Manager
Shigeto Mizutani is a market development manager at Coherent Japan Inc. who has been following high-power laser technologies and material processing for the automotive and battery markets in Japan. He previously worked for 15 years in technical sales engineering and marketing for high-power laser-beam delivery systems.

CTO, R&D Center
Dr. Young-Min Choi graduated from the advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)in South Korea and has accumulated over 20 years of R&D experience for cathode materials and rechargeable lithium batteries. He currently holds the position of vice president of advanced materials research and development at LG Chem.

Senior Scientist & Research Group Leader, High Performance Metal Industries
Dr. Adam Best received his PhD from Monash University, Australia in 2002 before being awarded a Senior Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands (2001 - 04). In 2004, Dr. Best joined the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Division of Energy Technology, to work on ionic liquid electrolytes for lithium metal batteries. In 2013, Dr. Best moved to the Manufacturing Business Unit and was appointed as Research Group Leader in the Metal Industries Program in 2015. Adam leads a number of battery research programs utilising ionic liquid electrolytes, including to enabling high voltage battery cathodes and lithium-sulfur batteries. Dr. Best has been the recipient of a number of awards including CSIRO Julius Award and more recently, a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship to study battery electrolytes and how to develop a battery industry in Australia. He has 68 publications and 12 patents, with a H index of 28 and over 3500 lifetime citations.

Professor, Research HV Battery Systems
Andreas Hintennach is a chemist and medical doctor. He received his PhD in electrochemistry from the ETH Zurich and Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) in 2010. After a postdoc stay at MIT in the field of lithium-air and catalysis 2010-11 he joined the group research department Daimler AG. His present focus in the field of electrochemistry is fundamental research on next-generation electrical energy storage and conversion materials and systems, sustainability and toxicology.

Senior Manager of Energy Storage Strategy and Research
Ted Miller is Ford's Senior Manager of Energy Storage Strategy and Research. His team is responsible for energy storage strategy and research for Ford vehicles globally. They are involved in every aspect of energy storage design and use from raw materials to end-of-life recycling and second use. His team also collaborates in energy storage research with university, industrial, and National Lab partners. Mr. Miller is a member of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) Management Committee. He is a member of several strategic and external advisory boards, including Idaho National Lab, the University of Michigan Energy Institute, Cobalt 27, and the Energy Frontier Research Center for Sodium Based Energy Storage.

Manager, International Standardization Planning Department
Mr. Minoru Noguchi is chief engineer of battery research and development division at Honda R&D Co., Ltd. Automobile R&D center. He joined Honda in 1985. He studied the material of a lithium ion battery and an ultra-capacitor. He developed the electric energy storage system which used the ultra-capacitor, and it contributed to improve the efficiency and in acceleration performance of FCX. He is engaged in development of the battery system for HEV or EV now.

Certified Senior Industrial Analyst, Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK)
As a certified senior industrial analyst of the biggest think-tank in Taiwan, Mark is responsible for research about battery-related industries in Taiwan, from material, cell, pack and related applications. Not only handling the official government statistics about Taiwan’s battery industries, he also plays a role in providing consultations to both the Taiwan government and companies worldwide. In the past six years, his clients have included the top 100 Taiwan companies and global enterprises like GM, VW, Intel, China Steel Company, China Petroleum Company and Japanese material companies. From 2010, he served as the deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Battery Association.

CTO, R&D Center
Dr. Young-Min Choi graduated from the advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)in South Korea and has accumulated over 20 years of R&D experience for cathode materials and rechargeable lithium batteries. He currently holds the position of vice president of advanced materials research and development at LG Chem.

Director, Center of Materials Research, Justus-Liebig University & BELLA, Institute of Nanotechnology
Jürgen Janek holds a chair for Physical Chemistry at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen (Germany) and is scientific director of BELLA, a joint lab of BASF SE and KIT in Karlsruhe/Germany. He received his doctoral degree in the field of physical chemistry of solids under supervision of Hermann Schmalzried and Alan B. Lidiard. He was visiting professor at Seoul National University, Tohuku University/Sendai and Université d´Aix-Marseille, and got several awards for his scientific work. His research in physical chemistry of solids and electrochemistry spans a wide range from fundamental transport studies in mixed conductors and interface phenomena to in situ studies in electrochemical cells. Current key interests include all-solid-state batteries, lithium- and sodium-based batteries and new solid electrolytes. He is particularly interested in kinetics at interfaces and in in situ techniques. Jürgen Janek holds 12 patents and is author of about 300 peer-reviewed papers in a wide range of journals.

President & CEO, Board Director
A world-renowned inventor, Dr Yuan Gao has over 20 years of experience in the complete supply chain of the lithium-ion battery industry, from lithium extraction to batteries. One of his inventions, Ti/Mg technology, enables high-voltage lithium-ion batteries and is applied today in the vast majority of lithium-ion batteries in small portable electronics such as smart phones and tablets. Dr Gao joined Pulead Technology in May 2014 and has been president and CEO since January 2015. He previously served as a corporate vice president at Molycorp (USA), and global marketing director and technology manager, as well as other management positions at FMC Corporation (USA).

Managing Director
Robert has 10 years’ experience in metal and mineral market economics. He graduated in 2003 having undertaken a BSc in Geological Sciences and an MSc in Mineral Project Appraisal at Oxford Brookes and Imperial College universities. Robert worked as an environmental consultant before joining Roskill in 2006. In addition to managing Roskill’s minor metals research, Robert is an authoritative voice on the global lithium and tungsten markets, having contributed to multi-client and consultancy projects on the former for seven years. He has been Managing Director of Roskill since January 2012, and was previously manager of the industrial minerals division. Robert’s past research, consulting and managerial experience provides him with extensive subject knowledge across Roskill’s products and services.

Founder & CEO
Dr. Qichao Hu is the Founder and CEO of SolidEnergy Systems, a venture-backed Li-Metal battery technology company that he started to commercialize his research at MIT and Harvard. SolidEnergy’s mission is to unlimit technological innovation by removing barriers to longer lasting batteries. A Forbes 30 under 30 and Department of Energy Clean Energy prize winner, Dr. Hu is passionate about deep science-based entrepreneurship and the broader environmental impact of energy policies.

Sales Development Manager
For Solvay Special Chem Global Business Unit, Yusuke Suzuki is in charge of the technical and commercial development of the salts and additives for electrolytes for batteries in Japan. He has master degree in electro chemistry from the Yokohama national University (Japan). He joined Solvay in 2017 as current position.

Director, Battery Technologies
With over 20 years of experience in the battery industry in Japan, Claudio has exclusive know-how for research, development and industrialization of materials and electrodes for lithium ion batteries and solid-state batteries manufacturing. In addition, Claudio has strong expertise in the management of the lithium-ion battery industry value chain: from material, to battery manufacturing, to their application in the automotive sector.

General Manager, TD HiTech Energy, Inc.; President, EnergyBus e.V.
Dr. Yang received his PhD degree from Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium in the field of Chemistry. He has worked at ITRI since 1997 and have been engaged in Li-ion battery R&D for electric vehicle application. He has been a project leader for Li-ion battery development in LEV and HEV application as well as the LEV promotion project in Taiwan, those projects were supported by Taiwan government. Later he was project leader for power Li-ion battery development. Currently he has a supervising function. In 2008 Dr. Yang started as CTO at HiTech Energy in Taiwan and is also President of the EnergyBus association based in Germany.

President
Menahem Anderman is President of Total Battery Consulting, Inc. and founder of the Advanced Automotive Battery Conferences, Dr. Anderman has led the development and commercialization of high-power Ni-Cd and Li-Ion batteries and spent the last 18 years conducting assessments of energy-storage technologies for advanced vehicles, publishing xEV Insider Industry Reports and chairing the AABC. Dr. Anderman provides technological assessments to companies worldwide. His client list includes most major automakers, leading international battery developers and suppliers, financial institutions, and government agencies. His access to automakers and battery companies gives Dr. Anderman insight into the latest trends in the advanced-vehicle market.

Assistant Manager, Battery Materials Engineering and Research Division
Takanori Soejima joined Toyota after graduating from Osaka Prefecture University Graduate School of Engineering in 2009. Since joining Toyota, he has worked in the materials engineering division. Most recently, Seojima was responsible for the development of Li-ion cells for the New Camry HV. HIs current responsibilities include evaluation of Li-ion cells performance.

Executive Engineer
Michael Lord is an Executive Engineer for the Emission Regulatory Group in Toyota Motor North America. Mr. Lord is the Toyota North American lead for California regulatory and policy activities related to zero emission vehicles (ZEV) and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. He works closely with both sales and engineering on developing Toyota’s technology roll-out strategy and acts as the interface with California regulatory authorities on implementation, policy, infrastructure and incentive issues related to advanced powertrains, such as Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV), Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV). Mr. Lord has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania and studied Japanese language at Sophia University in Japan.

Chair, Applied Material Science for Energy Conversion and Storage, MEET Battery, Research Center, Institute of Physical Chemistry
Martin Winter holds the Chair of Materials Science, Energy and Electrochemistry at the University of Muenster (WWU) in Germany. He is a founding director of MEET Battery Research Center at WWU and the founding director of the Helmholtz Institute Muenster, which is a branch of Forschungszentrum Juelich. Martin Winter is the spokesperson of German Battery Research and holds more than 40 awards and recognitions and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

CSO, Chemistry
Dr. Dee Strand is a Senior Scientist at Wildcat Discovery Technologies. Dr. Strand has over twenty years of experience in materials research, development, and commercialization, primarily in the areas of energy storage and electronic applications. Prior to joining Wildcat in 2013, Dr. Strand served as a Research Fellow at Dow Chemical, where she was the technical lead in Dow Energy Materials, as well as the Principal Investigator on external research programs with universities and national labs on battery materials. Dr. Strand also has extensive experience in patent analysis and technical due diligence of new technologies. Dr. Strand completed her PhD in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the supervision of Professor John Schrag. Her PhD research focused on rheology and birefringence of polymeric solutions. Dr. Strand also holds a Master of Science degree in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from North Dakota State University.

Senior Analyst, Industrial Technology Unit
Yoshiaki Tanaka is investigating a number of electronic devices such as lithium ion batteries, lithium ion battery materials, motors, and wireless devices. In addition, he is investigating a lot of investigations on materials used for these devices, such as rare metals and magnetic materials. In particular, he is in charge of numerous research projects on lithium-ion batteries and their battery materials.