Startlife Mentor
Dr. Ir. Cecile Veerman is an experienced innovation professional who drives the development of agri, food, and biotech innovations.
Cecile is an enthusiastic and experienced innovation professional. She worked for 15 years at DSM and has been responsible for R&D business development and managing global, multi-disciplinary, multi-client innovation programs in the area of food/feed ingredients and biomaterials. In addition, she has been coaching and mentoring multiple innovation individuals and teams. She is currently Chief Innovation Officer/Chief Operations Officer EU at Impact Food Systems. Impact Food Systems helps agricultural enterprises to solve their most urgent issues from the ground up and gradually grow towards a future-proof, sustainable and high-performing business. In addition, she is the owner of BioKite and helps companies to drive the development of agri, food, and biotech innovations by providing more focus, structure, and win-win partnerships.
A common thread through her career is acting at the interface of R&D and business, building bridges between both worlds. She gets much energy from connecting people, exploring new opportunities, and removing roadblocks in innovation trajectories to realize viable agri, food, and biotech innovations.
Cecile has an MSc and Ph.D. in Food Technology from Wageningen University and is a certified innovation driver from Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship and a certified scale-up board member from ScaleUpNation. She is a connector and a strong organizer with a pragmatic, customer-focused, approach and a strong drive for results.
Skills and field of expertise
- Innovation program and project management
- Strategy building
- Ideation and front-end innovation
- Partnerships
- Business Development
Offer and interest (startups)
Offer:
Interest:
My particular interest is in coaching startups that focus on (regenerative) agriculture, food application, or biotech-derived compounds, want to grow further via win-win partnerships, and need support in focusing and structuring.
Personal quote
“Be the change you want to see in the world”
Mahatma Gandhi
If you are interested in our StartLife Mentor Program, let us know and reach out to us for more information.