Dr Jaime Gómez’s 30-years of industry experience includes plastics, specialty chemicals, and materials handling—industries where he has conducted basic and applied research, evaluation and acquisitions of technologies and companies, international business development, and corporate strategic planning. Dr Gómez is currently President & CEO of Equitech, a company dedicated to the in-line measurement of chemical concentration, and color and film thickness for a myriad of industries.

Dr Gómez joined SPE in 1987 while pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. While there, he served as SPE’s Student Chapter President for two terms. He also served as a member of SPE’s Extrusion Division Board of Directors for six years and helped establish the Next Generation Advisory Board (NGAB). Dr Gómez has been a member of SPE’s Board of Directors since 2013 and has served as SPE’s Secretary, Treasurer, VP of Marketing & Communications, VP of Events, and President-Elect. Dr Gómez received SPE’s President’s Cup in 2014 and the Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2017. He also invented and produced The Plastics Race, an event that promotes networking and knowledge exchange between SPE members. Dr Gómez was named President of SPE for the 2020/2021 term.

Dr Gómez has been a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) since 1983 and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AiChE) since 1988.

Dr Gómez received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia, an MS in Organic Chemistry from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas, and a Ph.D. in Polymer Science from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. In addition to his technical training, Dr Gómez received an MBA from New York University (Stern School of Business) with concentration in International Business, Finance & Marketing.

• Michaela Schaller is Application Marketing Manager for Packaging Circular Economy Solutions at Borouge since September 2019.
• Based in Singapore, she is driving Circular Economy Solutions in the packaging market across India and South East Asia by developing and commercialising circular packaging applications and creating growth opportunities within the entire value chain. Schaller leads the positioning of Borouge’s Circular Economy packaging solutions portfolio in India and South East Asia as well as the corresponding market intelligence and marketing communication in this region.
• Prior to joining Borouge, Schaller worked for Amerplast Ltd for 2.5 years as Market Area Director for the Central European business based in Hamburg, Germany focusing on market development for circular packaging innovations. Before that, she was Key Account Manager for Amcor, based in Manchester, UK and she was responsible for managing key accounts driving growth and customer centricity snacks and confectionary market.
• Schaller had various roles with Elopak in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands prior to joining Amcor, driving market development, sales growth and product marketing across the region for 15 years. Schaller holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Cooperative Education, Germany since 2004 focusing on Marketing and Finance. She also completed Master’s Degrees in Business & Administration (MBA) from Mannheim Business School, part of the University of Mannheim and from ESSEC Business School, Paris obtained between 2009 and 2010. Schaller is a German national.

Suhas Dixit is the founder and director of APChemi. APChemi is leaders in pyrolysis based chemical recycling of plastic waste since last 12 years. APChemi is backed by Shell Petrochemicals as well as Dr JB Joshi Research Foundation. APChemi has established over 30 pyrolysis plants globally. APChemi promotes chemical recycling of the toughest and dirtiest plastics waste in a very transparent and sustainable manner. Suhas Dixit is an inventor of numerous patents in Pyrolysis plastics, including pyrolysis of ‘multilayer-packaging’ and ‘municipal solid waste segregated plastics’. Currently, APChemi’s proven technology recycles 80 metric tons of end-of-life plastic waste daily into fuels and petrochemicals. Suhas Dixit is alumni of Institute of Chemical Technology. He works form Navi Mumbai as well as London.

Conor Carlin is the Managing Director of ILLIG LP, the North American subsidiary of ILLIG Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, a Germany-based designer and manufacturer of thermoforming, tooling, and packaging systems. A member of SPE since 2000, he serves as editor for SPE Thermoforming and Recycling Division publications. Carlin has contributed articles on plastics and packaging for international industry press in the US, Europe, and Asia. In 2017, he was elected to the SPE Executive Board as VP of Marketing and Communications, and re-elected in 2020 as the first VP of Sustainability. Carlin has degrees from Boston University (BA, International Relations / French) and the FW Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (MBA).

Chandramohan is part of the Coca-Cola India management team who has over 17 years with Coca-Cola has held roles of increasing responsibility in Franchise Operations, Region Marketing, Supply Chain and Corporate Affairs. Prior to Coca-Cola he has worked for Wipro Infotech, Marico, Perfetti-Van Melle and ICICI Bank.

Currently as the Director of Corporate Affairs in Coca-Cola, he supports business operations in 6 countries of South West Asia on matters of public policy, consumer affairs and strategic security. In the recent past he has been instrumental in improving ring fencing for Coca-Cola system to protect business core on issues like Taxation, Environment, Licensing, Manufacturing Regulatory challenges, Health debates and Advertising watershed at Centre and State level.

Currently as the General Secretary of PET Packaging Association for Clean Environment (PACE), he has widely collaborated with industry and policy makers on the implementation of the Plastic Waste Management Rules. He is also one the founding members of PACE. Recently he has championed the launch of a national platform which will allow industry to play its part in solving the challenges of managing plastic waste. This platform is called “Karo Sambhav – Closing Material Loops”.

Chandramohan completed his Masters in Marketing from SP Jain Institute of Management Studies in 1995 and also holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from NIT Allahabad. Midway in his working career he completed a diploma program in Supply Chain Management from the Georgia Tech University in Atlanta.

• Dr Habbu obtained his education up to the Masters from ICT (then UDCT, Mumbai University). He obtained his PhD from the Univ. of Leeds (UK) in Polymer Science and did his post-doctoral research in Advanced Materials at the Univ. of Illinois (USA).
• He was a Senior Scientist at the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (Pune), heading the Polymer Processing Centre. He was subsequently working with Reliance where he headed the R&D of the Polyester Sector.
• Presently Dr Habbu is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Chemical Technology and teaches Polymer Science at various institutes. He is a Consultant to Reliance Petrochemicals Sector for its Sustainability efforts and a Technical Advisor to the PET industry associations.
• Dr Habbu is playing active roles in several Governmental engagements:
  • Expert member on several committees (e.g. Indian Pharmacopoeia, FSSAI, BIS)
  • Leading member of groups engaged with various Govt. of India agencies in connection with the management of Plastics
  • Member of the Maharashtra Govt’s expert committee on Plastics

Mr Sanjib Bezbaroa had studied Engineering from REC (now NIT) Allahabad and Post Graduation from Imperial College, London. Currently, he is an Executive Vice President - Corporate Environment Health, Safety & Sustainability at ITC and is overall responsible for Safety & Sustainability. His focus areas include safety engineering, behavioural safety, water security and post-consumer packaging.

• Chandra Bhushan is an environmentalist and one of India’s foremost environment and climate change experts. He is presently the CEO of International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST).
• He has a wide-ranging research and public policy interests. He has researched, written and campaigned for issues ranging from climate change and energy transformation to rights of mining-affected people and industrial pollution. He has authored/ co-authored 20 books and authored/ co-authored/ directed more than 60 reports.
• He has a deep interest in global environmental governance and has worked closely with countries to influence outcomes at the UNFCCC and the Montreal Protocol. He was conferred with the Ozone Award by the UN Environment in 2017 for his contributions towards the framing of the Kigali Amendments to the Montreal Protocol.
• Bhushan advises a range of institutions worldwide. He is an expert member for the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) group of countries on Climate Change. He served as a Member, Engagement Committee of the Future Earth.
• He writes a fortnightly column in Financial Express and a monthly column in the Times of India.

Counted amongst the most networked packaging professionals of India as well as Globe, Amit is one of the most respected professional in the region, winner of prestigious India Star Award 2010, 2012, 2017 and world star award 2011 presented by World packaging organization.

Amit believes that the key to future is sustainability and innovation to make packaging a more sustainable, inevitable evil.

Over 22 years of experience, Key focus areas being P&L, Automation, Costing , Packaging Innovation, Supply-Chain Management, & Vendor Development Philosopher and speaker, have addressed various forums and conferences, presenting technical paper on various aspects of packaging and sustainability, Expert on EPR and PWM rules 2016

The Plastic Bank ecosystem reveals the value in waste and offers a business solution to poverty, with blockchain technology to collect and exchange plastic in developing countries. IBM architected our proprietary blockchain application to ensure our social and environmental impact is authentic and transparent. The app gamifies the collection and exchange of plastic for incentives. We also create a supply of ethically-sourced Social Plastic® for multinational corporations to use as feedstock in manufacturing. Our goal is to gather 1 billion people together to monetize waste by 2030.

Claus comes with 25 years of experience from the corporate world. He spent 7 year as the Managing Director for Luxottica South East Asia, Australia/New Zealand & South Pacific and before that he spent 18 years with Procter & Gamble in different leadership roles across Europe and Asia. He has also been active on different NGO boards over the last 7 years.