David Wright

David Wright is Director-General of the United Kingdom Lubricants Association, a position he has held since November 2014.

The UK Lubricants Association is the trade association for the lubricants industry in the United Kingdom, covering the automotive, transportation, industrial and metalworking sectors.

Representing the majority of the lubricants Industry, the UKLA is actively engaged with other trade associations, such as UEIL, ORA, UKPIA on matters impacting the industry, through participation in consultation, representation and lobbying to UK and European Government and industry authorities.

It also provides its membership with industry networking events and knowledge sharing, through training and communications on industry developments and legislation.

Valentina Serra-Holm

Valentina is Vice President Engineered Fluids at Perstorp, a world leader in the specialty chemical market.

Valentina has over twenty years’ experience in the oil and lubricant industry, boasting several senior technical and commercial roles at Nynas, Calumet, and Koras. She is passionate about building bridges between the technical and the commercial sides of businesses, and creating solution-based business approaches.

Valentina holds a MS degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD degree in Chemical Plants from the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). In addition, she holds a PhD in Chemical Reaction Engineering from Åbo Akademi University (Finland).

She is the author of numerous scientific and technical publications, patents, and international presentations in the field of specialty oils and lubricants.

Since 2016 Valentina serves as President of UEIL.

Miltos Bantis

Miltos Bantis holds the position of Managing Director of LPC S.A, a fully vertical supplier and trader of Lubricants, Greases and Other Petroleum products located in Greece, member of Motor Oil Hellas Group of Companies.

Miltos is a Chemical Engineer and has started his journey in LPC in 2005, undertaking continuously roles of increasing responsibility across the Supply Chain, becoming Plant Manager in 2014 and Managing Director in 2020. During his career, he has set up production plants, lead numerous refinery production Improvement projects, optimized organizational process flows, engineered the opening of new markets that have lead LPC to become a company serving more than 55 countries worldwide.

Moreover, he is leading the LPC ecosystem towards sustainable development where LPC’s re-refinery plays a key role in supporting Greece reaching its country WLO collection targets.

Currently Miltos serves as:

• Board Member of GEIR – the European Re-refining Industry section of UEIL
• Board Member of SEEPE – the Association of Petroleum Commercial companies in Greece

Martin Huemer

Martin Huemer is policy officer in the unit « Industry 5.0 » in the Directorate General « Research and Innovation » of the European Commission. Prior to his current duties, his work in the Commission focussed on key enabling technologies and on strategic aspects of energy research and innovation. From 1992 to 2002 he served as Austrian delegate in a number of committees and expert groups of the International Energy Agency and the European Union.

He holds a PhD in physics, area nonlinear optics.  

The new paradigm of Industry 5.0 depicts a sustainable, human-centred and resilient industry. Industry 5.0 understands sustainability as a comprehensive vision, which goes beyond environmental and climate aspects and includes social sustainability as well.

Bill Downey

William R. Downey Jr. is the Senior Vice President, Business Development for Novvi LLC. In this role, he is responsible for the market and business development activities at Novvi, reaching across OEMs, major oil companies and key independents, as well as distributors. He has used Novvi’s renewable technology platform, to drive Novvi’s SynNova® and Novvi base oil lines into the portfolio of its customers. Novvi’s customer are taking Novvi’s into conventional automotive, electric vehicles, and Industrial application.

Prior to joining Novvi, Bill was a Partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants LLC, based in its New York and Boston offices, a member of both its Global Oil & Chemicals Competency Center, and its North American Management Team. Prior to joining Roland Berger, Bill Downey was Senior Vice President and Head of the Global Energy Practice at Kline & Company, a leading downstream petroleum, and lubricants consultancy.

He started his career in the lubricants business with the Royal Dutch Shell/ Group of Companies, in technology, lubricants, base oils and additives. Across these endeavors, he has 40 years of experience in the petroleum and chemical industry and is an expert in the lubricants, wax, and petroleum specialties value chains.

He has been a frequent speaker at important industry and trade association meetings. He has addressed and moderated ICIS Conferences in Dubai, London, New York, Jersey City, NJ, Sao Paulo, and Seoul. He has addressed the NPRA and its successor organization, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM). He has served as a committee chair for ILMA and has delivered papers or sat on panels at three previous Annual Congresses of UEIL. He has been a by-lined contributor to industry journals, including Lube Report, Lubes ‘N Greases, Lubes ‘N Greases EAME to name just three.

Bill studied chemistry at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey (USA) and holds an MBA from Rutgers Business School (RBS) in Newark, NJ. He lives in West Caldwell, NJ with his wife Nancy and they together have three sons, two daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren. He is an active Scouter and serves as an advisor to the head coach of the Rutgers University Women’s Golf Team, where he leads a customized mentoring and personal branding program for the Team’s eight scholar athletes. He also serves on the Board of Director of the Children’s Health Institute of NJ, the biomedical research center dedicated to improving child health through the study of mechanisms underlying children’s diseases, part of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Mark Miller

Mr. Miller is CEO of Biosynthetic Technologies a world leader in sustainable synthetic base oils. Prior to BT, he cofounded and was CEO of Terresolve Technologies, Ltd. An environmentally safe chemical products company. He led the organization from start-up until his exit, creating a multimillion dollar highly profitable, global industry leader. He has engineered, sold and marketed environmentally acceptable lubricants and base oils for over 30 years. Mr. Miller has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and an M.B.A. from Manhattan College. He also sits on the Board for The National Foundation For Animal Rescue (NAFFAR) and he and his wife, Shari, have adopted more than their share of homeless critters.

Elisa Swanson-Parbäck

Elisa Swanson-Parbäck is responsible for Perstorp’ s strategic marketing in Engineered Fluids and Synthetic Lubricants. Since joining the company in 2018, Mrs. Swanson-Parbäck has been active in various market segments also leading digital transformation initiatives cross the company. Her current focus is on Perstorp’ s sustainability agenda and the transformative journey the lubricants industry is on to reach net zero.

Prior to Perstorp, Mrs. Swanson-Parbäck has over 12 years’ experience from senior marketing roles at Axis Communications, a market leader in network video solutions. Ms. Swanson-Parbäck holds both a master’s degree in economics and business administration and a master’s degree in work- and organizational psychology from Lund University, Sweden.

Andreas Dodos

Andreas Dodos received a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology from the University of Manchester, UK. He has spent the last 18 years at Eldon’s SA, with duties mainly focused on industrial and marine lubricants development. Since 2007 he has been actively involved in product stewardship with focus on global regulatory developments. He is a member in a number of professional bodies such as the ELGI, the Hellenic Maintenance Society and National Tribology Centre. Since 2010 he has been the Chairman of the European REACH Grease Thickener Consortium and he is currently serving on the ELGI Board of Directors. Andreas has extensive experience in formulation and application of lubricating grease and since 2018 he is CLGS certified by the NLGI – Certified Lubricating Grease Specialist.

Nick Clague

Nick has worked in the industry for almost 25 years having started his career at Ethyl Petroleum Additives after completing his PhD. His first role was customer Technical Service for hydraulic and industrial additives and formulations. After the company changed to Afton Chemical Nick took on responsibility for driveline and tractor additives and formulations. Nick then joined Lubrizol in 2007 as heavy duty diesel engine oil formulator and was responsible for developing a new low SAPS 5W-30 platform as well as updating existing technologies. In 2012 Nick joined SK Lubricants as Global Technical Manager for the YUBASE base oils range. During this time Nick represented SK at ATIEL and other industrial meetings and was also a member and then chair of CEC before leaving SK.

In November 2020 Nick joined Vickers Oils as Technical Director where he has responsibility for over a third of staff on site including the lab, quality control, technical service and purchasing with the team providing innovative lubricants and greases for the marine, textile, food grade and industrial markets.

Sofia Öberg

Sofia Öberg holds a MSc in Environmental Science at Gothenburg University and since her exam in 2001 she has worked with management systems and regulatory issues I various industries and organizations. She started her first company Öbergs miljö & kvalitetskonsult in 2002 and the focus has been regulatory and standards linked to environment, quality, health and safety, traceability and sustainability. She is also lead auditor for Iso 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 , FSC-COC and PEFC-COC. She also have several years of experience from supply chain audits. During 2019 she started 2Probity Registration to support the lubricant industry with the verifications linked to the food industry. Sofia brings together experiences and knowledge from over 20 years with a scientific base and broad understanding of different industries and a great interest in solving problems in a simple but correct way.

Alex Ball

Alex has worked in the lubricant industry both as a distributor of additives as well as now having a focus on ultrasound blending technology. His time over the last few years has been spent on the development and data generation of the blending technology in order to prove benefits to both energy consumption and production time. Efforts are now going into rolling the technology out globally with several blenders across the UK and Germany becoming adopters.

The February 2022 edition of Lube Magazine featured an editorial written by Alex and intended to raise awareness within the market of more sustainable blending techniques that can be significantly less reliant on fossil fuel consumption and allow blenders to either close the gap towards or even exceed carbon neutral blending.

Sylvia Kerscher

As a sports enthusiast, Sylvia knows that even the most high-end road bike doesn’t ride on its own. The best hiking boots do not carry one uphill. Only inner drive, the will to make a difference and the courage to go new ways bring one forward. The same applies to businesses looking to incorporate remote tank monitoring data into their every day decision making processes. Using fill level sensors alone will not change a company’s traditional business model of reactive product sales to proactive data-driven customer management and decision making.

And that’s exactly what the FoxInsights Head of Sales tells potential partners and clients: Fundamental change through innovation and data starts with the right mindset. It is  however often the most challenging part of the transformation many supply & sales organizations need to undertake. In such a traditional industry it requires leadership support at the highest levels as well as a strategic focus to achieve data-based acting. It’s more than about just generating data, Sylvia and her team pride themselves on supporting FoxInsights partners, ensuring they have the confidence and ability they need to generate tangible value for their businesses.

Robbert Dedding

Robbert has an extensive international background in the automotive and machine industry. Since 2018 he has been working for the Haynes Group, which included HaynesPro technical data and Oats lubricant services. In 2020 the Haynes Group was acquired by the French Group Infopro Digital.
As Business Development Manager Lubricant Data Europe, Robbert assists lubricant companies with developing the so-called online lubricant advisors and improving lubricant product presentation inside online parts catalogs mostly owned by car and truck parts distributors. The advantage of the InfoPro Digital group is that there is ample experience with cataloging business in general, and they have relationships with most parts distributors in Europe from which lubricant companies can benefit.

During this year’s UEIL congress, Robbert is present to participate in a panel discussion talking about data analyses to base lubricant product portfolio decisions upon. In case interested, please do not hesitate to contact Robbert to talk about Oats Analytics solutions that are covering many regions and countries around the world.

Steve Knapp

Steve Knapp’s inspirational selling techniques are still the cornerstone of Shell International. He rose through the ranks to become responsible for the success of the company’s sales teams right across the globe.

His thinking on changing buying behaviours, the sales leadership challenge and their direct impact on a sales culture have been in big demand.

The author of Modern Sales Leadership and Funnel Vision – Selling Made Easy, Steve provides sales training in an energetic, pragmatic, actionable and outcome-focused lessons that stick and deliver results.

Yana Wilkinson

Yana Wilkinson is vice president of Kline’s Energy practice, combining over 16 years of experience in management consulting, research and insight. She leads Kline’s global advisory and research business in Energy, focusing on the lubricant value chain from base oils to numerous end-use sectors and adjacencies related to passenger and commercial mobility, and industrial applications. Kline Energy helps clients with a wide range of needs globally – from market research, trend tracking and forecasting to supporting marketing and strategy development, identifying organic and inorganic growth avenues, and providing M&A support.

Previously, Yana worked in strategy consulting and in the water and environment industry.  Yana holds a Master’s degree in international relations as well as an MBA from the Copenhagen Business School. Based in London, she grew up in Ukraine and considers herself lucky to have travelled, lived and worked in numerous countries and cultures in Europe and around the world.

Thomas Norrby

Thomas Norrby was born in Stockholm, Sweden.

In 1997, he graduated with a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with a Thesis on Artificial Photosynthesis, from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
His current position with Nynas AB is as Technical Manager for the application area Lubricants.

His main tasks include Naphthenic base oil products development and lubricant application model studies. This includes technical demonstrators, often in joint projects with customers and end-users.

New and exciting knowledge and findings are disseminated through technical marketing, lecturing and presentations.

Thomas Norrby also holds a chair as Adjunct Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), at the Department of Machine Design. The focus of his industrial research is tribology and Tribochemical investigations of base oils and lubricants.

John Eastwood

John is Head of Global Business Development (Energy Technologies) at Cargill and UEIL Sustainability Committee Vice-Chair and Lead for the Communications WG.

John is now 35-year into his Lubricants Industry career. After completing his degree in Chemistry, John joined ICI in 1987 before transferring with Uniqema to Croda in 2006, and this year from Croda to Cargill.

John’s previous roles include Technical Application Specialist (Industrial and Automotive Lubricants) and Global Marketing Manager (Synthetic Base Oils and Additives).

John was one of the original members of the UEIL Sustainability Task Force, which formed in March 2019 and he joined the UEIL Sustainability Committee in June 2020, as a UKLA representative.

John also Chair’s ATC’s – Sustainability Sub-Committee, and therefore spends a large part of his working time on sustainability related activities.

Holly Alfano

Holly Alfano joined the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association (ILMA) as CEO in 2015, bringing over 25 years of experience working with associations representing the petroleum industry. Before coming to ILMA, she served as vice president of government affairs for NATSO, an association representing truck stops and travel plazas. Prior to that, she was vice president of the PMAA, which represents fuel retailers and wholesale distributors of petroleum. Alfano has extensive experience dealing with U.S. regulatory agencies and Congress on a wide range of environmental, transportation and workplace issues.

Jacquie Berryman

Jacquie is an Industry Liaison Advisor for Infineum UK Ltd., responsible for the relationship management with several key engine manufacturers. She has a pivotal role in the delivery of technology development programs, providing the link between the Infineum technology organisation and engine manufacturers, to ensure maximum value for marketing investment. 

Jacquie began her career at Infineum in 1999 as a Technologist within the Lubricant Development Technical Service. She moved to the US in 2000 continuing her work in lubricant development and has subsequently held several roles in the UK as a Sales Account Manager, in Supply working on REACh implementation and within the Technology function.  In her current Industry Liaison role, she represents Infineum in several industry committees; is President of the Additive Technical Committee (ATC), and Board member of the UK Lubricants Association.

Marco Digioia

Marco was appointed as President of ATIEL the Technical Association of the European Lubricants Industry in 2018. A Brussels-based transport industry expert, Marco has 15 + years’ experience of positioning and lobbying in Brussels on behalf of transport organizations.

Prior to his appointment, Digioia was director for Government Affairs at Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Europe and member of the European Sustainable Shipping Forum.

Prior to that, he worked for several road hauliers associations at the national and European level and was also transport expert representing businesses at the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN).

He holds a Master’s Degree in Law with a Specialization in European Affairs, International Relations and Diplomacy.

Terry Dicken

Terry Dicken is a Chartered chemist and holds a BSc (Hons) degree in applied chemistry and a MSc in Instrumental chemical analysis. Having worked for a number of lubricant companies, in: research and development, technical services & marketing and technology transfer.

He is currently Managing Director of Global Lubricants Ltd a speciality lubricants company he founded in the UK in 1997. But also works as an independent consultant for several companies on REACH compliance.

He has published many papers on lubrication and is a regular speaker at international conferences.

Terry has been Chairman of ELGI (European Lubricating Grease Institute) since 1998 and is also Chairman of the Institute of Energy’s cutting fluids test methods panel, STC5 a role he has fulfilled since the early 80’s.