Anneke Hunninck

Anneke joined the Materials & Chemistry Department as a Business Developer beginning of 2021. She holds 3 master degrees: a master of science in Electromechanical Engineering (VUB – 1998), a master in Safety Engineering (VUB – 2000) and a master in Business Administration, a Global Executive MBA (recognized by 5 universities: Erasmus University of Rotterdam, FGV (Brasil), Xiamen University (China), EGADE (Mexico) and UNC University North-Carolina (USA) – 2017).

For 23 years Anneke experienced many challenges in different companies in industry. She mainly worked in multinationals, in production as well as in services companies (Total, SGS, Securitas, Vinçotte, ERIKS). Since the start of her career, she held different management roles and had profit & loss responsibilities. She has a very strong focus on strategy, sales management - including customer centricity and networking - and change management.

As a Business Developer she connects academia with industry. The aim is to bring our research towards valorization in the market. This can be done via bilateral service agreements or through proposals via different funding channels.

Anneke focusses on our IOF project - Sustainable Material Technologies (SuMaT) – where we want to contribute to the ambition of the European Green Deal. It aims to transform the EU into a resource-efficient and competitive economy where economic growth is decoupled from resource use. Designing sustainable materials to replace traditional primary materials is a necessity to realize this ambition.

Materials are at the basis of all imaginable technological products in our society.We need to rethink our strategies for material selection and design. The design of a material has an impact on its full lifetime: from resources and production technique, transformation of material into device, functioning in the device, over recycling or second use and end of life. There is a strong economic drive for a fast ‘road to market’ for renewable materials. The challenges imposed to materials by the societal changes are huge. Think of some examples: e-mobility requiring light vehicles and more efficient batteries, global warming requiring alternatives for classical cement and alternative base materials, e.g. bio-based.