Rolf Van Benthem Email & Phone Number

Combining scientific excellence with business savviness and wide professional and social skills, I have built a broad R&D and innovation experience and professional international network in Polymer Materials fields: Energy Materials, Polymer manufacturing, Resins and Coatings, Engineering Materials, Biomedical Materials, Additive Manufacturing and Solar Materials. Currently as Chief Scientist at Shell (since Jan 2st 2022) I am responsible for polymer materials as enablers for the Energy Transition, as well as for sustainable polymer manufacturing (circularity, biobased). I worked with DSM from 1995 to 2021 and am part-time professor of Coatings Technology at Eindhoven University of Technology since 2002. I am passionate about being able, in a team of bright business colleagues, to apply top-notch scientific insights and capabilities to bring unique and sustainable solutions to societal and customer needs.My professional skills as Science Leader are:- Technical: Top-notch knowledge in polymer and materials science / chemistry.Acknowledged scientific expertises by academic and corporate peers. Wide and active national and international science network.- Innovational: Customer interfacing, extracting unmet needs and translating into (radically innovative) technology solutions. Teaming up with marketing & sales, connecting to business goals. Building and maintaining (corporate, SME, institute) partner relationships. Experience in venturing.- Strategical: Technology Road mapping, drafting and obtaining stakeholder support for (longer term) technology & innovation vision documents, starting from business strategy.- Managerial: Competence & Science Management in a large and complex corporate environment, across departments, sites and business boundaries. R&D Program management (>15M euro/y), shaping and delivering. People management: leading professionals (principal scientists, principal investigators), talent development, coaching, mentoring, appraisal.Highlights of my career sofar are:- Winning the Backer Prize 1995 (best Dutch PhD thesis), several DSM Awards: Publication (2001), Research (2004), Intellectual Property (2010) and Innovation (2014).- Inventor and science lead of new polyester powder platform for 3D printing / Additive Manufacturing (2017-2020)- Team coordinator / science coach of Ultra Team and the market introduction of Ultra-low Curable Powder Coatings (2006-2018)- Inventor and project leader of Hybrane (1999-2010: powder coating crosslinkers, paper & pulp processing, hair care ingredients and several oil field applications)