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Alfonso Albaisa
Vice President
Nissan Design Europe
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Alfonso Albaisa was previously at Nissan’s design centre in Atsugi, Japan, where he was product chief designer for a next-generation compact car. Albaisa started his career at Nissan Design America (NDA) in 1988 and was appointed director of the North American design studio in 2005. During his tenure there, he oversaw all NDA design activities.
He took up his present position in April 2007.
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Georg Asal
Head of Interior Draft (Mercedes-Benz passenger cars)
DaimlerChrysler
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Georg Asal holds a degree in transportation design from Pforzeim University. He joined MCC smart in 1994, and was appointed as a concept designer.
Between 1999 and 2005, he was responsible for heading and building the interiors and trim and colour department at smart.
Asal headed the project management team for the interior and exterior of the smart and was head of projects and concepts colour and trim at Mercedes-Benz between 2005 and 2007.
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Peder Bengtsson
Design Manager
Caran Studios
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Peder Bengtsson started out in the aircraft industry, developing future Cessnas and moved to Sweden and the automotive industry five years later.
For the past 12 years, he has been involved in the automotive design process at Caran and the development of concept and production vehicles – MCs, ATVs, cars, buses, trucks and other vehicles.
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Thomas Bürkle
Chief Designer Hyundai Europe
Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre
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Thomas Bürkle’s recent work includes the Genus (Geneva 2006), Arnejs (Paris 2006) and Qarmaq (Geneva 2007) concept cars.
His career started at Toyota’s European design centre before he headed to the Institute for Design IDEP, Spain, to advance his digital modelling skills.
He was responsible for the design development of Volkswagen’s “Car Multimedia” project (1999) as head of the Faurecia Design Centre in Germany.
In 2000, Bürkle led the design development on several production cars for BMW, among them the exteriors and interiors of the 3 Series and 6 Series.
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Matteo Conti
Ba (Hons) Transportation Design Programme Leader - Industrial Placement Tutor
Northumbria University School of Design
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Bilingual design academic Matteo Conti has been creating successful industrial partnerships with prestigious consultancies. Recently appointed External Examiner at Domus Academy, for the MA course in Car Design and Mobility, his plan is to place this evolving course on the European design arena podium.
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Stefan Donat
COO - Sales and Marketing
Ident Technology
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Stefan Donat is a founder and member of the board of Ident Technology. Before starting the company, he worked as head of a special task force for a sister company to ThyssenKrupp.
During his career he also held the position of the managing director of an US e-business consulting company in Germany.
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Omer Halilhodzic
Chief Designer: Exterior
Mitsubishi Motors R&D
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Omer Halilhodzic has been with Mitsubishi Design Studio Trebur since 1996. He has been credited for numerous concepts including the CZ2, CZ2 Cabriolet, Concept Sportback, Concept X, and EZ Miev.
Halilhodzic was responsible for exterior design of the Colt production car and was heavily involved with the new Lancer and Outlander models.
Prior to joining Mitsubishi Halilhodzic worked at Volkswagen’s main design studio in Wolfsburg, Germany.
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Han Hendriks
Vice President: Industrial Design, Marketing, Communications, Advanced Sales
Johnson Controls
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Han Hendriks holds degrees in Industrial Design and Fine Arts from the Academy of Applied Arts in Maastricht, the Netherlands and the Università del Arte in Florence, Italy. He also holds an MBA from the Westminster University, London and attended various executive training courses at INSEAD, France on Value Based Management and Strategic Alliances and Partnerships.
Before joining Johnson Controls in 1999, he held several design and design management positions. Hendriks has won several international design awards.
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Dale Harrow
Head of the Department: Vehicle Design
Royal College of Art
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Dale Harrow is an award-winning automotive and industrial designer. He is active as a design consultant and has collaborated with many automotive and design companies.
He was named Head of Vehicle Design at the Royal College of Art in1999.
Harrow’s approach to teaching reflects his belief that the discipline is complex and moving forward and new designers have to be better informed to meet future challenges.
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Pär Heyden
Creative Director
Caran Studios
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Pär Heyden started his career at Volvo Cars, with responsibility for interaction design. He worked on production models such as the S40,V50, C30 and XC90 SUV. Later, while at Volvo Strategic Design, Heyden was involved in the design of the ACC2, VCC and YCC concept cars.
In 2006 he was the creative leader for the award-winning Caran Concept System shown at the Interior Motives conference in London.
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Gert Hildebrand
Director, MINI Design
BMW
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Gert Hildebrand holds a degree in engineering and design and started his career at Opel. He was part of the Kadett E design team and the Opel JUNIOR show-car team of 1983.
He then joined Volkswagen Design Centre (Golf III, and IV; Sharan facelift and the Bora) and in 1995 was appointed Chief Designer of Volkswagen-owned SEAT Automotive in Spain (1998 Toledo and Leon models). This was followed by a spell at Mitsubishi European Design Centre as chief designer before taking up his current post in 2001.
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Geoff Hollington
Design and innovation consultant
Hollington
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Geoff Hollington studied product design, then interiors, at the RCA. He is a designer, innovator and commentator and has won international awards working with brands like Herman Miller, Parker Pen and Kodak.
He writes on design and technology and has given talks around the world. Hollington is a mentor to the UK government-funded Materials and Design Exchange and external examiner for Vehicle Design at the RCA.
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Frans Joziasse
Co-Founding Partner
PARK
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Frans Joziasse holds an MBA in design management from the University of Westminster (London) and lectures/teaches at several universities in Europe and the US and at the conferences of the Design Management Institute.
Joziasse has been cited for numerous awards for design excellence by the Gute Industrie Form in Hanover (Germany). In 2005, he developed the module ‘strategic design management’ for the MA design management at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
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Steffen Kahl
Executive Client Service Director
Landor (Hamburg)
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Steffen Kahl is responsible for the day-to-day agency business and for expanding what the agency offers at its Hamburg office.
Kahl has more than 15 years experience in marketing communications. His career has spanned five countries on three continents and a variety of clients in the B2B and B2C sectors.
Prior to joining the agency, he completed a diploma in Business Economics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt .
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Danny Larsen
Principal Designer
Johnson Controls
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Danny Larsen initially studied for a business degree but switched to transportation design while working part-time for Prince Corporation, which was later bought by Johnson Controls.
He holds a degree from the Art Center College of Design in California, having completed his final year at its campus in Switzerland in 1991.
Larsen spent 13 years at Adam Opel and his work included the interior design development of the Gamma platform (Corsa, Combo, and Meriva).
Concept cars include the Opel Maxx, Opel Insignia (interior) and Opel Antara concept car (interior).
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 | Jeanne Marell
Senior Industrial Designer
CMD Style
NOKIA |
Jeanne Marell is currently responsible for all colours, materials and decorations for Nokia phones targeted at the global fashion and premium markets.
Before joining Nokia, Marell designed the colour and trim of the Hyundai Genus and Arnejs concept cars, the i30 and other forthcoming production vehicles.
She holds a degree in Industrial Design and a masters in Interface Design and has clocked up work experience at Designworks USA and BMW, as well as General Motors
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 | Professor Kurt Mehnert
Dean: Faculty of Art and Design
University of Duisburg-Essen |
Kurt Mehnert’s career extends to over 20 years as a designer and 12 as a professor teaching design. In 1992 he founded Mehnert Wahrheit & Partner in Stuttgart.
He originated the MAID (Masters of Integrated Design) at Dessau University and implemented the BA/MA programme in Industrial Design and MA in Design Theory at Duisberg-Essen in 2006.
Mehnert has won innumerable design awards including Red Dots, Design Plus and Designpresi NRW, among others.
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 | Michael Miller
Design Director
Flotek International Limited |
Mike Miller has been focused on the evolution of Flotek as a design, prototyping and production process for surface texture development since its beginning.
Previously, life as an artist, conceptually and academically, has led to a fascination with the creativity that is essential to the development of such a new design language and the momentum required to drive it into the automotive culture.
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 | Wolfgang Müller-Pietralla
Head of Future Affairs
Volkswagen |
Wolfgang Müller-Pietralla studied biology at the University of Hanover, focusing on models and simulations of ecologic systems. In 1992, he joined the environmental protection department at Volkswagen, where he introduced a sustainable environmental management system.
He was also in charge of quality management for the carmaker for two years and in 2003, he was a key player in setting-up VW's future studies group.
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 | Jochen Pläcking
Founder and Managing Partner
kleinundpläcking brand consulting |
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Jochen Pläcking has been in the advertising industry for 40 years but is still overflowing with creative ideas and founded the brand consultancy kleinundpläcking with Arne Klein in 2005.
The former creative director has held positions, among others, with Witzgall and Leonardt & Kern, head of advertising at Fiat and as vice president of marketing with Mercedes-Benz for almost 10 years.
Pläcking was chairman and CEO of DDB Group and Senior Vice President of DDB Europe, before taking up the post of Managing Partner in AM-Corporate and Creative in Berlin.
He has a string of awards, including Several Lions, CLIO (New York), and German and European Effies.
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 | John Puskar
Director: Interiors
GM Europe Design |
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Before joining General Motors, Puskar served as a creative designer for Ford Motor Company.
He joined General Motors in June 1999, as a creative designer in the GMC Brand Centre. In June 2000, Puskar was appointed Interior Design Manager: Full Size Trucks responsible for Chevy, GMC and Cadillac brands. In August 2004, he became Interior Design Director: Mid-Size Trucks.
He worked on the Cadillac XLR, 2007 Chevy Tahoe, 2007 GMC Yukon, and 2007 Cadillac Escalade, among others.
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Marek Reichman
Director of Design
Aston Martin
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Marek Reichman’s first design experience was with Rover Cars in 1991. In 1995 he moved to BMW Designworks in California as senior designer, and led the overhaul of Land Rover design DNA for future production models – the most significant of which became the 2003 all-new Range Rover.
Marek Reichman was previously Director of Design for Product, Interior Design Strategy and Process at Ford North America. He started with the carmaker in 1999 as chief designer for Ford and Lincoln Mercury brands.
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 | Nicole Srock-Stanley
CEO, Founder and Managing Director
dan pearlman |
Together with three friends, Nicole Srock-Stanley founded dan pearlman in 1999. Since then, the Berlin-based agency has become a synonym for brand architecture. Each CEO covers an area of specialist competence. Srock-Stanley is responsible for brand- and company strategies, didactics, corporate identity, design and new business. She works for clients like ESCADA, MINI, O2 and Pimkie, among others.
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| | Norman Starke
Diplom Designer
Proof Design and Innovation Management |
Interior design specialist Norman Starke recently established his own company with product development specialist Bettina Weiss. In 2005 he was appointed as leader for the establishment of the Auto Envision Group within the Visteon Corporation in Europe.
Prior to joining Visteon he was Interior Design Section Manager at Honda's Advanced Design Studio in Offenbach, Germany for seven years and Interior Designer at Audi Design in Ingolstadt, Germany for the same period of time. |