2025 Speakers

Rob Kelly

Emmanuelle Soubeyran

Fabio Paganini

Michael Fitzke

Mark Heffernan

Dr Eve Hanks

Aaron Schacht

Ron Phillips

Todd Richter

Jan Moehlenbrock

Lourdes Mottier

Tom Weaver

Karl Aschenbrücker

Julie Lawless

Joe Kennedy

Natalie Marks

Joe Harvey

Adrian Grosu

Dave Westenberg

Steve Nanchen

Julia Stephanus

Julia Stephanus is a 30 year veteran of the veterinary pharmaceutical industry.  Currently Julia is President of Avviare, a consulting firm specializing in supporting veterinary focused start-ups. 

Julia has been involved in the development and launch of 28 veterinary products.  She has been a senior executive in two start-up pharmaceutical companies (Aratana Therapeutics and Summit VetPharm), and held key positions at multi-nationals including Pfizer (now Zoetis) and its legacy companies.

As Chief Commercial Officer of Aratana Julia provided the commercial leadership resulting in a successful IPO (NASDAQ:PETX), high-impact corporate branding, innovative go-to-market strategies for five therapeutics and the staffing of the inaugural commercial organization.

As founder and CEO of Summit VetPharm, Julia developed and launched a new line of companion animal parasiticides, grew the company to a cash flow positive position with 85 employees in five years and divested the company to Ceva Animal Health in 2010.  A graduate of Indiana University, she has continued her executive training at Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago and the Wharton School of Business.      

Philippe Moreau

Beatrice Vos, PhD

Charles Hoare

Charles is a healthcare focused investment banker with approximately 20 years’ experience with specialty pharmaceutical companies in the US and Europe. Previously Charles was Managing Director for the international healthcare team at BofA Merrill Lynch and currently leads Commerzbank’s global healthcare team. During this time he has advised multiple companies on public and private capital raises, debt financing, mergers, acquisitions and out-licensing transactions.

He has a particular focus on the veterinary healthcare sector, where he has been involved in transactions for almost all of the top 15 companies in the sector. Recent transactions include advising Virbac on the acquisition of the Sentinel and Sentinel Spectrum brands from Novartis, advising Lohmann Animal Health on its sale to Eli Lilly, advising Pharmaq on Permira’s investment in the company and assisting United Biomedical with creating a global strategic alliance for its swine vaccine portfolio.

Charles also chairs the Commercialisation committee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and serves on the school’s Finance and Planning committee. In addition, he is Chairman of the Bulldog Trust, which funds and supports entrepreneurial charities, and sits on the Boards of Directors of Placehill Limited (growth capital), Laguna Ventures Limited (late stage venture finance) and Atlantic Healthcare plc.

Rimma Driscoll

Rimma Driscoll is an executive in Global Business Development and Strategic Alliances with 20+ years in the field. Rimma has a depth of experience in a broad range of global transactions including JVs,Strategic Alliances, Collaborations, Acquisitions, Divestitures, Licensing Deals, and Partnerships. This experience span from small Discovery deals to multi-billionaire dollar divestitures. Rimma guides Multi-function teams on the external strategies and then leads all aspects of negotiations, and leverages external relationships to bring transactions to closure. She has worked extensively in Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Healthcare and Consumer Products businesses.

Kathryn Kukla

Greg Blair

Hui Cai