The 2020 speakers and agenda will be announced soon! Below, meet a few of the 2019 speakers who brought innovative and industry-leading content to the 2019 program.
To meet all of the 2019 speakers and to view the last year's agenda, please download the 2019 event program.
2019 Program Download:
Jack Corley is Chief Sales Officer of Custom Essence Inc. and serves as President of Custom Essence Inc.'s Natural Fragrances Division. He is also a member of the Custom Essence, Inc. Senior Advisory Committee. Mr. Corley has 37 years’ experience in the Fragrance and Flavor Industry. Prior to joining Custom Essence in July 2014, Mr. Corley was Vice-President and Director of Sales and Marketing for Symrise, managing the PureScent (Trilogy Fragrances) division and brand. Mr. Corley also spent 21 years with International Flavors and Fragrances.
Mr. Corley has been retained by some of the largest Fragrance and Flavor Companies in the world, advising them on natural and organic product/market development, natural and organic ingredient sourcing and natural/organic product formulation, labeling and regulatory issues.
He has written numerous articles related to personal care subjects over the years and is a featured speaker at Fragrance and Personal Care events and seminars as well. In addition, he was a founding member of the Natural Product Association Personal Care and Home Care Standards Committees; and remains a Joint Committee member of the NSF-305 task force. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Vocational Rehabilitation.
He is as an Adjunct Professor of Business at Monmouth University, in West Long Branch, NJ for the past 14 years.
Mr. Corley holds both a BBA and an MBA from Baruch College.
Ms. Catalina Monroy is a Worldwide Director of the Colgate-Palmolive Company, providing global leadership to the team responsible for developing and recommending world-class flavors and fragrances that ensure the best tasting and smelling experience to the consumers. Her team support Colgate’s Global Research & Development organization by developing and recommending flavors and fragrances for all Oral Care, Home Care and Personal Care Colgate-Palmolive brands. Catalina’s guidance and input to her teams have contributed to the launch of many successful products. As the flavor and fragrance group leader, Catalina has established strong partnerships with the Marketing, Consumer Insights and Product Development teams, facilitating a better understanding of the role of flavors and fragrances in Colgate-Palmolive products.
Catalina joined Colgate in 2015 and brought with her over 25 years of experience in the flavor industry, most recently with Firmenich. Since 2011, she worked as a Senior Flavorist for North America and Latin America Oral Care at the Firmenich U.S. affiliate in Plainsboro, NJ, where she strengthened her expertise in mint flavors and sensates for Toothpaste and Mouthwash applications and was the lead Flavorist providing flavor-creation support to Colgate.
Joined P&G in the UK in 1991 after completing my MA in Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Spent several years in Laundry Product Development in Europe before training to become a perfumer. I have spent the last 20 years creating fragrances for P&G products across the world. For the last 5 years I have also led P&G's perfume raw material innovation program.
Dr Dattatreya works for Firmenich as Innovation Program Director managing global innovation projects related to sugar reduction. He has held similar roles related to Taste and Nutrition in Firmenich.
Prior to joining Fimenich, Dattatreya worked for 10 years in the Nutrition industry in progressive R&D roles developing consumer nutrition products.
His doctoral and postdoctoral research work have focused on sweeteners, flavors and dairy proteins.
He holds a Ph.D in Food Science and is the author of several publications and patents. He is also a nutrition enthusiast and a foodie with strong views on holistic nutrition and health.
Rigoberto Advincula is Professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Fellow of the Polymer Science and Engineering Division (ACS), Fellow of the Polymer Chemistry Division (ACS). He is also a member of NACE, SPE, ERC, MRS, and AAAS and a frequently sought out speaker and expert in polymer materials, coatings, and sensors. He received the Herman Mark Scholar Award in 2013 from the ACS. He is Editor of Reactive and Functional Polymers and Associate Editor of Polymer Reviews and sits on the Editorial Advisory board of a number of major polymer journals. He is currently Chair of the Polymer Chemistry Division, ACS. His group does research in polymer materials, nanocomposites, colloidal science, hybrid materials, and ultrathin films towards applications from display coatings to biomedical devices. He consults for a number of companies focusing on the most challenging problems and definition of structure-property relationships towards commercial applications. Currently, he is director of PETRO Case a Consortium dealing with the challenging materials problems of the Petroleum Industry.
A chemist by education, with a BS from the University of Chicago, Laura has spent 30 years in the Fragrance Industry working with consumer products chemists, marketers, and regulatory affairs professionals, with the joint goal to offer beautifully fragranced products to consumers in an ever-changing consumer and regulatory landscape.
A generalist in all things Fragrance, Laura is currently the VP Consumer Fragrance, North America at Symrise. Leading a team of creative perfumers, evaluators and marketers, Laura manages and supports the fragrance development process for the Symrise consumer goods team, as they create new fragrances that are loved by consumers, aligned with the brand and concept, deliver technically and, of course, are compliant with all regulatory restrictions, as launching a successful product in 2020 is more complex than ever.
During her career, Laura has served on the National Candle Assoc Board of Directors, the Mint Industry Research Council, and she is currently on the Household and Consumer Products Association Board.
As a leader and manager, Laura enjoys mentoring and working with younger industry professionals. Knowing that experience is often an obstacle to vision, she is keen to tap into the inspiration and insights embodied in today’s young talent. She believes that teams built from a diversity of backgrounds truly bring the greatest insight and success!
Dr. Farahmand is an experienced skin scientist and consumer product toxicologist. Her areas of expertise include: skin absorption, dermatopharmaceutics, dermal toxicology, and exposure based risk assessment including animal-alternatives risk assessment methodologies, clinical safety, safety claim substantiation, and formulation of cosmetic/topical drug products. Dr. Farahmand is currently a senior toxicologist at Clorox and has over 9 years of experience as toxicologist in P&G, GP and Avon.
Musab Balbale is the VP, GM of Health, Beauty, Wellness and Pets for Walmart eCommerce. In that role, he is focused on driving growth through the merchandising and customer experience of his categories on Walmart.com. He joined Walmart in 2016 through the acquisition of Jet.com, where he was VP, GM of the Pets business.
Prior to Jet, Musab was the VP of International and Business Development at The Vitamin Shoppe. At VSI, Musab led the expansion of Vitamin Shoppe into Canada and Latin America through corporate owned and franchised stores; and supported key strategic initiatives including the development of the supply chain network and corporate acquisitions.
Musab began his career in corporate strategy and venture investing at Summit Partners, Charles Schwab and The Boston Consulting Group. Musab has his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BA from Yale University. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.
