SAFOSO - Key Persons
Alex is a C-level and board senior executive who brings more than 30 years' leadership experience of increasing responsibility in R&D and management, including 20 years in agribusiness, sustainable food production and animal health industries. He is a passionate innovator with a successful track record of building profitable businesses through disruptive product innovations from start-up companies to multinationals. Alex joined the Board of Directors of SAFOSO in May 2021.
Alex holds a Master's degree and a PhD in Natural Sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich and pursued a successful academic career at the University of California in San Francisco and the University of Zurich authoring more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals and having contributed to more than 10 book chapters.
Before joining SAFOSO, Alex was the Chief Scientific Officer and served on the Board of Directors at Benchmark Holdings plc, the UK listed global aquaculture health, nutrition and genetics company driving sustainability in food production. He joined Benchmark in 2018 from Thermo Fisher Scientific where he held positions as the Director Global R&D for Agribusiness and Managing Director for the Thermo Fisher Scientific Zurich site. Prior to this, he was the Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss based Prionics AG which pioneered diagnostic testing for BSE and he also was a member of the Management Board which successfully sold the company to Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2014. Before that, Alex was the CSO for Cytos Proteome Therapeutics and served for more than 10 years on the Board of Directors of BioSupport AG, a technology provider to companies in the Bio-Technopark Zurich.
Amanda supports the SAFOSO team with administrative tasks including finance and control as well as minuting team and management meetings and preparing compelling PowerPoint presentations. Amanda joined SAFOSO in 2020.
She studied Translation and Interpretation at Hogeshool Maastricht in the Netherlands. She also did a training from August 2000 until July 2001 in Chinese Language & International Trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology in Beijing, China, for which she received a scholarship.
From 2002 to 2019, prior to joining SAFOSO, Amanda held several positions at the IIC-Intersport International Corp., ranging from order processing to business unit assistant Apparel, both in Hong Kong and Bern.
Ernst is a business savvy global professional with a collaborative mindset and internationally well-connected. He brings broad eco-centric business perspectives and novel value creating insights to the global animal health and food safety markets and industry challenges. He shares relevant "best practice" showcases on strategy development and strategy deployment to enable culture change and organizational transformation for successful leadership and practical implementation of global strategic projects in the FMCG, MedTech, Health & Pharma Industry, Government organizations and BioTech Start-ups.
He held global senior leadership executive positions in leading enterprises in the life science industry, where he pioneered cross-boundary collaboration partnerships with a strong focus on co-creative and synergistic capacity building, conscious holistic leadership and culture development for people development and competency building in "Big Corporate" and "Small Entrepreneurial" complex and turbulent business environments.
He works out of Switzerland and is a Strategy Partner at Newsight Consult AG - "Create your future with foresight" (www.newsightconsult.ch). He is also an associate Partner at Valuecreator (www.valuecreator.com) and is active in the International TAFS Foundation TAFSFORUM as well as Vétérinaires sans Frontières Suisse.
Isabel joined SAFOSO in April 2017 as a consultant and contributes to various SAFOSO projects, including international capacity-building and research projects. She particularly enjoys working in interdisciplinary environments and likes the challenges of communication and knowledge transfer between stakeholders with different backgrounds. Her project portfolio covers a broad range of topics, including animal health, animal welfare, food safety, antimicrobial resistance and international trade.
After graduating as a veterinarian from the Vetsuisse-Faculty of Bern, Isabel performed her doctoral thesis at the Vetsuisse-Faculty in Zurich. In 2012 she started her residency program with the European College of Veterinary Public Health (ECVPH) at the Veterinary Public Health Institute of the Vetsuisse-Faculty in Bern. In parallel she completed the training program for the Swiss Official Veterinarian and became a Diplomate of the ECVPH in 2016.
Following her residency training, she worked as a research assistant at the Swiss Food Safety and Veterinary Office. Having worked at the university as well as federal and local veterinary authorities, she has acquired experience in various fields of Veterinary Public Health.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- a Junior Consultant
Jessica joined SAFOSO as a Junior Consultant in January 2023. She works as part of a team of consultants and regulatory toxicologists conducting risk assessments of plant protection products for public health. She is also involved in other projects addressing animal health and food safety concerns and thus works at the interface of the Swiss government and consulting projects for clients.
Jessica holds two Bachelor's degrees in History and Biology and a Master's in Biology with a focus on Plant Biology from the University of Bern. She enjoys working in interdisciplinary areas and thrives on challenges.
Before joining SAFOSO, Jessica gained experience working on projects in the fields of Data Science and AI. Throughout her studies, Jessica also worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Bern and contributed to conducting research and publishing scientific papers.
Job Titles:
- Co - CEO / Member of the Board
- Member of the Board / Co - CEO
Manon's passion is to improve animal health and food-safety conditions for the benefit of both global consumers and food producers. With her pragmatic approach, strong communication skills, clear interest in building up on locally available expertise and capacities to bring together the common interests of various stakeholders, Manon is able to achieve tangible and practical project results for SAFOSO's clients. Manon joined SAFOSO's management team as Director in 2010.
Manon obtained her master's degree from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where she studied Animal Science and specialized in both veterinary epidemiology and tropical animal husbandry. She later completed her doctoral degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland.
After graduation from Wageningen University, Manon joined the Swiss Federal Veterinary Office in Bern and gained first-hand experience in analyzing and managing animal health and food-safety issues from the perspective of a veterinary authority. She joined SAFOSO in 2004 as consultant where she worked with clients and veterinary authorities from around world to address their animal health and food-safety concerns.
Job Titles:
- Senior Consultant / Science Manager
Marco, who joined SAFOSO in 2013, contributes to various SAFOSO research and capacity building projects as a senior consultant epidemiologist. His special interest is in research projects where the research component contributes to enhanced risk-management strategies and capacity-building activities.
Marco received a Degree in Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from Bologna University in 2002 and a MSc degree in Veterinary Epidemiology from the Royal Veterinary College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, in 2008. He is a Diplomat of the European College of Veterinary Public Health (Dipl. ECVPH) and EBVS® European Specialist in Veterinary Public Health.
Following his DVM, Marco practiced for a short period as a veterinary clinician in dairy farms in Italy. From 2004 to 2007 he was a veterinary consultant and project coordinator for international NGOs in East Africa. From 2009 to 2013 he worked on research and capacity building programs at the "OIE and FAO Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza" and the "FAO Reference Center for Rabies" at IZSVe in Italy. In 2011 he coordinated the EFSA funded project "Flurisk" assessing the pandemic risk posed by animal influenza viruses. He was a board member of the International NGO Veterinarians Without Borders - Italy.
Job Titles:
- Co - CEO / Member of the Board
- Member of the Board / Co - CEO
Patrik uses his sound scientific and economic background as well as his broad international experience to find solutions to challenges in the field of animal health and food safety. His strength is to involve all stakeholders in his projects, taking into account their different needs and capabilities. Patrik joined SAFOSO in August 2019 as Director.
Patrik studied biochemistry and organic chemistry at the University of Applied Science, Zurich and holds an executive MBA from the University St. Gallen.
He has more than 15 years of experience in the field of production-animal diseases. Working for multiple international diagnostics companies has helped him gain profound knowledge of veterinary diagnostics and its application in different settings. During his career he successfully managed numerous projects with partners from private industry, government and institutions from all over the world.
Pedro joined SAFOSO in October 2022. He holds a master's in veterinary medicine from the University of Porto and a post-graduation in bio-entrepreneurship from the University of Lisbon.
Prior to joining SAFOSO, he gained international experience in both academia and private sector in the fields of antimicrobial resistance and biosecurity: he was developing projects related to farm-level monitoring systems, sectorial trend analysis and national action plan assessments.
Pedro is passionate about translational sciences and the communication of information and data at different levels of expertise. He is versatile in finding solutions to animal health problems, he uses his strong communication skills and systems thinking to engage stakeholders in activities and to understand their perspective and needs.
Susanne works on projects related to animal health, risk analysis and surveillance. She joined SAFOSO in 2020. Considering herself an allrounder, Susanne enjoys working in varying areas in multidisciplinary teams.
Susanne graduated from veterinary school in Vienna, Austria, and did her doctoral thesis with the focus on syndromic surveillance at the Veterinary Public Health Institute in Bern. During her doctoral thesis work she developed a text-mining tool to extract data from necropsy reports for animal health surveillance.
Susanne completed a residency program with the European College of Veterinary Public Health at the Veterinary Public Health Institute of the Vetsuisse Faculty in Bern. She also spent several periods in Scandinavia, working in wildlife research and ecophysiology. Following her residency, she was employed as a research assistant at the Veterinary Public Health Institute of the Vetsuisse Faculty, where she was involved in various projects in the area of veterinary public health and worked closely with federal authorities.
Job Titles:
- Expert Associates
- Expert in the Field of Aquaculture
Thomas Janssens is an expert in the field of Aquaculture.
He graduated as a Bio-engineer in Agricultural Sciences from Ghent University, Belgium in 2001 and has obtained an Executive Master in Business and Administration from HEC Lausanne, Switzerland in 2016.
Thomas has been active in the aquaculture sector since 2002. After working for a nutrition research center in Italy, he has managed large fish hatcheries and on-growing farms producing Cod in Scotland, Sole in Spain and Perch in Switzerland. This has brought him a strong background in technical and financial project management. He has extensive experience in both fish production and water recirculation systems technology and has designed and built production units.
Since 2016, as the head of Aquaculture research at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, he works on projects with Swiss industrial partners and supervises students. He has developed a professional training course, certified by the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, with a focus on fish health.
Thomas Janssens is an expert in the field of Aquaculture. He has been active in the aquaculture sector since 2002. After working for a nutrition research center in Italy, he has managed large fish hatcheries and on-growing farms producing Cod in Scotland, Sole in Spain and Perch in Switzerland.
Ueli brings a wealth of knowledge to SAFOSO and is internationally well-connected. Currently, he is engaged by the Federal Office of Public Health to establish a testing system for aiming to reduce the number of SARS CoV-2 carriers in Switzerland. His special interest is on diagnostic, epidemiological and disease-control topics of infectious diseases in humans and animals both nationally and internationally.
Ueli is a veterinarian by training with a specialization in virology. He was appointed honorary professor in 1986. He has served the first 20 years as head of the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI) in Switzerland and lectured at the Vetsuisse Faculty in Berne.
For a period of ten years (1993 - 2003) he was the Chief Veterinary Officer of Switzerland. During this time, he was involved in the fight against and eradication of BSE, where he gained a lot of experience in dealing with disease control as well as with handling the media in a crisis. As a merit, he received 2008 the title Dr.h.c. from the University of Zurich.
For more than 20 years, Ueli had an exceptionally strong involvement in international organisations such as OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation).