Gian is a technical director and packaging technologist at Procter & Gamble (P&G), one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies in the world. In his 20+ year career at P&G, Gian has helped drive R&D into sustainable packaging across the company. With experience in upstreamtechnologies (development of elastic PP), resins (renewable and advancedrecycled) and EU funding projects, Gian has been involved in developing key partnerships across the value chain and managing open innovation through P&G’s Connect & Develop Programme. To help drive cross-sector collaboration, Gian has been engaged in several EU associations and has held several multi-year board member positions (eg Petcore Europe, Recyclass platform, …). He is also a regular speaker at international Packaging Conferences (incl advisory board member of some of them, eg Smithers, Packaging Europe…). Gian has been initiating and leading the 3-year Pioneer project “HolyGrail” on the standardisation of markers/ watermarks in packaging (barcode for recycling), to increase efficiencies in high-quality sorting and to strive for higher recycling rates, as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative. This project received multiple awards (eg Packaging Europe’s 2019 Sustainability Awards, 2020 Edie Sustainabiliy award, WPO Worldstar Winner 2021, PAC Global Leadership awards 2021, next to some other awards). He also ensured the continuation of this project into establishment of HolyGrail 2.0 (175+ members, Gian chairs the Leadership team), facilitated by AIM (European Brands Association)and powered by AEPW (Alliance to End Plastic Waste) , to proof the viability of digital watermark technologies and business case at scale. Gian has also been official juror for multiple packaging awards: PackTheFuture 2018, Dow DuPont Packaging Innovation Awards (2018), 20/21/22 Plastics Recycling Awards and Packaging #Europe’s Sustainability Awards (2018-2023). He has been elected finalist for the 2018 and 2019 “EU Plastics Recycling Ambassador” (from Plastic Recyclers Europe) and actually received this title in 2019. Gian is 48 years old and holds a degree in Polymer & Composites Engineering from Leuven University. He was born in Belgium and is married with 2 children. He is a big fan of sports (running/ squash/padel/ cycling) and travel.