Founder Institute

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Hannah Michaud first started exploring ways to develop sustainable textiles in 2016 while completing her studies in sustainable fashion at Copenhagen’s KEA School of Design & Technology. She also studied fashion technology and design at the KEA academy from 2012 to 2015.Michaud worked as a fashion design intern at Danish company Barbara I Gongini in 2016 and also at Weekend CPH in 2014. After her graduation in 2017, she decided to continue her research work on sustainable fabrics as co-founder and chief creative officer of Danish alt-leather startup, Beyond Leather Materials ApS, in Copenhagen.Originally from Maine, US, Michaud also studied music as a classical flutist at the University of Maine, where she was first chair in its Symphony Orchestra, and Sustainable Agriculture in the university’s Natural Science and Forestry department.

Cheng Yixiao began his career as a software engineer at HP in Dalian where he met Kuaishou co-founder Yang Yuanxi. Cheng left HP to join Renren as an iPhone client software developer.In 2011, Cheng started a photo-sharing platform GIF Kuaishou and obtained some seed funding. In 2013, he was introduced to a successful entrepreneur Su Hua. They decided to pivot GIF Kuaishou into a video-sharing app, with Cheng as CPO and Su as CEO.Many believe that his earlier experiences of living in Tieling, a county in northeast China, and later in Beijing’s suburb Tiantongyuan, have helped him to identify business opportunities and develop social media tools for the grassroots. He has quite a reputation for his creativity and passion for product development in tech circles. 

Jan Mattsson is a former senior UN official and the head of an ESG management consultancy. He is also chairman and co-founder of Everimpact, a GHG monitoring company that uses satellites, ground sensors, AI and machine learning to deliver more reliable carbon emissions data to public bodies, municipalities, and businesses. Mattsson has four decades of experience in development, humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, and has led operations and programs in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central Asia. He spent nearly 14 years as UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the operational arm of the UN. Over his professional career, Mattsson has also engaged with international organizations such as the World Bank and the Green Climate Fund. Outside of Everimpact, Mattsson is founder and CEO of M-Trust Leadership AB, an independent ESG and sustainable development management consultancy. He chairs the board of the Museum for the United Nations, and 4Life Solutions (formerly known as SolarSack), a company offering a solar-powered product that can provide safe drinking water to low-income and vulnerable communities. Mattsson also serves on the boards of The Management Lab, which aims to help investors analyze the social and environmental impact of their investments and philanthropy, as well as the World Benchmarking Alliance, an Amsterdam-based non-profit organization that aims to measure and incentivise businesses’ contributions towards the UN SDGs.  

Data services veteran Huang Haijia was the director of the Chinese government’s first online project in 1998; and the co-founder and former COO of ID5, set up in cooperation with the national police, for online identification checks and involving the digitization of ID data of the 1.3 billion population.  In 2001, Huang founded Guozhengtong, an IT consultancy supporting local governments in their digitization and, subsequently, banks and telcos. He later founded financial data and credit risk management SaaS company Shenzhourong, which he heads as CEO. Huang holds an EMBA from the Central European International Business School. He is also a member of the fifth batch of entrepreneurs from the incubation program of AAMA (Asia America Multi-Technology Association), Silicon Valley's largest non-profit organization dedicated to the Asian American high-tech community.

Xu Hanhan graduated from the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, in 2008. She then worked at the VC, China Renaissance Capital Investment, and later became personal assistant to ByteDance CEO and founder Zhang Yiming during the startup's early years. She co-founded Waterdrop in 2016 and is now in charge of Waterdrop Crowdfunding. She also started another of Waterdrop's platforms, Waterdrop Public Wellness, which helps charitable organizations fundraise as well as report on the usage of the funds received. 

Belgian-born Laurence Fontinoy graduated in Commercial Engineering at Belgium’s Louvain Catholic University in 1994 and went on an exchange program for one year at New York’s Stern Graduate Business School. She worked for almost four years at Belgacom Mobile in Belgium, where she supervised the launch of its first prepaid card. In 1999, she moved to the Netherlands to join Dutch telecoms provider Ben as a customer development manager. After completing an MBA in 2002 at IESE University of Navarra, the mother-of-three joined eBay Spain as head of category and seller development. In 2005, she was promoted to marketing and communications director but left in 2008 to join Google as the regional country marketing manager for Spain and Portugal. In 2015, she left to become the CEO and co-founder of WOOM with former eBay colleague Clelia Morales.

Markus Cosmann is co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at UK-based Modulous, the first end-to-end generative design and delivery solution for affordable, sustainable and modulized housing, where he has worked since 2018. He was simultaneously a director  at engineering consultancy Optimise, based in London and Dubai, until 2020, where he had worked since 2012, and where the concept for Modulous was conceived. His construction project credits include the Oslo National Museum and the German and Swiss Pavilions at Dubai Expo 2020. He previously worked in management for six and a half years in Copenhagen at Danish civil engineering company Ramboll, and has an extensive background in fire engineering in his native Germany and the UK, both in research and commercial projects. Cosmann is a certified civil engineer, graduating from the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.

Sanchez is a computer and data science expert with a master’s degree in innovation and research in informatics with specialization in advanced computing from the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (UPC). He also holds multiple certifications from the John Hopkins University School of Education. Sanchez is currently CTO and co-founder of HumanITcare, a telemedicine platform for remote patient monitoring using real-world data and AI to treat patients affected by chronic diseases and also to accelerate drug development and clinical trials. Prior to HumanITcare, Sanchez worked as Data Scientist in a joint-project between the Spanish insurance company Catalana Occidente and technology consultancy Raona to develop a sales collaborative platform. He has also worked on projects in software development, mobile apps, server and hardware as well as prototyping for IoT devices in the fields of education, health and wellness.

Ben Morton is an Australian entrepreneur and a chemical engineer by training. While serving in the Royal Australian Infantry, he attended Flinders University, pursuing a double honours degree in physics and organic chemistry. After graduating in 2013, Morton briefly worked as a chemist at fertilizer company SprayGro. In 2016, he enrolled at the University of Adelaide to pursue a PhD in Chemical Engineering. There, he joined Philip Kwong’s research group and met fellow PhD student Lewis Dunnigan. Using technology they developed at the research group, in 2017 Morton, and Dunnigan established Bygen, a startup offering a low-cost, novel way process of making activated carbon using various forms of agricultural waste, with Kwong as a technical adviser and fellow co-founder. Morton is now CTO of Bygen.

German native Mikael Eydt graduated in economics in 2016 at Erlangen-Nürnberg’s Friedrich-Alexander University. He worked at his family’s hotel company in Germany while studying at university from 2011 to 2016. Eydt also briefly worked in sales for insurance company Debeka and completed his national service as a soldier in Germany. In 2017, Eydt went back to work as a junior manager at family-owned Hotel Eydt in Kirchheim.Currently based in Copenhagen, he is now the CEO and co-founder of Danish alt-leather biotech, Beyond Leather Materials, that produces vegan leather materials from apple waste. He was responsible for the startup’s business development for two years before becoming CEO in July 2020.

Squirrel AI CEO and co-founder Zhou Wei was formerly VP of Only Education International, a K12 educational institution. He was also the GM of Only Education’s strategic expansion department from 2010, growing its student base from 100,000 to 1m over three years, acquiring the biggest share of the children’s English education market in China and once had opened 600 institutions in one year. Prior to joining Only Education, Zhou worked at Avon Products as its GM in Shanghai, where he achieved a record RMB 500m in annual sales and won the Best Regional and Team-Lead Sales Performance title for four consecutive years .

Alberto Gordillo started his career in 1994 as a Spanish creative and art director specializing in animations, illustrations and VR experiences. He has over 23 years of industry experience, specializing in visual narrative, concept art, 3D content and virtual world-building. In 2003, he moved to Guildford in UK to work for Lionhead Studios, the computer games company that created Black & White, The Movies and the Fable series.In 2016, he and Lionhead colleague Fabio Polimeni left the company to co-found Poligor Studios where they spent a year developing VR experiences of famous heritage places, offering users immersive experiences of historical events.In 2017, he returned to Madrid to become the CCO, art director and co-founder of Play2Speak, an AI-powered edtech that produces VR immersive learning materials and programs.

Haoqipei Founder and CEO Chen Xi graduated from Tianjin University's Special Class for the Gifted Young. He is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the gaming and social networking sectors. Before founding Haoqipei in 2016, Chen co-founded corporate management  solutions provider Redsoft, mobile gaming startup CMF Mobile Game, mobile marketing solution provider CMF Mobile and business social networking startup Renmaitong. 

Mario Fernández Marín is Co-founder of railway consultancy firm SigmaRail and is also its product manager. From 2004 to 2008, Fernández undertook internships at several Spanish and French enterprises including Unión Fenosa, Dusco-SesameTV, Groupe Assonance and IRCICA. He was a research engineer at the Polytechnic University of Madrid before joining Airbus in 2009, where he working at both its Paris and Madrid operations. He later became Lead Design Engineer at both Siemens and Thales for three years. Fernández is a telecommunications engineering graduate of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. 

Jorge López Sánchez is a co-founder of railway consultancy firm SigmaRail. Focused on the railway sector since the beginning his career, he started as an intern at railway technology R&D center CITEF. He was later Alstom's automatic train control leader until 2011 and NSW's technical manager until 2016. López holds a first degree in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Electromagnetic Compatibility, both from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He also holds a degree in the design and set up of solar-powered facilities from the Censolar professional training center in Seville.   

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