Rob Donovan

Adjunct Professor, School of Human Sciences, University of Western Australia

Rob Donovan is Adjunct Professor in the School of Human Sciences at the University of WA, and Founder of the Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign. He has an international reputation in social marketing and health promotion, and has (co-) authored numerous journal articles, books, book chapters and technical reports across marketing, psychology and public health, including ‘Social Marketing Principles and Practice: An International Perspective’ with Nadine Henley.

After a career in commercial marketing he returned to academia in the early 1990s. He has taught in US and Australian university business schools and been a Visiting Scientist with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. He has conducted research and campaign development across a broad range of health and social policy areas, including HIV/AIDS, alcohol, tobacco and drugs, physical activity and the built environment, road safety, early childhood & parenting, child abuse, domestic violence, racism, doping in sport, suicide prevention and mental health promotion. He was a Foundation Member of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Education Committee and currently chairs the Agency’s Social Sciences Research Sub-Committee.

Peter De Smedt

DKB Behavioural Insights team, Flemish administration, Brussels, Belgium

Peter De Smedt has an academic background in System Analyses (KU Leuven, BE). He has been working with experts and stakeholders on a common understanding of unsustainable trends by offering scenarios, behavioural insights and integrated solutions to support policy makers at (inter)regional and European level. In his previous assignment he worked as senior scientist at the newly established EU Policy Lab in the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. Currently, Peter is involved in establishing a Behavioural Insight team within the Centre of Government of the Flemish administration (DKB).

Gabriëlle van Zoeren

Senior Project Coordinator at City of Antwerp, Circular South - Smart City District

Mrs. Gabrielle Van Zoeren (MBA) has been working in the sustainability business since 2001. She worked in the field of Sustainable investing and ESG at TBLI Group. Then moved to Rotterdam Climate Initiative where she worked on sustainable economic city development. In 2012 she moved to Antwerp to build out the eco-system for sustainable chemistry, resulting in an accelerator for valorisation of waste streams, BlueChem. Currently she´s in charge of the transition of New South. A large sustainable area development that has become the living lab for implementation of sustainable innovation projects.

Thomas Dirkmaat

Coordinator, Behavioural Insights Team at The Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy

Thomas Dirkmaat is the coordinator of the Behavioural Insights Team at The Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. He is also the chairman of the Behavioural Insights Network Netherlands (BIN NL). BIN NL is a collaboration between all ministries for the application of behavioural insights to policy, implementation, supervision and communication. Its main purpose is the exchange of knowledge and experience.

Thomas started working for the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 2009 as a senior economist and has worked on a broad range of topics including industrial policy, multidimensional well-being and evidence based policy making. He earned his PhD in Experimental Economics and Game Theory from Utrecht University.

Thomas Dirkmaat is coördinator van het Behavioural Insights Team van het ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat. Hij is ook de voorzitter van het Behavioural Insights Netwerk Nederland (BIN NL). BIN NL is een samenwerkingsverband van alle ministeries, voor de toepassing van gedragsinzichten in beleid, uitvoering, toezicht en communicatie. Het is bedoeld voor het uitwisselen van kennis en ervaring.

Sinds 2009 is Thomas werkzaam als senior econoom bij het ministerie van economische zaken en heeft hij gewerkt aan een breed scala aan onderwerpen, waaronder industriebeleid, brede welvaart en evidence based beleid maken. Hij is gepromoveerd in Experimentele Economie en Spel Theorie aan de Universiteit van Utrecht.

Prof. Susan Michie

Director, Centre for Behaviour Change, UCL

Susan Michie, FMedSci, FAcSS is Professor of Health Psychology and Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London.

Susan Michie’s research focuses on behaviour change in relation to health: how to understand it theoretically and apply theory to intervention development, evaluation and implementation. She has also developed innovative methods for characterising and reporting interventions and for synthesising evidence about the effectiveness of behaviour change interventions, working across disciplines such as information science, environmental science, computer science and medicine. Her research covers population, organisational- and individual-level interventions, including digital interventions.

Current editorial responsibilities include Associate Editor of Annals of Behavioral Medicine. She holds more than 20 research grants including the Human Behavior Change Project and has published >400 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Marc Michils

Managing Director, Stand up to Cancer, Belgium

Motivate and inspire people. Giving people a say and encouraging action. So that together we can realize the objectives of Kom op tegen Kanker. That’s my job. I want to be accessible. To give people the feeling that they can come over, that we can talk openly and that they can make ideas. To say after all that talking, dreaming and preparing: and now we are going to do, prove, get results. After 30 years in the profit sector, it was time for me to start a new chapter. I wanted to do something for a broad group of cancer patients and their loved ones. My contribution to increasing their chances of survival and the quality of their lives.

With Kom op tegen Kanker we are doing a good job. We are a dynamic, creative and open organization that means something for people with cancer but also for society. But we are not there yet. More than 30% of people still die from cancer. So there is still a lot of work to do. But that also motivates. I get my energy from realizing that ambition. From the people and the projects. Energy gives energy. Seeing employees, volunteers and activists at work gives me a good feeling. Then I know: together we can move stones. We have just made a new five-year plan, so we know how much work there is left to do. But we will get there step by step. ‘

L. Suzanne Suggs, PhD, MS, CHES

Associate Professor of Social Marketing, University of Lugano, Switzerland

L. Suzanne Suggs is Associate Professor of Social Marketing and Head of the BeCHANGE Research Group in the Institute of Public Communication, Faculty of Communication Sciences, at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano Switzerland. She is also the Vice-President of the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) and a Visiting Reader in the Institute for Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. She received a BBA in Marketing at University of North Texas (USA), a MSc and PhD in Health Studies, focused on health education and behavior communication, at Texas Woman’s University (USA), and a Post-doctoral fellowship focused on healthy ageing and clinical decision-making at McMaster University (Canada). Suzanne’s research focuses on social and behavior change. She examines the determinants of behavior (personal, cultural, policy and environmental), develops and tests the effects of communication strategies on such behaviors. Her work is published in some of the leading health communication, social marketing, e-health and health policy journals. She spoke at the World Economic Forum about smart choices in health communication and led a policy report about communicating complexity in health at the World Innovation Summit for Health in Qatar. She is a Co-Founder and Chair of the European Social Marketing Association and is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Health Communication. She teaches graduate level courses in Social Marketing, Focus Group Methods, Research Methods, and Media Skills at USI, Basel, Bern and Zurich.

Marc Van Peel

Vice-Mayor of the City of Antwerp

President of Antwerp Port Authority, Port Alderman, Vice-Mayor of the City of Antwerp
Marc Van Peel has been president of the Antwerp Port Authority since 2007. His involvement however goes way back as co-founder of the Port as a municipal authority. He was one of those who pleaded in favour of extensive financial and management independence for the ports.
After a short period as a history teacher, Marc Van Peel became the general secretary of the Flemish Boy Scouts and worked as staff member at the educational department of ACV, the largest Belgian trade union. His social and political involvement took him to Parliament. For more than 20 years he represented the Christian Democratic Party as MP. He was floor leader in the Lower House and chairman of the party between 1996 and 1999.
After the local elections in 2001, he became Vice-Mayor for public management, decentralisation and personnel management of the City of Antwerp, and accepted a new term in 2007 as Vice-Mayor for the Port of Antwerp. He is also chairman of PAI (Port of Antwerp International) and APEC (the Antwerp Port Training Centre).
Marc Van Peel was born in Wilrijk, Antwerp, in 1949. He is married and has four children and eight grandchildren.

Annik Bogaert

Managing Director of Business & City Marketing, City of Antwerp

Annik Bogaert is a proud resident of Antwerp, Belgium’s second largest city and economical heart. She graduated in geography at VUB – Vrije Universiteit Brussel – and thereafter obtained a master’s degree in economy at KUL – Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Her career started in 1988 and has had a common thread; the development and growth of an important economic sector, namely tourism. She achieved this by combining a number of functions on various levels within different administrations. In September 2013 she became the Managing Director of Business  & City Marketing, a department that falls under the administration of the City of Antwerp. This department encloses policy areas; marketing & communication, events, public domain & license, economy, Antwerp‘s diamond sector, employment, student affairs  and tourism. The department promotes Antwerp both nationally and abroad, it creates the conditions and an environment where companies, visitors and brains can work, do business, visit and study in an social and enjoyable city. Business & City Marketing creates furthermore the strategic framework for the City of Antwerp in order to efficiently inform, create awareness and motivate.

Milan Rutten

Director, Marketing Strategy, City of Antwerp

Milan has worked for the City of Antwerp since 2011. As director marketing strategy he is responsible for the brand marketing, market research and city marketing campaigns. Milan focuses on connecting with the diverse target audiences and elaborating strategies for different communication tools, offline and online and has managed a range of political campaigns at national level and in Antwerp. He has a great interest in renewal of organisations and the way they communicate along side his first professional love which remains international politics and development aid.