Rüdiger Funke
Rüdiger’s key areas of expertise are Lead Advisor for M&A, Business Development and Reorganization. Rüdiger has outstanding experience in integration of realized acquisitions. Additionally, he is active in start-ups as advisor, business angel and investor and uses his global network to create business success stories.
His experience in the European, North American and Asian markets as former owner of a Specialty Chemicals business and as senior executive, as well as his M&A experience allow him to provide high-level consulting.
Rüdiger was responsible for the complete restructuring and globalization of Flux Schweiß- und Lötstoffe GmbH – first as a senior executive and later as owner, paving the way for its future success and creating a global leader in its market.
In 2014, Rüdiger successfully sold his company to an international corporation, which engaged him for the global leadership role of the combined activity.
Dr. Jens Hoeltje
Jens’s main expertise is in Strategy, both development and implementation, as well as M&A and Transformation projects.
He focusses on the polymer industry and its related up- and downstream sectors. To his clients Jens brings extensive knowledge of the many respective markets, too.
Besides his partnership in JF Chemical Associates Jens is the Managing Director of High3P, promoting high performance polymer parts to the Automotive, Aerospace and other industries. He is the author of The 4 BEs of Transformational Leadership.
Jens has a 25+ years track record with large chemical corporations. He held leadership positions in business management and was Director of Strategy, Marketing, Sales, M&A, and Business Incubation in multi-national market leaders with revenues up to 2 B€.
He served as Director/Chairman of several boards, including start-ups and a leading industry association.
Achim Mauruschat
Achim’s key responsibilities are Lead Advisor for M&A and divestitures, as well as all related activities like Transformation, Reorganization and Interim Management.
Now days, Porters 5-Forces Model is not sufficient to cover the competitive analysis of markets. Therefore, Achim developed the 10-Forces-Model for a holistic market surveillance that offers our customers cutting edge understanding of evolving markets and related eco-systems.
Leading Strategy and M&A departments gave him the opportunity to successfully negotiate numerous M&A projects with different global players of the chemical industry, but also gaining experience with small and medium sized companies as well as venture capital and start-ups.
Starting in Germany, Achim spent most of his career outside Germany (USA, Belgium, France, Bulgaria, South Korea, . . .), allowing him to adapt to different cultures and different ways of business management.
Frequent job rotations also allowed him to gain deep insight in a huge variety of different chemical markets in Speciality and Commodity Chemicals, as well as Mining Industry and Life Sciences.
Xiaoyan Xu
Xiaoyan is leading our Shanghai office and has a Bachelor of Economics from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and additional European Studies at Leibniz University of Hanover.
Xiaoyan worked in Germany for more than 10 years and has therefore an excellent experience of cultural differences between China and Western Europe/Germany.
Additionally, Xiaoyan worked in the chemical manufacturing industry in Germany and China.
She manages our close relations with governments in Shanghai and Germany and has experience in setting up companies or offices in China and Germany.
Flavio Remonato
Flavio’s key areas of expertise are in the domain of international business management with particular focus on sales & marketing and commercial excellence. Additionally, during his long career in the multinational company Solvay, Flavio covered key roles related to M&A post acquisition missions as facilitator reference for the integration of the main teams of the involved parties.
Furthermore, Flavio cumulated significant experience in managing international distributors.
In different periods of his career Flavio was also representative in international industrial chemical associations such as CEFIC in Brussels and FEDERCHIMICA in Italy.
Flavio also served for a long time as CEO and Board Director at joint ventures in Italy and in Slovenia.
Flavio’s career included eight years expatriation in Belgium holding global business coordination and development roles for both commodity and specialty chemicals in different market segments.
Pierre Joris
Pierre’s main expertise is in General Management and Strategy, in M&A from a strategic and integration perspective, as well as in Innovation Management.
Along this position, Pierre is indeed board member in 5 chemical or material companies, Senior Advisor to BCG and to KREAB (P.A.), as well as chairman of a European industrial cross-sectorial association involving the chemical industry.
Pierre can build on his multi-cultural experience of running different international businesses with up to 1300 employees, on his strategic take away from numerous M&A projects and realized acquisitions, as well as from the challenges faced in driving innovation portfolio in BU’s and on corporate level.
Pierre has 35 years of international experience in the Chemical Industry. He built his career at Solvay, where he held various corporate functional roles, including in Strategic Business Development, as well as different global leadership positions, with full P&L accountability, of global businesses, run from US or Europe. He also served as Chief Innovation Officer for the group. Pierre has also been Senior Executive Advisor to the Chemical division of a Japanese multinational group for 6 years.
Martin Rock
Martin has over 20 years’ experience in the chemicals industry and M&A through various roles during his career. Most recently he set up the M&A team of Commerzbank in Hong Kong focusing on cross-border M&A in the chemicals and industrials sectors. Prior to that he ran the Chemicals industry group at Dresdner Kleinwort in London and held a Corporate Development and M&A advisory role with SABIC based in the Netherlands. He started his banking career in the Chemicals sector teams of Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan.
He was awarded a Ph.D in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge before working as a management consultant in the USA and then with Nexant ECA in London. His expertise lies in transaction origination, execution processes and due diligence across the chemicals industry spectrum and he has developed a network of corporate and private equity funds in the US, Europe, MENA and Asia.
Martin is based in Hong Kong where he set up his own consultancy business, Casque Consulting, which formed a collaboration partnership with JF Chemical Associates at the beginning of 2022.
Heinrich Lingnau
Identification, planning and execution of acquisitions and divestitures (strategic, financial, organisational and cultural) are some of Heinrich’s core areas of expertise. Driving cash, improving profits, developing and implementing tactics and strategies complement his expertise.
His insight into the ever-changing dynamics of both the European polymer industries as well as their downstream markets make him a valued advisor and consultant to the industry.
Heinrich has a track record in the European Polymer and Compounding Industry. He held leadership roles in DuPont de Nemours, A. Schulman and LyondellBasell in Europe and the Middle East.
He ran a variety of polymer businesses such as Engineering Plastics, Masterbatches, Polymer Powders and Recycling for all major end markets (i.e. Automotive, Building & Construction, E&E, Food and Packaging).
Luis Pedro
Luis has vast experience in international business dealings and has worked closely with leaders and commercial organizations scattered across the globe, helping to shape deals and secure results.
He focuses primarily on transborder commercial transactions, legal compliance and risk management. Luis has also managed several M&A projects and corporate restructuring projects.
He has more than 20 years of experience in various legal roles in the chemical and plastics industry, both in corporate and business roles.
Luis is a registered lawyer in Portugal and also a business owner deeply committed to help people and businesses succeed.
Martin Laudenbach
Martin is passionate about helping owners, investors, and executives to maximize their enterprise value, leveraging his extensive hands-on experience in identifying and realizing opportunities for profit growth, mastering disruptive market change, formulating focused strategies, and aligning people of diverse cultures for high-performance. Martin is a strong advocate of sustainability/ESG and digitalization by conviction.
He is a former BASF and Solvay senior executive and CEO with 20+ years at the heart of strategic and operational decision-making, successfully leading international chemical businesses between €30m and €2bn. His experience ranges from specialty minerals to petrochemicals, polymer intermediates, automotive coatings, advanced materials and fine chemicals for nutrition, cosmetics, and pharma.
Martin drove M&A as part of his value creation strategies. Having worked throughout Europe, the U.S. and China/Asia Pacific, he successfully integrated cross-cultural teams for disruptive organizational transformation. Martin was CEO of a P.E. owned company, taking it through refinancing and exit.
He is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of Polish CIECH S.A., and an investor and board member of a U.S. next-generation battery start-up.
Georges Crauser
Georges’ extensive expertise in the chemical industry is both in M&A, where he lead numerous transactions and transformational projects, and in business management, where he successfully lead a global business unit to achieve outstanding results in economic performance and strong growth.
He focuses on the chemical industry and downstream sectors, bringing innovation in products, services and business models to adapt to the new needs of customers and ensures the long term development of industrial activities.
Georges brings a wide international experience having dealt with customers and partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia and having held senior management positions in North- and South America and in Europe.
Besides his partnership in JF Chemicals Associates, Georges serves in different boards, helping companies to find partnerships and innovative models to grow.
Steve Dobson
A Chartered Chemical Engineer with a 40-year career in industry Steve spent the last decade or so as Head of Solvay’s Electronic Chemicals Division, a business which expanded tenfold under his leadership to above 200M Euro turnover with more than a dozen manufacturing facilities in eight countries around the world. He retains an active network in that sector and especially in the Asia-Pacific markets.
After living overseas for more than 30 years in Germany, Singapore, Belgium, Korea and Taiwan Steve returned to the UK in 2021 to establish a career as a Non-Executive Director and Business Adviser. He now sits on several Boards in high tech manufacturing, higher education and professional bodies and maintains an active interest in the chemical industry and in particular its’ contribution to underpinning the rapidly growing electronics sector.
Johan Devenyns
As former CEO of a peptide and oligonucleotide CDMO business and former CEO of an omics research tools business, Johan brings a broad international experience in innovative life sciences industries. He lead a variety of fundraisings, M&A and successful exits.
Besides his role at JF CA, he serves in different board and advisory roles, supporting life sciences ventures in various stages of creation & growth.
Johan holds a PhD in biomaterials, MBA and is a certified board director.
Horst Kröger
Horst has a long experience within the Chemical Industry including expatriations to the U.S. and to South Korea.
His main areas of competence are in Marketing Leadership functions as well as in Strategy formulation and implementation. Additionally, Horst had leaderships for various M&A projects.
Horst served as Managing Director in several chemical companies and President or head of the Supervisory Boards.
Marc Deschamps
Marc Deschamps, former CEO of Jebsen & Jessen Ingredients, has more than 35 years’ experience in various local, regional and global business and functional leadership roles in the specialty chemicals and ingredients industry, of which 20 years living and working in Asia (India, Singapore, China, and Thailand).
Marc’s extensive experience was gained from a broad diversity of multi-national and multi-functional senior leadership roles in global and regional corporations (Ciba-Geigy, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Huntsman, Syngenta and Jebsen & Jessen) with a strong focus on all Asia Pacific markets.
Marc decided to early retire from the CEO position to focus on his professional and lifelong passion of consulting, developing, coaching and training companies, leaders and talents and on sharing his vast business and leadership experience.
Organizational development (OD) is a cornerstone for any successful corporation and for its leaders. Growing organically or via M&A, adjusting to changing market environments, integrating diverse teams, units, countries, building a strong team spirit and identity have always been a passion for Marc Deschamps.
Matt Dixon
Matt heads our London office and leads pre-market intelligence and lead advisory teams. His core skillset is in financial assessment, transaction structuring and negotiation/soft skills.
Matt gained his experience while working with Deloitte, Barclays Capital and lower-mid market M&A boutique Corbett Keeling.
He has been originating, negotiating and closing transactions in the lower-mid market life science and chemicals markets.