Supervisory Board
Jaap Blaak (Chairman)
Mr. Blaak held managerial positions with Hoogovens and Indivers in the Netherlands, USA, Germany and Singapore. In 1983, he was involved with the foundation of the MIP Equity Fund, one of the largest venture capital groups in Europe, and was appointed CEO in 1986. During the lifetime of the fund MIP invested in several life sciences companies that became active in The Netherlands, including Centocor, Mogen and EuroCetus/Chiron. In several of the companies MIP invested in, Mr. Blaak was a board member. MIP merged with the ABN-AMRO Venture Capital Group to form AlpInvest. Since 1989, Mr. Blaak is president and owner of Tailwind, a company investing mainly in early stage life science companies. He is involved as a board member or advisor to several of these companies and is also advisor to the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs for the Technopartner program and other innovative projects, related to entrepreneurship and technology. Mr. Blaak studied physics, mathematics and business economics at the Free University of Amsterdam and followed the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School (AMP ‘81).
Willem Hazenberg
Dr. Willem Hazenberg is a partner at BioGeneration Ventures, an early stage Life Sciences venture capital fund based in Naarden, The Netherlands and has entrepreneurial experience in creating and working with a large number of start-up companies in the sector. He has held previous positions in industry as business development executive, investment manager and board member. He holds a M.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands and a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland.
Tim Irish
Tim Irish has previously been senior vice president and chief marketing and strategy officer for Philips healthcare. Before that he was vice president and general manager at General Electric Healthcare and held various functions in GlaxoSmithKline. He is now a non-executive director on two Venture Capital backed companies in the Netherlands and three private companies in England, as well as an independent director on the National Health Service in Wales in the UK.
Emmanuelle Coutanceau
Emmanuelle Coutanceau joined Crédit Agricole Private Equity's Venture Capital team in April 2007. She holds a degree in agronomic engineering from the ENSAR in Rennes, a PhD in Microbiology from Paris VII University and a specialized postgraduate degree in pharmaceutical management from the Paris ESCP-EAP Business School. From 2003 to 2006, at Pasteur Institute, Emmanuelle Coutanceau managed a fundamental research project on the immunosuppressive properties of a bacterial toxin. Her work led to several international scientific publications.
Ger de Bruin
Ger de Bruin is a partner at Zernike Group BV, an internationally operating company specialized in technology transfer, management of science parks and incubators and the set-up and management of venture capital funds. Ger de Bruin has many years of experience in international seed fund management. One of Zernike’s investments funds Ger de Bruin is responsible for, is BioPartner Start-up Ventures, initiated in 2000 with the primary objective of developing technology oriented and innovative companies in the field of life sciences. He holds a MSc. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Wageningen.