Christopher Baker

Christopher Baker served his apprenticeship as a printer working on two prototype web-offset newspaper presses, pioneering the web-offset printing process for full color newspaper cold-set and heat-set printing.

 Studied printing technology, engineering at The London College of Printing. Graduating in 1971 at the age of 22 he was appointed Production-Technical Manager for Renasenca Grafica - Diario D’ Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal and was responsible for the change-over from letterpress to web offset of the country’s first web-offset printed daily newspaper.

Awarded a Fellowship from The Institute of Printing for his work in developing and improving newspaper production technology and manufacturing methods.

Has held senior executive positions including Chief Executive, Managing Director, Production Director, Vice President in the newspaper industry in the UK, Europe, Canada & USA. Throughout his career he has been instrumental in the development and introduction of integrated front end, graphics/pagination systems, automated platemaking systems, printing press technology, integrated process control systems and fully automated mailrooms to improve quality, productivity and profits.

Seeking more challenges emigrated to Canada in 1996 on appointment as Vice President Manufacturing Pacific Press, Vancouver, BC and was responsible for the consolidation of two letterpress printing facilities into one new “state of the art” facility housing four Man Colorman 80,000cph presses.

Vice-President Manufacturing - New York Daily News.The New York Daily News has completed a major re-investment program which included the building of a new printing facility within the footprint of the existing building. The new highly automated production operation includes the first triple-wide version of KBA’s Commander CT 90,000 cph presses.

 

Kasturi Balaji

K. Balaji, born in 1955, holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Loyola College, University of Madras, and graduated from the University of Bombay as a Master of Management Studies.

From 1977--1991 he worked at The Hindu, where he had major responsibilities in the area of production of newspapers and magazines. He was involved also in setting up and running a modern printing ink manufacturing plant for The Hindu and its publications.

From 1991--2000 he was Managing Director, Sanka Graphics Pvt. Ltd., a company specialising in digital pre-press, digital printing and print consulting. He also represented Buhler, Switzerland, for sales of machinery for manufacturing printing ink.

In 2000 he was appointed Director, Kasturi & Sons Ltd., publishers of The Hindu, responsible for technology, production, and ink manufacturing.

He is a member of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA), chairman of the IFRA South Asia Committee, a member of the IFRA Advisory Council and a member of the IFRA Technical Group – Newspaper Production.

 

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Baumann

Reinhard R. Baumann is Professor for Digital Printing and Imaging Technology at the Institute for Print and Media Technology of the Chemnitz University of Technology since 2006 and head of the Printed Functionalities department of the Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nanosystems ENAS in Chemnitz, Germany since 2007.

His research interests are future applications of graphic arts technologies in digital manufacturing of Smart Objects including Printed Large Area Electronics.

In 1999 he joined the printing press maker manroland AG, web fed division Augsburg, held different management positions in R&D, IT and Services and headed the development of industrial solutions for printing functionalities other than color corporation-wide.

He graduated from the Leipzig University in Physics and holds a PhD in Chemical Physics. Primarily his research interests focused on areas of Physical Chemistry and Electrical Engineering of organic materials for polymer electronics at the University of Bonn / Germany and at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose / CA. Since his engagement in the graphic arts industry he is more and more involved in the R&D of processes and digital fabrication equipment for the industrialization of printed and large area electronics. The results of his research activities have been published in numerous journals, conference papers and patents.

Prof. Baumann a founding and board member of the Organic Electronic Association OE-A since 2004 and he is one of the founders of the IS&T Digital Fabrication conference.

 

 

Dr Herbert BayHerbert Bay (born in 1974) is co-founder and CEO of kooaba AG, a company providing image recognition. Kooaba won numerous prices such as RedHerring 100 Global award. Herbert holds a Ph.D. in computer vision studies from the ETH Zürich. During the course of his research, he published numerous scientific publications in the field of object recognition and augmented reality. After completing his PhD in 2006, he co-founded the company kooaba AG with Dr. Till Quack. Herbert’s hobbies are sailing and music.

 

Roland Behringer

Roland Behringer was born on the 14th of May 1964, is married, and has 4 children.

Studied Mechanical Engineering in Augsburg/Germany and started his professional career with manroland in the comercial printing unit.

There he had the opportunity to pass several deparments. From 1997 to 2002 he was sent to Spain as a project manager. From 2003 to 2005 he was deployed with process optimisation in printing plants. In 2005 he became department chief of the project management of commercial presses.

In the end of 2005 he changed to the executive board of OZ Druck & Medien in Rheinfelden and since 2007 he is also CEO of OZ Druck Köln KVD.

The targetmedia/OZ- group focuses on strategic communication and efficient media production for the stationary retail trade. OZ, as a retail expert, knows which formats and scopes attract the attention of customers. Together with classic DIN formats from 4 to 80 pages, OZ offers innovative special products that verifiably boost the sales of retailers.

 

 

Marcelo Benez Marcelo Benez currently in charge of Folha Group’s advertising division, which includes Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, Folha’s Magazines, Agora São Paulo newspaper and Folha Online news website; focusing on sales and advertising sales administration.

Leading a high performance commercial team, in charge of the advertising area of the most influential Brazilian newspaper, Benez has broken paradigms and proved that it is possible to grow even in a mature media as the printed newspaper, making use of differentiated and innovative strategies, which have produced original, special and irregular advertising formats.

Experienced in: promotional events, special commercial projects planning and implementation, research report analysis, media plans, database creation, as a base to faithfulness programs and new clients increase and business executive team leadership.

Ethic Counselor of CENP (Brazilian Advertising Consulting Entity). Ethic Counselor of CONAR (Brazilian Advertising Self-Regulatory Council).Vice-President of INMA Latin America – Brazil. Three times winner of the “Casas Bahia Yearly Service Quality Award”, recognized by the largest advertiser in Brazil.

 

Stefano Bigarelli Stefano Bigarelli joined Athesis Publishing House – Verona – Italy as Quality, Health and Safety Manager in May 2002. During the last ten years he has been involved in many company projects such as Process Analysis and Improvement in the pre-press and press areas, Colour Management, Printing Standardization, Newspaper Design and Risk Assessment. He has a Masters Degree in Materials Engineering and he started his career as R&D Metallurgist in a big multinational company. From that first valuable experience, he continues to researching solutions and to developing new ideas.

 

 

Philip Brännlund  Philip Brännlund was educated as a Mechanical engineer in Stockholm

The entrance into the Graphical industry was at Solna Offset AB in Stockholm with one year at the control and test department of machines ready for shipment and seven years at the global service department as installation engineer for Web offset machines worldwide.

That was followed by five years at STC Cold-Set plant in Stockholm as head of maintenance and then six years at Wamac AB ( mailroom supplier ) as Sales representative for Mailrooms in German and English speaking areas.

1991 – 1992 Plant manager for two Heat-Set presses and bookbinding in Sweden with around 80 employees.

1992 – 1994 MD of a large Cold-Set plant in Sweden. Three printing presses and mailroom with around 425 employees.

1995 – 2000 Manager of three printing plants in Sweden.

2000 – 2010 MD of printing operations in the EK-Group in Eskilstuna, Sweden.

 

Paolo Ciapetti  Paolo Ciapetti, born in 1973, has a Masters Degree in Management Engineering. He entered the printing industry with his thesis on "Informative Systems for IS0 9000 standards" at Artegrafica, a commercial printer in Verona. After a short period in a software house then, in 2000, he joined Athesis Publishing House first as a Quality Project Manager and then as Production Assistant. He was involved in the start-up of Athesis’ new printing plant and he is currently leading a Maintenance Management project. 

 

 

Phillip Crawley  Phillip Crawley is the Publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail, Canada's National Newspaper. He oversees the strategy and operations of The Globe and Mail newspaper, web sites including globeandmail.com, reportonbusiness.com and globeinvestor.com, and magazines including Report on Business.

During his tenure, The Globe and Mail and its staff have won 58 National Newspaper Awards, and been honoured by many organizations.

Prior to joining The Globe and Mail, Crawley held a variety of senior executive positions with some of the world's leading media companies in Europe, Asia and New Zealand. From 1997 to 1998 he was the Managing Director of The New Zealand Herald, and later the C.E.O. Designate of Wilson & Horton, New Zealand's largest media group. Between 1993 and 1997 he was Managing Director, The Times Supplements, London. From 1988 to 1993 he was Editor, then Editor-in-Chief of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and Editorial Director of Asia Magazine.

Between 1987 and 1988 he was Northern Editor, The Daily Telegraph, London, and between 1979 and 1987 he was Editor of The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne. Prior to 1979, Crawley worked in various editorial roles for Thomson Regional Newspapers.

He is chairman of The Canadian Press, a board member of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and a governor of the Charter for Business which raises funds for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award in Canada. He is also a board member of The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), The Canadian Newspaper Association, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation and the World Association of Newspapers/IFRA. He serves as Honorary Consul for New Zealand in Toronto.

Crawley was born in Northumberland, England and graduated in English Language and Literature at Manchester University. He lives in Toronto.

 

Matthias Ditzen-Blanke

Matthias Ditzen-Blanke is CEO of the Druckzentrum Nordsee, a regional printing company and he is also Publisher of the Nordsee Zeitung in Germany. Both companies are regionally oriented and supply smaller publishing houses with print services and coverage.

 All activities of the holding focus on offering a complete spectrum of all products and services along the process chain to customers. Primary goal is to become the technological leader in every domain.

Matthias Ditzen-Blanke has more than 10 years experience in leading positions in the media industry. He is an innovator in the field of implementation of high-tec. In 2007 and 2008 he was the creative director for the foundation of the Druckzentrum Nordsee.

The Druckzentrum Nordsee implemented the first triple-width waterless rotation in the world as well as a new generation of ctp. The subsequent processes offer various services as stitching and trimming or applying stickers. All processes are nearly fully automated. Research and development is driven in close collaboration with the manufacturers of the machines. A custom build production plant was constructed to support the highly integrated processes.

 

 

George Donaldson

George Donaldson is the Group Continuous Improvement Manager for Newsprinters Ltd

Newsprinters are the printing arm of News International; they have three state of the art print sites (Eurocentral - Scotland, Knowsley – Liverpool and Broxbourne – London). These sites print some of UK’s best-selling national newspapers - The Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, News of the World and northern editions of the Financial Times. They also print a number of regional and local newspaper titles for major publishing groups. That list is growing, as their reputation.

Mr Donaldson has worked with Newsprinters since 2007 and is responsible for the implementation and facilitation of Continuous Improvement and Best Practice Processes and activities, including the successful implementation of ISO 9001:2008 (Quality), ISO 14001:2004 (Environment) and BS OHSAS 18001:2007 (Health and Safety) at all three sites

From 1993 to 2006, Mr Donaldson was Engineering Manager at the Toronto Star, Canada’s Largest Daily Newspaper.

 

 

Jürgen Gemeinhardt Jürgen Gemeinhardt is physicist and has been working at Fogra for the last twelve years. Since 2004 he is head of the department Printing techniques, where projects in the areas of offset, newspaper, continuous forms, screen and digital printing are addressed. Furthermore he is responsible for the worldwide certification of print shops according to “Process Standard Offset” (ISO 12647). One of his actual research projects in newspaper printing deals with the usage of high quality paper on coldest machines without utilizing additional drying aggregates.

 

Valentin Kneile

Valentin Kneile was born in 1975. He is a trained offset printer at the Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung and studied Printing Technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart.

During his studies he was active in the media house in Vorarlberg. In 2004 he graduated with a thesis on optimization in newspaper printing with the support of the SandyScreen AG and the Eurografica Systemplanungs GmbH. In 2005 he started as a production manager at the Rheinpfalz and since 2009 he is the Quality Manager, responsible for material checks and quality improvement.

Valentin's hobbies are sailing and fencing

 

 

 

Malcolm Miller  Malcolm Miller 56 is CEO of the Miller Distributors Group operating in Malta. Miller Malta is the island’s major local and International Press distributor and the Group’s various operations are also active in Publishing, Printing, Retail, on-line trading and Logistics. In recent years the Group has become involved in the distribution of non Press products and has achieved large market shares for a variety of brands.

Miller is Chairman of Standard Publications, Publishers of the Malta Independent stable of newspaper titles and sits on various Educational and Government Boards. He is also a Director of Newsfax International – the UK’s largest independent newspaper contract printer representing the Miller shareholding.

His involvement with Digital newspaper printing started in 2002 when he joined a fact finding group set up by Associated Newspapers to study the opportunities this new technology enabled for remote locations and personalization. In 2009, Miller Newsprint was set up and, in close collaboration with Kodak using Malta as a Beta site for the Digital newspaper segment. Today the Malta site prints some 50 International titles operating 7 days a week making the Malta Digital site the largest both in volume and title spread.

Miller is investing in various other Digital locations , with a JV, Hellenic Miller Newsprint just set up and started in Cyprus and a further three other locations to be announced shortly – all of which will run on Kodak VL units

 

Matthias Tietz

Matthias Tietz graduated in civil engineering (university), electrical and industrial engineer

From 1977 till 1988 he was commanding officer of the guidance troop and then went to work for ASV, Ahrensburg, as managing director, been responsible for activities at the mailroom department and inauguration of subsidiaries abroad, till 1993. On that year he joined LVDG, Leipzig as Technical Director, position he occupied till 1995 when he joined TMI Service GmbH, Ahrensburg as CEO of a media consultancy and service company.

Since 2001 he has been working for Rheinisch Bergische Druckerei GmbH & Co. KG as CEO and Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellschaft mbH; proxy, with special tasks within the range of processes in the publishing house

Mr Tietz was born in 1955, is married, and has 3 children

 

 

Thomas Unterberger

Thomas Unterberger was born on 19 July 1962 in Vienna

Studied Business Administration at Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

Experience of more than 20 years in different printing and publishing companies as chief financial officer.

 Joined Herold Druck in 2003 as CFO, also responsible for all holding companies (sheet feed printers, legal and scientific publishing companies, copy shops). Together 362 employees and € 73,4 Mio. sales in 2010.

Since 2006 also chief operating officer and responsible for the worldwide first implementation of UV-printing on a coldset printing machine in 2007 and the new Colorman XXL.

Herold is printing 3 daily newspaper from three different publisher (Die Presse (quality economic newspaper, 32-48 pages, many supplements), Wiener Zeitung (official newspaper of the Austrian government, every day 48 pages, small circulation of 50 thousand), Heute (biggest free newspaper in Austria. 5 times a week, circulation of 425 thousand copies only for Vienna)) and 54 weekly and monthly newspapers. Together Herold is printing 5 million newspapers per week, as a job – printer, owning no newspapers.

 

Frank Wagner  Frank Wagner was born on 28 may 1961.

He has worked for Axel Springer AG since 1990, starting as Production Organisation Specialist and since 2000 he is the Head of Finishing Department. A Human Resources Manager with responsibility for 9 white-collar and 82 blue-collar employees, he manages a budget for the finishing area with a total annual volume in the region of EUR 14.5 million from the production of about 1.1 million newspaper copies daily and 2.8 million freesheets weekly.

Project management for technical investments in the finishing area

• 2001 new addressing techniques for taking over the Handelsblatt print job

• 2004 installation of 2 additional inserting lines for Tagesspiegel

• 2010 installation of 2 more inserting lines for taking over Berliner Woche

Since 2008, he has been involved with the introduction and implementation of improvement projects of shift managers and technical personnel as well as application of TQM and TPM methods.

He has also been responsible for the introduction of process management methods in 2010 for planning and restructuring production processes