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John Kalkowski is the Editorial Director of Packaging Digest and Converting magazines, two of the leading magazines for the packaging industry and part of the Reed Business Information group. John's previous editorial experience includes serving as a managing editor, executive editor, copy editor and reporter for magazines and newspapers in Arizona, Florida, New York, Nebraska and Hong Kong. His work as a journalist has been recognized by a number of organizations including the Arizona Newspaper Association, the National Press Photographers Association and the Small Business Administration. John also brings experience in media production, and earlier in his career was a production manager for major media organizations including Knight-Ridder and Scripps-Howard, handling printing and distribution operations. John comes to Reed most immediately from Sun Chemical, where, as North American Marketing Manager, he led the company's marketing and public relations efforts. In that capacity, John was actively involved in both the packaging and converting markets. Before that, he worked in the paper industry as technical service director for Canadian papermaker Abitibi Consolidated. John has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska, an MBA from the Thunderbird School of International Management and a graduate certificate in e-Business strategy from the University of Chicago. John was also a Rotary Journalism Fellow in the Yale-in-China program and is proficient in spoken Mandarin. John lives in Lombard, IL with his wife, Diane, and two teen-age sons, Andrew and David

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Michael Rubenstein, Chief Growth and Innovation Officer, Alcan Packaging, leads a team dedicated to help deliver the organization's strategy to create sustainable value through innovation, customer partnerships and new growth platforms. Under his umbrella are four main growth drivers: Sustainability, Marketing and Customer Partnership Development, Innovation and Marketing Communications. Alcan Packaging is a $6.5 billion world leader in specialty packaging, delivering innovative solutions to customers around the world with 131 facilities and 29,000 employees in 31 countries.

Michael has held several other senior management positions in the packaging industry. Prior to his present role, he was President of Alcan's Global Pharmaceutical Packaging sector, a $1 billion global organization, with 31 plants and 4,500 employees. His 30 years experience are complemented with studies in Printing Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY) and an immersion in World Class Partnerships at Duke University (Durham, NC). He holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). In 2009, he was named by PrintAction Magazine as one of Canada's 50 Most Influential People in Graphic Communications.

Michael serves as the Vice-Chairman of Supersibs!, a non-profit organization which supports and honours siblings of children with cancer, based in Chicago

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Susan E. Selke is Associate Director of the School of Packaging at Michigan State University, where she has been a faculty member for 26 years. She holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from Michigan State. Her research interests include environmental impacts of packaging; sustainability; plastics recycling; biodegradable and biobased plastics; composites of plastics with natural fibers; life cycle assessment; nanotechnology and packaging, and other areas. She has authored or coauthored several books on packaging materials and on packaging and environmental issues, as well as over 150 articles and book chapters. Courses she teaches include plastics packaging, packaging materials, packaging and the environment, stability and recycling of packaging materials, and analytical solutions to packaging design.

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Victor Bell is President of Environmental Packaging International (EPI), a consultancy specializing in global environmental packaging and product stewardship requirements. Mr. Bell, who founded EPI in 1998, is a Certified Packaging Professional with more than 20 years of experience with environmental issues associated with packaging and products. EPI has provided assistance to major companies worldwide in the electronics, retail, toy, soft drink, cosmetics, medical, and general merchandise industries. Mr. Bell has served on the Executive Committee of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition.
Mr. Bell has MMA (Marine Affairs) and BS (Natural Resource) degrees from the University of Rhode Island and an MS (Urban and Environmental Studies) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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Andy Sweetman graduated from the University of Southampton with a degree in Modern Languages and holds the Diploma in Packaging Technology from the UK Institute of Packaging. He has worked in the packaging industry for 20 years principally in the field of sales and marketing management, based in both the UK and continental Europe.

Over the past 10 years he has been closely involved with the development and commercialisation of Innovia's range of renewable and compostable films, marketed under the NatureFlex™ tradename.

In April this year Andy became Chairman of 'European Bioplastics' the official Trade Association which promotes the use of biodegradable and sustainable materials throughout Europe.