Speaker

Bruce Atherley has served as Executive Director of Cotton Council International (CCI) since October 1, 2015.

CCI is the export promotions arm of the National Cotton Council of America (NCC). Headquartered in Washington, DC, and with a reach extending to more than 50 countries through 17 offices worldwide, CCI uses trade services and consumer promotion activities to increase exports of U.S. cotton fiber, manufactured cotton goods and cottonseed in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Central and South America.

Mr. Atherley has a long and successful track record in global marketing and management. He previously served as Vice President, Global Marketing for Kao, Inc., a Tokyo-based global manufacturer of personal care and household products. He also worked for the William Wrigley Jr. Company, serving as its Vice President of North American Confections Marketing, President and General Manager of Wrigley Canada and Managing Director, Global Branding Services.  Prior to Wrigley, he served as Vice President of Retail Marketing for the H.J. Heinz Company, President and CEO of Pet Life, Inc., Marketing Director, Black and Decker and Product Manager, Cheerios for General Mills Inc.

Mr. Atherley is also an Adjunct Instructor of Marketing at the University of Cincinnati and is a co-chair of the Advisory Board for the Marketing Department.

Mr. Atherley earned a B.S. in Accounting from Bucknell University where he graduated cum laude, and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Administration.

Dean Ethridge is Director of the Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute of Texas Tech University.  He earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley and has previously held positions at the University of Georgia and at Texas A&M University.  His research programs have encompassed most aspects of the cotton and textile sectors.  He also served as Director of Economic Services for the National Cotton Council of America and as director of cotton research and investment for a corporation.  He served as a Presidential appointee to the position of Deputy Administrator for Policy Analysis within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and has provided international research and consultation in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Dr. Thomas Fischer is Deputy Director of the are Management Area within the DITF (GERMAN INSTITUTES OF TEXTILE AND FIBER RESEARCH DENKENDORF). His research comprises Textile 4.0 (digitization of the textile supply chain) and the resulting topics of innovation, production, business models and sustainability. He is conceptualizing and coordinating national and international research projects in the above-mentioned areas.

After his diploma in technical cybernetics he worked with a Marie Curie scholarship of the EU in Italy and did research on his PhD (innovation processes and multistage supply chain) which he continued at the DITF. Since 2017 he is deputy director of the Management Research team (19 persons). His work focuses on Textile 4.0, big/smart data, knowledge based systems, innovation management and sustainability.

Milan Kelch is a scientific co-worker at the Biological Materials Group within the City University of applied Sciences Bremen. He studied Biomimetics and Production Engineering with a focus on Material Science. His main research objectives are bio-based fibre-reinforced composites as an alternative to conventional composite materials.

Armin Leder, started his apprenticeship as a machine fitter at Trützschler in 1979, has been working in development as a mechanical engineer since 1987 and is now Head of R&D since 2006.

Franziska Stehle is a research associate at the department of Fibre and Material Development at the Faserinstitut Bremen e.V.. Her main field of research is renewable thermoplastic composites with cotton. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Textile Product Technology-Technical Textiles. She entered the Faserinstitut Bremen e.V. under a corporate sponsorship of the Bremen Cotton Exchange.

Dr. Alex Thomasson is Professor and Endowed Chairholder in Cotton Engineering, Ginning, and Mechanization in Texas A&M University’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.  He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.  Dr. Thomasson received his bachelor’s degree from Texas Tech University, his master’s degree from Louisiana State University, and his doctor’s degree from University of Kentucky.  He has researched remote and proximal sensing – essentially on-farm data collection – for over 30 years.  He is a recognized expert in the engineering aspects of cotton production and processing, precision agriculture, sensors, data analytics, and agricultural robotics.

Eugen Weinberg joined Commerzbank in 2007 as Senior Commodity Analyst. Today, as the Head of Commodity Research, he is responsible for Commerzbank’s Commodity Research products and provides with his team price analyses and forecasts for Commerzbank’s financial partners and corporate clients.

Michael Alt has been part of Commerzbank’s Commodities team since January 2007. Together with his team, he is responsible for the advisory of corporate clients in the commodities space and for the distribution of risk management solutions in the Base and Precious Metals, Energy and Carbon as well as Agricultural sectors.

In their presentation, Eugen Weinberg and Michael Alt from Commerzbank AG give an overview of what drives the commodities markets and provide an outlook for Cotton. They also address implications on market participants and discuss risk management solutions. In case you are interested to learn more or would like to receive a copy of the presentation, please contact Eugen Weinberg or Michael Alt directly.