Jen Vanderhoven

Jen is the COO of the Biobased and Biodegradable Industries Association (BBIA) - a Trade Association, with a mission to help the UK achieve Net Zero while driving economic growth. Bio-based and biodegradable materials are at the heart of this transformation, paving the way for sustainable industries and green growth.

The BBIA exists to champion the industrial bioeconomy to accelerate the development and adoption of bio-based and biodegradable materials and products through advocacy, collaboration, and education. We do this to reduce the impact of human consumption on the planet.

Jen graduated from The University of Sheffield, with a first-class Masters of Biological Sciences in 2004 and a PhD in Biochemistry in 2007. She is a commercially astute and strategically influential leader, with a result focused approach to enabling strategic and operational plan delivery. With a 20-plus year progressive career spanning both higher education and the commercial sector, Jen has held roles in research and development, sales and marketing, business development, and business change and transformation.

 Throughout her career, Jen has led and successfully executed a wide portfolio of transformational projects dedicated to both internal and external engagement including public relations, development, government liaison and organisational development.

Before joining the BBIA, Jen was the Director of the National Horizons Centre (NHC), a UK centre of excellence for the bioindustry, where she was responsible for leading its development as a national centre of excellence for the life sciences sector, representing the centre nationally and globally. She was accountable for developing and delivering the centre’s 5-year strategic plan, ensuring its research, training and commercial successes, including all aspects of engagement, developing strategic partnerships, and marketing and communications.

Previously to this, Jen was the Global Vice President of Business Change at FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies (FDB), sitting on their Global Executive Leadership Team, where she was responsible for the execution of the company growth strategy, innovation strategy, and business change portfolio, ensuring the company met its global vision, mission and challenging business objectives – being accountable for a portfolio of transformational change projects worth in excess of £500m, actively pursuing opportunities for alignment, efficiencies and organisational sustainability. During this time, she also led the Integration Management Office for the Merger and Acquisition of an $870M business.

Jen is an invited member of the Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum, which provides strategic coordination of the UK’s fast growing Industrial Biotechnology sector, with participants from industry, the research community, public access scale-up facilities, funding agencies, government and other key stakeholders. She also sits on the UKRI BBSRC Follow-on-fund committee, UKRI BBSRC People and Talent Strategic Advisory Panel, and in 2017, authored the UK National Industrial Biotechnology Strategy to 2030.

Her expert business and leadership skills have been recognised several times, for example, in 2021 she was nominated for the Tees Businesswoman of the Year Award, and the Northern Power Women award as a ‘Disruptor for Good’.