Jaco Fok

Netherlands

Chief Innovation at OMV Petrom

Jaco is Chief Innovation at OMV Petrom, where he is driving the change towards a more innovative and digitally dextrous company with a healthy portfolio of new business options.

He was brought into Shell in 2012 to help make the transition towards a more Open Innovation approach. Next to re-invigorating the already successful departments GameChanger (Radical early stage innovation) and External Technology Coordination (University collaborations), Jaco has set up internal innovation networks and designed an innovation learning program to drive culture change. Most remarkable was building Shell TechWorks, a new-to-the-industry high tech engineering outfit that maximizes the use of external technologies in a ‘skunkworks’ approach for the lean and rapid development of new solutions for Shell.

Royal DSM is a global science-based company active in health, nutrition and materials, where Jaco has made a valuable difference in 4 very different businesses during his 23 year career with that company. Most recently Jaco was VP Business Incubator at DSM as well as Director of the DSM China Innovation Centre, where he built and inspired global business development teams to create new significant business outside the DSM running business scope. As member of the DSM Innovation Council, he was driving the DSM change from operational excellence to innovation excellence with marketing as personal specialism. While leading as Business Unit Director and Innovation Director at DSM Dyneema his teams achieved strong growth and showed a steady hand in years of global financial crisis.