Top 100 Global Innovators

Rob Cox
Editor, Breakingviews
Moderator

Rob Cox is Editor of Reuters Breakingviews, a position he assumed in January 2013. Breakingviews, which was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2009, delivers agenda-setting insight on the day’s big financial stories as they break in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. As editor of Breakingviews, Rob is responsible for a team of 30 columnists in New York, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Washington and Dubai.

Rob helped establish Breakingviews in 2000 as one of its founding editors. From 2004, he spearheaded the firm’s expansion in the United States and since then has edited its American edition. He was also a Breakingviews director before the company was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2009. Rob has operated as a financial journalist in London, Milan, New York, Washington, Chicago and Tokyo and his work has appeared in leading publications including the New York Times, Newsweek, Fortune and the Wall Street Journal.

Bill Coughlin
President & CEO,
Ford Global Technologies LLC

Bill Coughlin started out as an electrical engineer working in a research lab developing batteries for electric vehicles. He went on to become a partner at Harness, Dickey & Pierce, and later Chief Patent Counsel at Chrysler. He also worked for a while in Stuttgart for DaimlerChrysler as its IP legal chief. Today, Bill is the President and CEO of Ford Global Technologies, where he is responsible for all intellectual property matters worldwide for Ford Motor and its subsidiaries. Bill is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Intellectual Property Owners Association and an adjunct professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in its LLM program for IP.

Sandrine Gadol
Chief Innovation Officer
L'Oréal USA

Sandrine Gadol was appointed to the newly-created role of Chief Innovation Officer in February 2013, reporting to Jacques Challes, Global Chief Innovation Officer for the L'Oréal Group and Eric Bône, Senior Vice President for Research & Innovation, L'Oréal USA.

As Chief Innovation Officer Ms. Gadol is responsible with her team for working to discover and understand new consumer needs, insights and long-term trends in the marketplace to feed the L'Oréal pipeline of innovation. She works with the Research & Innovation (R&I) and Packaging innovation teams to focus on identifying the next beauty frontiers and focus on key strategic battlefields.

The goal is to help fuel and accelerate L'Oréal's growth as the company continues to be a leader in the beauty industry.

In her new position Ms. Gadol works with the company's four Divisions which includes Consumer Products (mass,) Luxury Products (prestige,) Professional Products (salons,) and Active Cosmetics (dermatologist offices, medi-spas.)

Ms. Gadol began her career with the L'Oréal Group in Paris in 1994, in the communications department of the Consumer Products Division (CPD.) Following that, she held various marketing positions with Garnier and in 2000 was appointed as head of Global Marketing for Garnier Skincare. She was responsible for reshaping the brand and developing its skincare portfolio into new categories while expanding its reach globally. Three years later, Ms. Gadol was promoted to Head of Global Marketing for La Roche-Posay, where she was charged with accelerating internationally the brand's growth and revamping its positioning and portfolio while remaining true to its dermatological heritage.

In 2006, Ms. Gadol came to the US as Vice President on skincare for the L'Oréal Paris brand. Soon after, she was promoted to Senior Vice President and charged to create the first Global Marketing US hub for L'Oréal Paris, the largest/ biggest L'Oréal brand, spearheading the development of products for the US and for the world across all category segments. This resulted in among other things, the 2013 launch of L'Oréal Paris Advanced Haircare, one of the most successful introductions in the beauty industry this year.

Mick Sawka
Head of Business Development
Harvard University

Mick Sawka is currently the Director of Business Development and the CEO of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Accelerator Fund at Harvard University. In these roles, Mick works with faculty in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Biology, Molecular and Cell Biology and Physics to launch start-ups and to develop and license technologies in the areas of bio/chemicals, energy, electronics, nanotechnology, specialty materials and tissue engineering. Prior to joining Harvard, Mick led global business units and R&D organizations with full P&L and IP portfolio responsibilities at 3M, Cabot, and Microbia (acquired by DSM), most recently serving as the President and CEO of Qteros, an industrial biotechnology startup. Mick is an inventor on several patents and holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University, an MS in Chemical Engineering from MIT and a Masters in International Management from the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota.