Mr. Robert Kirschbaum (57) graduated from the Technical University of Delft (The Netherlands) as a Chemical Engineer in 1977. His career with DSM consists of more than 30 years fostering various innovations (fibers like Dyneema, films and plastics like Stanyl) up to full commercialization.

From 1997, Rob was in charge of the DSM New Business Development Corporation.

In this Corporate “Incubator” several early phase commercial activities and new ventures were combined to grow into sustainable businesses. In 2006 the NBD Corporation was integrated into the DSM Innovation Center.

Until 2009 he fullfilled the role of Vice President Innovation, focusing on the DSM cluster of Performance Materials. Recently he was assigned as VP Open Innovation of DSM.