Tech4Eva Conference 2025

Inge Herrmann is a chemical engineer with training in (pre)clinical research. After earning her PhD from ETH Zurich, she continued her training at the University Hospital Zurich, the University of Illinois, and Imperial College London.

Since 2015, she has led a research group at Empa focused on nanoscale materials and healthcare devices. In 2019, she joined ETH Zurich’s Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, where she leads the Nanoparticle Systems Engineering Lab.

Her expertise includes nanoparticle synthesis, spectromicroscopy, and translational nanomedicine. She advises spin-offs Hemotune, Anavo, and Veltist, and has received awards such as the Bayer Healthcare Award, the SNSF Eccellenza Grant, and the Empa Innovation Award. Her students have also received top scientific and entrepreneurial prizes. She serves on the ETH SFA Personalized Medicine board, is a member of Empa’s research commission, and leads several national and international projects supported by SNSF, PHRT, Novartis FreeNovation, and medical foundations.

Valentina is a leader of the Life Sciences Practice in Europe. With a PhD in modelling and simulation for optimal drug administration, since joining McKinsey Valentina has built broad experience working across strategy, innovation, analytics transformation, and organization –with a special interest in R&D. Valentina is a global co-leader of our Development service line, focused on helping clients bring medicines to patients faster, at lower cost while de-risking the path to market.

Her work with pharmaceutical clients has included:

• working with the president of a top oncology company to define its ten-year strategy and leadership plan.
• developing the first in industry analytics-driven transformation of clinical trials, leading to faster recruitment and lower spend
• supporting the leadership team of multiple Biotech companies scaling their operating model for growth.
• driving the integration preparation and post-close support for the largest industry portfolio swap across two major pharmaceutical companies.
• working with the research unit of a top-10 company on a ground-breaking model that harnessed external innovation to save 30 percent of costs.
• advising a major European company on its strategy for a novel oncology drug, including focus indications and a development pathway, prior to a multi-million-euro investment.

Valentina also leads our Women’s Health service line, which supports clients across different industries (Life Sciences, Providers, Public Health) on how to capture the potential of improving health outcomes for women.

Simone has 25+ years of event management, strategy, marketing, community and relationship building experience. She joined the EPFL Innovation Park team in 2020 to launch Tech4Eva in 2021 and she currently manages the Tech4Eva accelerator operations, events and community marketing.

For 16 years she built the brand/network of Tech Tour as their Managing Director leading the events team to implement 25+ tech events per year. She has a proven ability to set up well-oiled processes and leverage networks to open partnership opportunities to build a strong ecosystem by maximizing objectives and engaging all stakeholders (corporates, investors, academia, tech start-ups in all digital sectors).

Previously she worked for the University of NC in Chapel Hill, USA, implementing the new graduate student program. She also worked at SCIP as their global operations & marketing manager both in Alexandria, VA & in London, UK, where she opened and managed their branch office to establish their European presence, as well as overseeing all aspects of international conferences & tradeshows.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA. She is fluent in English, French & German.