Vice-President Research & Development, Unilever.

Isabelle Esser is currently the Vice-President Research & Development for the Savoury category at Unilever. She is directly responsible for R&D of the global innovation portfolio and the current existing business leading teams across the world. As such, she defines and proposes the R&D strategy for the Category and ensures its execution. She sits on the Global Executive Board for the Category. At the beginning of 2009, she took additional responsibilities in the area of Fragrance. She is responsible for building and strengthening the Fragrance Expertise within Unilever.

She previously held different positions in R&D covering Home and Personal Care categories. She started in Unilever in 1992 as a scientist at Port Sunlight Research Laboratory, UK, after obtaining her PhD in Chemistry from Birmingham University, UK and graduating as a Ingénieur Civil en Sciences des Matériaux, Physique at Louvain-La-Neuve University, Belgium. She is also the diversity champion within R&D; she is passionate about Women in Science and how to foster and bring diversity within Technical functions.

Esser spoke about Maximising potential of gender equality in industrial R&D in Session B2: COLLABORATIVE STRENGTH Working better as teams at the Gender Summit 1 Europe (GS1Eu).