After more than 5 years Dr. Ildikó Terebesi will hand over the role as INVITE Managing Director to new hands by end of the year 2025.
Effective as of January 1st, 2026, Carl-Helmut Coulon and Jan-Olav Henck will step into the leadership of INVITE as a Management Duo, who, through their many years of industry experience and extensive network on one hand, and their longstanding relationship to INVITE on the other, will jointly take on the management of INVITE with great enthusiasm and fresh ideas.
Dr. Silke Gotthardt (Bayer AG, Chair of INVITE´s Supervisory Board): “We thank Ildikó Terebesi for her dedication and pioneering contributions to INVITE over the past years and wish her all the best, both personally and professionally. We welcome Jan-Olav Henck and Carl-Helmut Coulon and wish them a good start and every success in their new role.”
Since earning his doctorate in Artificial Intelligence 28 years ago, Dr. Carl-Helmut Coulon has been supporting the chemical-pharmaceutical industry with technology and innovation. After joining Bayer AG in 1997 in the area of Production-IT he has led teams in logistics automation, operational excellence, and supply chain consulting. With the mission of accelerating the use of modern robotics in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry, he has been developing Robotics as an Innovation Center at INVITE since 2016. In a Europe-wide network of user companies, academia, and solution providers, he collaborates with INVITE to bridge the gap between rapidly evolving technologies - particularly in artificial intelligence and robotics - and the applications needed in the industry.
Dr. Jan-Olav Henck is a globally experienced executive with over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical research, development, and production, including positions in Big Pharma, generics, and CDMOs in Europe, the USA, and Asia. He has served as Chief Scientific Officer at SPIMACO in Saudi Arabia, Senior Vice President at Syngene International in India, Vice President at Bayer AG and Chief Scientific Officer at Aptuit Inc. in US, where he led teams, developed product portfolio strategies, and drove innovations in formulation, analytics, and manufacturing. Jan-Olav earned a PhD in Physical Chemistry following his studies in Chemistry. As a member of executive teams, he has focused on a results-oriented combination of scientific depth and strategic leadership to achieve sustainable growth and market leadership.