Ron Osborn is currently a Principal Scientist for the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, at their Global Innovation Center in Chicago, IL. He is a member of the Scientific and Regulatory Affairs group and is primarily responsible for the Safety and Regulatory Compliance assessments of food contact materials. Additional responsibilities include safety evaluations of the seasonal add-on items marketed with Wrigley products and leading the development of Wrigley’s Packaging Compliance Management System. Prior to his current position, Ron had a successful 20 year career in the analytical laboratory.
Ms. Maxwell, Research Fellow in Corporate Scientific and Regulatory Affairs at Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. brings expertise in global finished foods labeling and claims as well as additives and flavors. Prior to Ocean Spray, she led the Scientific and Regulatory Affairs management function at Nestle USA responsible for all the retail/food service brands for North America. Her employment history includes Director-level global regulatory compliance group management at Cargill, Inc., Wild Flavors, Inc. as well as McCormick & Company and Givaudan where she describes her role as managing, motivating, coordinating and influencing multi-disciplinary functions to accomplish strategic business goals, anticipating regulatory obstacles/emerging issues throughout product lifecycle and developing solutions with other technical/commercial teams across global geographies (essentially herding cats!).
Ms. Maxwell is a proud graduate of University of Illinois – Champaign/Urbana with BS degree in Food Science and additional post graduate study in Carbohydrate Chemistry.
Always lively and engaging, Ms. Maxwell turns conventional wisdom on its ear using comprehensive data that offers a compelling look at new regulatory trends. Her insights are drawn in part from Washington DC colleagues, as well as her global network “cabinet” of industry professionals and the occasional bureaucrat.
Ms. Xiaolu Wang is a Senior Chemical Regulatory Compliance Consultant with Verisk 3E. Xiaolu has over eight years of experience working in the field of EHS compliance, focusing on regulatory compliance for consumer packaged goods (CPG), including food, food additives, food contact materials, cosmetics, and personal care products. Xiaolu is a frequent speaker at the Global Food Contact Conferences and serves as a member of the Advisory Board.
Xiaolu is a licensed attorney admitted to the bars of the State of New York, District of Columbia, and China. She is a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese and is fluent in English.
Mr. Kenny founded Decernis in 2003 and is an experienced regulatory attorney who has worked and consulted for 25 years in the food and consumer products space. He advises some of the world’s largest manufacturers on Food Additive, Food Contact and Supply Chain compliance challenges globally.
Mr. Kenny is responsible for both the regulatory content of Decernis products and its Subject Matter Expertise across the 226 countries Decernis covers. Beginning in January 2020, Mr. Kenny acted as Executive Director of Decernis’ recently expanded global advisory services team, having headed international consulting projects on four continents over two decades. In September 2020, he was named Senior Vice President of Managed Services at Decernis’ parent company, FoodChain ID, in addition to leading Decernis.
Alistair manages the Food Packaging Safety Section within Smithers. This involves advising clients on the safety legislation which applies to food packaging in a wide range of different countries throughout the world and coordinating work programmes to ensure that clients' products meet these requirements. His expertise spans all the EU countries, USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Russia and all the South American countries.
Alistair graduated with a degree and PhD in Chemistry from Birmingham University. After working for BP and the Department of Health, he joined Smithers in 1994, taking up his current position in 1995.
