Member Tag: Advisor
Troels Prahl

Troels Prahl
Troels Prahl holds a degree in biotechnology from the University of Copenhagen, where he specialized in fermentation science. Since the early 2000s, Troels has dedicated his working life to brewing and fermentation science and its application in Europe, UK, and USA. Troels has worked closely with White Labs, a fermentation leader, on yeast research and project management since 2007. He has presented at major technical conferences and taught technical classes with renowned brewing science schools, such as Siebel Institute and the Scandinavian School of Brewing in Copenhagen. Troels was also recognized as an award-winning head brewer during his time at London’s Camden Town Brewery. In 2014, Troels relocated from California back to Denmark, where he is the managing director of White Labs Copenhagen, while also serving as VP of Innovation in the mother corporation. White Labs Copenhagen is a satellite production and lab facility servicing the European market’s yeast and fermentation needs.
Louis Monier

Louis Monier
Dr Louis Monier is a Silicon-Valley based computer scientist who is widely recognized for his contribution to search, machine learning and data mining. Louis received a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Paris XI, France and worked at Carnegie Mellon University, Xerox PARC, and DEC’s Western Research Laboratory before founding the Internet search engine AltaVista in 1995.
After AltaVista, Louis served as Co-Founder and CTO of Qwiki, which was sold to Yahoo in 2010. Since then, Louis has been a Venture Advisor to Wellington Partners, acting as Chief Scientist or Chief Technology Officer to big data and AI companies, including Proximic (acquired by ComScore), Onfido and Import.IO as well as serving as head of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at AirBnB in San Francisco. He joined Astanor as advisor in 2018.
Elisabeth Fleuriot

Elisabeth Fleuriot
Elisabeth Fleuriot has extensive experience as an executive in FMCG multinationals companies in Europe, USA, and Asia and as a non-executive board member in blue chips multinational companies. A French native, she has served 20+ years as President & CEO in global food companies including Danone, Yoplait, Kellogg’s, and Thai Union. She has work in both developed and emerging markets and has experience driving innovation-led organic growth and acquisitions. She is also passionate about sustainability and team diversity. Her non-executive board experience includes roles with Carlsberg, Stora Enso (global leader in renewable tree-based materials), and G4S (leading global integrated security company). At G4S, she is also Chairman of the Corporate and Social Responsibility Committee. She joined Astanor Ventures as an advisor in 2018 and the Ynsect Board in 2019. Since September 20, she has been Chair of Ynsect Board . She holds a BA in Economy, Finance, and Marketing from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and an MA in Economic Sciences from Paris Assas University
Christopher Haatuft

Christopher Haatuft
In 2001, Christopher Haatuft came into cooking from a food writer’s angle. At 21, he had a double spread in one of Norway’s main papers (Bergens Tidende), writing about food. Here he would explore local and exotic recipes and the stories behind them. Parallel with food writing, Christopher was asked to be the chef at a bar/restaurant. With unbridled enthusiasm and criminal arrogance, he jumped on the project, thinking “How hard can it be?”. The restaurant failed and Christopher joined an apprenticeship program. From there he took the vocation seriously and worked through the restaurants of his home town of Bergen, moving on to Paris as the head chef at the Norwegian Embassy before ending in New York in 2010. There he worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns as well as 3 Michelin Per Se. He moved back to Bergen in 2013 and opened Lysverket the same year.
He continues with the odd bit of food writing, and is one of Norway’s leading culinary voices on sustainability, ecology, politics, tradition, progression and internationalization within the culinary profession. Haatuft is also the host of the Norwegian tv-show “Mitt Kjøkken Ruler”, adapted from the Australian format “My Kitchen Rules”.
Through Lysverket’s success, Haatuft has traveled extensively representing Lysverket, Western Norway and Norwegian cuisine in general. Through the last couple of years, Haatuft has cooked at Feast Portland, for the James Beard Foundation, for Norwegian Embassies and tourism offices in Germany and France and of course at friends’ restaurants in places like Paris, London and Miami.
Bruno Verjus

Bruno Verjus
Bruno Verjus is the Chef/Owner of Michelin-starred Table Restaurant. Bruno was born in Roanne in the Loire, a town known for its strong culinary culture and the bounty of its wilderness.
Bruno created and directed the Premium Group for 18 years. He then began writing books for Gallimard, while also contributing to guides including Le Fooding, Omnivore, le Magazine de Cinéma et d’Art, 3 Couleurs, et Au Quotidien, and his own blog, Food Intelligence and had a weekly radio show on France Culture called “on ne parle pas la bouche pleine” (“Don’t Talk with Your Mouth Full’’).
In 2013, Bruno launched the restaurant Table in Paris, where one can feast on pure flavors while providing producers the assurance of absolute respect of their products. Table sources only seasonally available products from French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish and Scottish sustainable producers.
David Zilber

David Zilber
David Zilber is a chef, fermentation specialist, and photographer who hails from Toronto, Canada. David has cooked from coast to coast across North America, and around the world for almost 20 years. He also spent 6 years working at Restaurant Noma, in Copenhagen from 2014 to 2020. There, he quickly joined the Fermentation Lab, where as its director from 2016 to 2020 he helped push Noma’s innovation forward in the worlds of both gastronomy and fermentation. In his time there, he co-authored The Noma Guide to Fermentation, a book that garnered global accolades and became a New York Times Bestselling cookbook.
Xavier Prats Monné

Xavier Prats Monné
Xavier Prats Monné is an international consultant on public policy, education and European affairs. He is the Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives of the Open University of Catalonia, Special Advisor of Teach For All (a global non-profit organization whose mission is to expand educational opportunity around the world), and Board member of several non-profit organizations. Until 2018 he worked at the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, where he served most recently as Director-General for Health and Food Safety and previously as Director-General for Education and Culture and founding member of the Impact Assessment Board among other senior roles. He is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Catalan. He joined Astanor as an advisor in October 2020.
Roy Horgan

Roy Horgan
Roy Horgan grew up within a fourth-generation family food business in Cork, Ireland and began his career in corporate banking. By 2006, Roy managed and invested a portfolio of c.€2bn located throughout Europe and North America.
In 2008 at 29 he co-founded a dye sensitised solar cell firm, SolarPrint, which specialised in the development of self-powered indoor sensors. In 2013 Roy founded MarketHub Technologies Limited, a data analytics software business using dynamic pricing to help retailers break the cycle of unprofitable discounting, manage stock allocation and reduce food waste.
In 2017, MarketHub was acquired by the digital pricing company SES-imagotag plc (SESL). Roy is currently CEO of SES-imagotag plc for the UK & Ireland and sits on the group executive committee. From their R&D Centre in Cork, MarketHub is currently commercialising a concept called the “Self Learning Store ™️.
Roy holds a B.Sc. in Business and Finance, a Diploma in Stockbroking and a Diploma in International Selling.
Mark Emil Hermansen

Mark Emil Hermansen
Mark Emil Hermansen is the co-founder of Empirical, a groundbreaking flavor company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Empirical applies scientific and culinary innovations to beverages, food products and beyond. Previously, he was Concept Manager at Noma and Head of Development at MAD, the non-profit founded by noma chef René Redzepi. He holds a degree in social anthropology from Oxford University, with a focus on the notion of terroir.