Name: Alexander Jan Brink
Born: 's-Hertogenbosch (The Netherlands), 12 October 1969

Education
Business Administration (MSc BA), Erasmus University Rotterdam

Career
Alexander Brink started as an independent management consultant in 1994. In 1996 he started at Coopers & Lybrand MCS (later PwC Consulting). In 2003, Alexander moved to IBM, where he initially held three executive management postions in IBM Europe - in strategic outsourcing for the IBM global account and in Finance.
From 2010 to 2018 he was Head of Science Alliances working directly for IBM Research in Switzerland and the United States. From that position, Alexander was in charge of a portfolio of large private-academic science alliances, in which IBM Research co-operates with both research organisations as well a private companies. He was Chair and coordinator of the six-year collaboration called 'the DOME Project' and the ASTRON & IBM Center for Exascale Technology. He held astatutory responsibility on behalf of IBM as penholder of the consortium. Moreover his alliance portfolio consisted of the Center for Humanities and Technology, for the development of cognitive computing, and of several innovation projects as part of the framework programme of the European Union.

In 2018, Alexander Brink founded ASCONA (formalised as a legal entity in January 2019). A company that supports strategic technology alliances between industry and applied science institutes. ASCONA provides advisory services to private companies, but also to universities and academic institutes. The alliances revolve around emerging technologies, either entirely new or in the subsequent technology validation phase.

Clients in the industry are private companies in the technology sector, including semiconductor fabrication and system integration, end user companies of technology and AI.

Alexander is co-founder in the creation of FAIR-DI eingetragener Verein. A Berlin based association under German law between institutes of the Max Planck Gesellschaft, the Helmholtz Gemeinschaft, and various other academic institutes, i.a. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, TU München and the Leibniz Institute for Chrystal Growth. Aim is to open up large scientific data repositories in the field of material sciences, using AI. 

Extracurricular administrative and supervisory positions
Alexander Brink has been on the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) Large Grants Committee (investments in large research infrastructures) between 2015 and 2018. He also served on the Supervisory Board of Het Groene Brein (The Green Brain), a scientific approach to the circular industry, with scientists as members.

 

Private life
Alexander Brink plays the piano and sings, with a preference for classical music. He has been an enthusiastic sailor for quite some years. Alexander lives in Santpoort-Zuid, The Netherlands and is a father of two.