Alexander J. Brink

Founder & Managing Director, ASCONA

Alexander Jan Brink (’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands - 1969) is an innovation strategist and executive with a career spanning consulting, technology, and science alliances.

In 2018 Alexander founded ASCONA, a company that builds and manages strategic technology alliances between industry and leading research institutes. ASCONA operates at the intersection of emerging technologies, advanced manufacturing, and AI, supporting companies in semiconductor fabrication, systems integration, transport, and maritime industries. 

From within ASCONA, Alexander is currently active at ASML in Global Manufacturing Innovation, where he focuses on funding partnerships, driving innovation, and shaping a governance structure for innovation as a member of the agenda committee.

Before ASCONA
After graduating in Business Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Alexander began his career as a management consultant at Coopers & Lybrand (later PwC Consulting). In 2003 he moved to IBM, where he held several European executive positions. From 2010 to 2018 he headed Finance & Grants and later Science Alliances at IBM Research in Switzerland and the United States, managing a portfolio of more than sixty global research collaborations. For six and a half years he chaired the DOME Project at the ASTRON & IBM Center for Exascale Technology in a statutory position for IBM and oversaw its strategic alliances in areas such as cognitive computing, low power compute technology in both fully bespoke and EU innovation programmes - including the public-private financing of those.

Also in 2018 and together with Max Planck Director (theoretical physicist) Matthias Scheffler, he founded FAIR-DI e.V., a Berlin-based association opening scientific data repositories in material sciences with partners including the Max Planck Society, Helmholtz Association, and major universities.

Beyond his professional activities, Alexander has served four years on the NWO Large Grants Committee and on the Supervisory Board of Het Groene Brein, an association fostering science for the circular economy.

Personal
A lifelong enthusiast for classical music and sailing, he lives in Kennemerland, The Netherlands. Father of a son and a daughter.