New speakers announced for Asia CanTech

Mark Davies

Newly announced speakers from the Ardagh Group and Crown Packaging have joined the lineup for Asia CanTech Vietnam 2011.

Robert Zanetto, business development director Metal-Asia for Ardagh Group, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker.

Mark Davies, business interface manager Asia Pacific for Crown Packaging, has also been lined up to give a keynote address.

With an Italian father, an English wife and as a French national based in Hong Kong, Zanetto is naturally geared towards worldwide operations. After receiving a master’s in aeronautics and a first job working for Dassault as an aeronautical engineer, he joined a small metal packaging company in 1987.

He then moved to White Cap, a worldwide leader for metal caps, and was in charge of sales for the main food customers in France. He went on to join Impress in 2001 as key account manager for Asia and was based in Paris for seven years.

With business continuing to develop, he was asked to set up the Ardagh Hong Kong office at the end of 2008 as business development director for Asia to further expand Ardagh’s presence in Asia.

As well as supervising operations in Japan (office in Tokyo and pet food plant in Nagahama), he was a key player in the creation of Ardagh Korea in 2009, and the signing of an agreement with the Dongwon Group to lease part of its production space for the production of food cans for canned meat, fitted with Easy Peel foil lidding.

In June 2009, Ardagh (formerly Impress) signed a joint venture Royal Ardagh (with Royal Can Industries Co Ltd in Thailand) to start the production and sale of food cans.

Involved today in building up strong, future assets in the area, Zanetto is currently exploring the new metal packaging opportunities in China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam with a specific focus on their promising seafood activities.

Davies has more than 20 years experience in packaging development gained whilst working for the technology division of Crown Packaging at Wantage, UK.

His current role is the business interface manager for the Asia Pacific region. This has the objective of developing and transferring technology in support of Crown’s new and existing operations in the region as well as contributing to the strategic development of new markets.

Prior to this role he has been involved in the development of novel processes and materials related to both two and three-piece can manufacture and, more recently, has managed Crown’s Process Monitoring group. In this role he led the development of the Integra in-line double seam monitoring system which is now becoming an industry standard in seam quality assurance.

Mark’s original degree was in Chemistry from the University of Bath but he subsequently obtained a Diploma in Business Studies as well as electronics related qualifications from the Open University.

Gihan Atapattu, president of Ball Asia Pacific, is the other keynote speaker confirmed for the event which is taking place from 17-19 October at the Rex Hotel, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

For further information visit www.asia-can.com or contact Chrissy Payne on +44 (0)1474 532202. Alternatively email [email protected].

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