Dr Jan van Loosdrecht joined the CSIR in October 2019 as the Executive Manager for the Future Production: Chemicals cluster. In this role, he is responsible for providing strategic direction, financial sustainability, capability development, performance, operations and governance within the cluster, in line with the trends, opportunities and needs of the chemicals and related industries, and in line with the CSIR strategy, vision and mission.

Prior to joining the CSIR, he was the acting Vice President for Strategic Research and Technology at Sasol Group Technology. He has extensive experience in leadership, research and development, strategy development, stakeholder management, commercialisation and intellectual property management.

Jan was a part-time Industrial Fellow at Eindhoven University of Technology from 2010 to 2015, and has (co-)authored about 50 publications, patents and book chapters. He holds a PhD in inorganic chemistry from Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

He currently serves on the board of the Technology Innovation Agency, in Pretoria.