Dr. Michiel Kolman is Senior VP of Information Industry Relations at Elsevier and former President of the International Publishers Association. Since joining Elsevier in 1995, he has held various core publishing roles in Amsterdam and Tokyo. He launched one of the first online journals in the industry in 1996: New Astronomy. Michiel was Managing Director in Frankfurt, Germany. For 10 years, he spearheaded academic relations for Elsevier, building up a global network of ambassadors engaged in strategic discussions with research leaders. Today he continues to engage with research and government leaders in his role as Academic Ambassador.

Prior to Elsevier, he worked for Wolters Kluwer in a division that is now part of Springer Nature. He holds a degree from Leiden University in the Netherlands and a PhD in astrophysics from Columbia University in New York, where he studied with a Fulbright scholarship.

Michiel serves on the board of the Accessible Books Consortium that aims to make books available for the visually impaired. He also joined the board of the Workplace Pride Foundation supporting LGBTI workplace inclusion. He is the executive sponsor of Elsevier Pride and was listed two years in a row in the FT's  Top 100 ranking of most influential LGBT senior executives.