Prof. Dr. Gesa Beck is founder and managing director of ABCircular GmbH. She is an expert in environmental process engineering, specialising in green chemistry recycling of complex waste and holistic sustainability assessments in line with the EU framework ‘Safe and Sustainable by Design’ (SSbD). She has been working in research and development since 1997 and has more than 15 years of experience in managing projects and teams.

Her scientific training in solid-state electrochemistry – with diploma and doctoral theses on batteries and fuel cells – forms the basis for her current applied research, particularly in the development of electrochemical recycling processes for photovoltaic modules and other electronic waste.

Prof. Beck currently works 60% of the time at SRH Universities (Berlin campus), where she is Vice-Academic Director of Research & Transfer and Professor of Environmental Process Engineering, heading the Institute for Applied Resource Strategies (IARS). At the same time, she contributes 40% of her expertise to ABCircular GmbH, where she is responsible for strategy, technology development and sustainability assessment.

Previously, she held professorships and management positions at the Fraunhofer Application Centre for Resource Efficiency, the Technical University of Aschaffenburg and the University of Augsburg, among others. In her management role at Fraunhofer, she received comprehensive training in management, modern leadership methods and strategic financial planning – skills that she now applies specifically to her entrepreneurial activities.

She has a Europe-wide network and is internationally visible in professional circles – particularly through her active role in science policy and standardisation. She was head of the DIN working group ‘Life Cycle & Sustainability Assessment’ and regularly acts as an expert for national and international funding institutions, including the DFG, EU, BMBF, DBU and the Volkswagen Foundation. As part of the European Green Deal programme, she was also directly involved in the scientific evaluation and further development of the SSbD framework.

As the initiator and head of the DGM Technical Committee on Circular Materials, she actively shapes the technical debate on the circular economy at leading international conferences, including EUROMAT and MSE. In addition, she is the editor of scientific journals and a member of renowned professional associations such as the German Society for Materials Science (DGM) and the German Bunsen Society (DBG).