‘Not doing a PhD? You’re throwing your career away’

When Monique Wekking graduated in 2002, academically trained chemists were expected to go on to do a doctorate. A master’s degree alone counted for nothing. And anyone who harboured ambitions outside academia was quickly branded a failed scientist. ‘When I turned down two PhD offers after my master’s, my thesis supervisor said literally: “Monique, you’re throwing your career away.”‘ Two years later they ran into each other by chance, and he repeated his earlier remark. ‘I genuinely stopped and thought: have I failed?’

Wekking knew that the lab was not her place. She built a career in innovation and business development, including at Syntens and TNO. But, she is quick to stress: ‘You can’t do my job if molecular structures make you nervous.’ Her chemical knowledge still forms the foundation of her day-to-day work.

Aromatics

In 2014, Wekking became involved as a senior business developer in a TNO project on making aromatics more sustainable — at the time, a barely explored field. Aromatics are essential in countless products, including coatings and adhesives. These materials are derived from fossil raw materials and are generally difficult to recycle. ‘An adhesive is designed to bond materials firmly together and must last for years. The last thing you want in that case is for something to be biodegradable. There is a great deal of attention on recycling, but you also have to accept that certain products are simply not suited to being recycled.’ That is why, in her view, it is essential to reduce environmental impact in other ways — for instance by making the raw materials more sustainable.

‘That was the moment I thought: there’s a real opportunity here’

TNO therefore worked together with knowledge institutions and industry partners to map out how aromatics could be produced from plant-based material (see also C2W | Mens & Molecule 03 2025). The solution lay in hemicellulose extracted from sugarcane: the sugar goes to the food industry, but the residual material — bagasse — forms the basis for sustainable functional aromatics. These bio-based aromatics are structurally very similar to their fossil-derived counterparts, but differ in subtle ways. That is where Wekking saw potential. ‘It means you can improve coatings, for example. Think enhanced hardness.’

And that matters, because according to Wekking, a sustainability label alone is a difficult sell. It is precisely the combination of sustainability and functional added value that provides a solid foundation for a viable business. ‘That was the moment I thought: there’s a real opportunity here. Let’s just go for it. If we don’t do it now, who will?’ On the back of this technology, a patent portfolio was developed. In 2020, that led to the founding of Relement — the world’s first company to bring plant-based functional aromatics to market.

Outsourcing

From the outset, Relement opted for a lean-and-mean strategy: minimal overhead and maximum efficiency. ‘We have no factories of our own and no laboratory of our own. We outsource everything. In the chemical industry, that’s simply not done,’ says Wekking. ‘But we believe things can be done differently, and we hope to inspire other start-ups in the process.’ Rather than producing in-house, Relement chose to collaborate with Solvay (now Syensqo). ‘There you work with people who have both lab and factory expertise. They genuinely engaged with how we could get our technology ready for industrial scale-up and production. That’s a far cry from just tinkering away with glassware.’

‘Certain products are simply not suited to being recycled’

Thanks to this collaboration, the young company was able to gain access to Europe’s established chemical infrastructure. ‘As a small company of six people, a manufacturer’s first instinct is to think: who on earth are you? But if you can say your technology has been validated at Solvay, people take you seriously,’ says Wekking. And it has paid off: a manufacturer in Frankfurt will produce the aromatics at tonne scale. Relement has also secured its first customer, who will use the bio-based aromatics in binders for paint.

Blind spots

Relement turned five in May — a milestone being marked with an intensive fundraising process. ‘You need money to exist, and right now there is still little income but a great many outgoings. You can’t cover all of that with subsidies. You always need co-financing from investors,’ Wekking explains. ‘And bringing investors on board is enormously hard work. Renewable chemistry is a difficult subject for many people — after all, we’re not producing a tangible consumer product.’

Fortunately, Wekking does not have to do this alone; the diversity within the team provides the necessary complement. Her co-founders, Roger Blokland and Stefano Iannacone, both hold MBAs. ‘When we started out, we had a personality assessment done,’ she recalls. ‘The three of us are all very different. That’s a good thing, because it means fewer blind spots. I now know where my strengths lie, and equally where my colleagues outperform me. You become more aware of the contribution each person can make to the company’s success.’

And that professor from years ago — the one who told Wekking she was throwing her career away? She ran into him again ten years after graduating, when she was working at TNO. ‘He said: I have to come back to what I said. I have great admiration for what you’ve achieved and where you are now.’