Dr. Madelein Kleyn has more than 30 years experience as an international intellectual property practisioner, patent attorney and in-house legal corporate counsel.  Her experience span a broad industry base and covers petrochemical, agri, university technolology transfer and data industries.  She is presently the  Chief Legal Officer of Omnisient (Pty) Ltd a startup company specialising in privacy enhancing software and the licensing thereof. She is also the CEO and founder of Mad K IP Consulting (Pty) Ltd which core business is advisory services relating to IP strategy, IP protection mechanisms, commercial aspects of IP.

 Madelein holds the following qualifications and registrations:

• BSc Chem Eng, BProc, LLB, LLM (Tax law),  PhD (Commercial IP law)
• Attorney of the High Court of South Africa
• Registered South African patent attorney
• Registered Technology Transfer Professional

 Her technical expertise includes petrochemicals, chemistry, process engineering, explosives,  agriculture and software.  Her main areas of IP expertise include deal negotiations, Due Diligence,  IP Portfolio management,  IP policy and strategy development and implementation, data privacy and data monetisation.  She regularly advises on corporate governance and IP risk management and specialises in drafting and advising on IP-related business transactions, transfer pricing, and specialises in technology transfer and licensing.   Her client base spans Europe, USA, Canada and South Africa.

She has authored and presented various articles, papers and publications on IP matters internationally specifically on technology and IP licensing and commentaries on national IP related legislation. She is the course co-ordinator of the Patent an Design LLM module at Stellenbosch University. She developed the course and lectures  the moduleTechnology Commercialisation at the Business School of the University of Applied Science, Ingolstadt,  in Germany.

Since 2014 she is the co-editor of the International Pharmaceutical Law ” publication which covers key pharmaceutical law topics in all of the major industrial countries and co-authors the South African Chapter of this publication.  She is a member of the SAIIPL (and also the editor of the SAIIPL newsletter IP Briefs® other professional memberships include  ASTP, AUTM, CCASA, ACS and SARIMA ( Southern African Research & Innovation Management Association). She is also member of LES SA and a past president.  She is a past chair of the LESI Patent and Technology licensing Committee and past Co-Chair of the Awards Committee for which she now is the board liaison.  She has been elected for two consecutive terms as election  Vice-President of LES International (for 2022-2025).

Dr Kleyn has in two consequetive years received the LESI President’s acknowledgement award for her contribution to the technology licensing community. In 2019 she received the 2019 DSI/SARIMA award for distinguished contribution in innovation management. The technology transfer team at Innovus, which she led at the time, received the 2020 Award for Organisational Excellence in Innovation Management. These awards were initiated in 2014 to celebrate excellence in research and innovation management in Southern Africa, and to encourage growth and achievement in the field. The 2021 award considers excellence and achievements in the previous year, 2020.

Madelein was included in the IAM Strategy 300 – The World’s Leading IP Strategists since 2015 and featured in WTR300 World’s leading trademark professionals since 2016.  She has been acknowledged as a Global IP Leader by IAM 300 in 2022/3.