Sam is the Co-Founder and CEO of Simply Blue Group. A civil engineer by profession, and an entrepreneur at heart, Sam has had several global ventures, founding and developing companies in the EU, Asia and the US including Delaney’s Irish pub chain in Asia and Swirish Property AB in Sweden.

In recent years, Sam’s passion has focused primarily on building Simply Blue Group, to work with the oceans and play his part in tackling the global climate change crisis through blue economy solutions. Sam has assembled a talented team of more than 90 people with projects now operating in over 10 countries across the globe and growing.

Former NASA astronaut and highly decorated combat fighter Ron Garan racked up 178 days in space and more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits between tours on the US Space Shuttle, Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and the International Space Station. During his time in space, Ron conducted four spacewalks in support of ISS construction and maintenance. Prior to those space journeys, he lived and conducted research on the bottom of the ocean in the world’s only undersea research lab, Aquarius.

Ron has been involved in many global mass collaboration and citizen science programs. He is also a serial entrepreneur and has founded multiple business enterprises/social-impact focused start-ups including Manna Energy Ltd. which is the first organization to successfully register a UN carbon credit for water treatment and has helped provide clean water to millions.

He is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Orbital Perspective, the recently-released, Floating in Darkness – A Journey of Evolution, and the children’s book, Railroad to the Moon.

Ron is a sought after public speaker who has presented on the world stage at the UN,TED, the World Economic Forum, COP-26, and many other global venues.

Ron is celebrated not just for his research in space but also for his humanitarian contribution to life on Earth.

Dr Melanie Windridge is a specialist in fusion energy who helps people see the value and opportunities of fusion to society and their businesses. She is a plasma physicist, speaker, writer… with a taste for adventure. Melanie has a PhD in plasma physics (fusion energy) from Imperial College London, is Communications Consultant for privately-funded fusion company Tokamak Energy and Founder of Fusion Energy Insights. She was previously UK Director of the Fusion Industry Association. Melanie is the author of Aurora: In Search of the Northern Lights and Star Chambers: the race for fusion power. She hosts a blog, Science at Extremes, on her website and writes for Forbes online. 

www.melaniewindridge.co.uk 

www.fusionenergyinsights.com 

Tech-entrepreneur (+5 companies) with start-up, international growth, IPO, and trade sales experience. 30 years of technology-driven business development with experience from multi-discipline solutions in industries such as energy, waste, pulp and paper, mining, aerospace, IoT communication.

Tim is one of the four co-founders of Hardt Hyperloop. Hardt has realized Europe’s first operational hyperloop and is the leading company in Europe for the development, implementation and standardization of the hyperloop. Tim has a background in mechanical engineering at the Delft University of Technology, where he built record-breaking electric race cars among other things. Prior to Hardt, Tim was the team captain of the Delft Hyperloop team, which won Elon Musk’s hyperloop competition. It is Tim’s passion to work with an amazing team with loads of ambition to do the extraordinary.

David Pistoni is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Zeleros Hyperloop, the European company based in Valencia (Spain) leading the development of a scalable hyperloop system to move at 1000km/h and 0 direct emissions. Zeleros’ unique technologies integrated in a high-capacity and fully-autonomous vehicle enable the implementation of scalable hyperloop routes, reducing the cost per kilometer of infrastructure and offering a straight certification journey. After being awarded at the Elon Musk’s Hyperloop competition, the company has been raising public  and private industrial supports and now mobilizes more than 180 people worldwide to bring hyperloop to reality within a decade and to become a global reference. More information at: www.zeleros.com

Lucas Arangüena is global head of Green Finance for Grupo Santander and global head of ESG for Santander CIB. Previously, he was head of Santander Corporate & Investment Banking (SCIB) for Continental Europe since May 2018 after being Chief Financial Officer of Santander Corporate & Investment Banking. He was also member of the Global Executive Committee, the Risk Admission Committee and the Group’s Liquidity Committee.

As CFO of the Division, Lucas was responsible for managing credit, liquidity and capital risk. Lucas looked after the Active Credit Portfolio Management Unit (ACPM), Capital unit, XVA desk and Financial Control.

Lucas joined Santander Corporate & Investment Banking Division in 2010 as global head of Strategic Planning. Subsequently he was appointed head of Global Transaction Banking in the UK. Prior to joining Santander, Lucas was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Co in the Corporate Finance practice, where he focused primarily on Corporate & Investment Banking and M&A for large blue chips and private equity investors. He also worked for Goldman Sachs.

Lucas holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, an MSc from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and an MSc from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Managing Director of Mining, Metals and Industries Finance, Regional Head EMEA & CIS, Société Générale

Christophe Roux has more than 20 years experience in natural resources financing and advisory, of which 20 years in extractive industries. As a Regional Head, Christophe supervises the execution of arranging and advisory mandates in Middle East, Africa, Europe, Russia and Central Asia across the different minerals value chains

Between 2006 and 2017, in charge of SG’s upstream oil&gas finance activity in the same region, he and his team led the execution of approx. 70 arranging and advisory mandates. Previously Christophe has been heading origination of structured commodity transactions in Paris and Singapore. He graduated at the University of Cologne and started his career in Frankfurt.

Benoit Lemaignan is the co-founder and CEO of Verkor, a venture launched to accelerate the production capacity of low-carbon batteries in southern Europe, in collaboration with EIT InnoEnergy, Schneider Electric and the Groupe IDEC. Prior to the launch, EIT InnoEnergy brought Benoit on board to build synergies with the European Battery Alliance.

An aerospace engineer by training, Benoit is a serial entrepreneur. He previously founded and financed Waga Energy in 2015 and Aniah in 2019. He was also Managing Director of OSER ENR from 2015 to 2019 – a public-private partnership supporting the development of renewable projects. Earlier in his career, Benoit was a strategic advisor at Carbone 4 where his passion for energy and climate-related initiatives took root. From his time at Airbus, Benoit retains a strong drive for innovation and team work.

Olivier Sala was appointed the Group Vice President of Research & Innovation at ENGIE in July 2021. Passionate about energy & carbon transition challenges and how technologies can contribute, Olivier is an experienced VP with a demonstrated history of working in the Energy and Services industry.

In 1993, Olivier Sala graduated from the University of Technology in Compiègne with a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering, and in 1996 from ESSEC. He began his career at Air Liquide before moving into consulting at A.T. Kearney, followed by the Boston Consulting Group.

ENGIE is a leading world group that provides low-carbon energy, and aims to meet the challenges of climate change by achieving Net Zero Carbon by 2045. Guided by its objective statement, ENGIE reconciles economic performance with a positive impact on people and the planet, using its expertise in four core businesses: renewable energy, energy solutions, networks, thermal generation and energy supply.

Victoria joins Santander CIB as Global Head of Sustainable Capital Markets, bringing with her over 8+ years of experience in sustainable banking and finance, having previously worked at CA-CIB, HSBC and Fidelity in the ESG / Sustainability area.

Prior to joining SCIB, Victoria was Head of Sustainable Banking, APAC + Middle East for CA-CIB, based in Hong Kong. There she was involved across all Corporate, FIG and SSA clients funding needs in Green /Social /Transition and Sustainability-linked format with recent focus on developing the APAC Green and Sustainability Linked markets business, structuring APACs first Green Swap and Green Guarantee.

Prior to this, Victoria established and built up the HSBC Sustainable Bonds team from early 2015 – end 2018, where she was based in London. With primary responsibility for EMEA clients, she supported the build out of US and APAC satellite teams. Here she was involved in the structuring of several inaugural frameworks across Corporate, FIG and SSA and Sovereign clients in Green, Social and Sustainability, Transition and Sustainability Linked format.

In both prior banking roles Victoria was an active contributor to the ICMA Green Bond Principles Executive Committee, also holding cp-chair roles in a couple of the historic Working Groups.

Before this, Victoria was an ESG investment analyst at Fidelity Worldwide Investments, based in London, but speaking to the global equity and fixed income portfolio manager and analyst teams.

Adelaide Cracco currently leads the department for Climate and Environmental Impact at EIF. She holds an MBA from the University of Navarre (Spain) and a Master’s in Economics and International Relations from the University of Louvain (Belgium).

EIF was founded in 1994 to support Europe’s small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by enhancing their access to finance. EIF designs and develops venture capital and guarantees instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this sense, the EIF has played a significant role in the growth of a venture capital market in Europe.

Above all, EIF sees the venture capital industry strongly supporting innovative European entrepreneurs that are at the forefront of global disruption, primarily in technology (ICT) and life sciences, but also across various other sectors.

Sandra Bláguez Borrás holds a degree in Chemical Engineering with 17 years of experience in Repsol. Her extended experience comprises the R&D area and the field of Health, Safety and Environment for industrial assets.

In 2019, Sandra joined the Repsol Corporate Venturing team where she manages a technological fund, seeking to invest in start-ups with disruptive technologies that can help Repsol achieve its strategic objectives. One of the fields she is focusing on is investments in hydrogen technologies to meet the relevant challenges the industry is facing. Repsol is committed to achieving to be a Zero Net Emissions Company by 2050.

Nico Buchholz is an accomplished global Executive with 30 years unique international experience covering all continents, mostly in the Aerospace (OEM & Airline) industry and Rail and Leasing (GOAL, Malta). Culturally astute to interact globally, he has a strategic view based on sound market knowledge and focus on sustainable business. Nico is one of the founding partners at FlightLevel500, a management firm specialized in Transport and Mobility.

Dr. Andreas Mündel has been in various strategic roles in the consulting and logistics industry for the past 20 years. After studying physics, he initially worked for management consultancy company McKinsey. He later transferred to Deutsche Post DHL in 2004 as Head of DHL Express Europe.

He is now SVP of Group Strategy and responsible for strategic projects in the production area, including Clean OPS teams, lead of the Sustainable Fuel project, Center of Excellence Automation of Operations, and Group OHS team and Patent Management. In addition, Dr. Mündel coordinates the agenda of the Operations Board, which includes the divisional board members for Operations in addition to the CEO.

Jekaterina Boening is committed to finding sustainable solutions for the decarbonisation of the transport sector: electrification of road transport and conversion of air and sea transport to green e-fuels. She is a pragmatic climate protector who works solution-oriented and evidence-based.

Transport & Environment (T&E) is Europe’s leading NGO campaigning for cleaner transport. Jekaterina strongly believes in innovation, but not to rely on it, and considers ensuring a future that is worth living in for the next generation the most important goal of her work.

Karsten Rick Radtke is the Global Head of Business Development at Thyssenkrupp, an international group of companies comprising largely of independent industrial and technology businesses. He repatriated to Germany after 6 years in the USA where he took on P&L responsibility and developed a history of working in the global and North American marketplace for technology-driven engineering and EPC industry.

Karsten is a strong process-technology related sales and business development professional, skilled in Chemical, Gas, Petroleum, Fertilizer, Hydrogen, Advanced Power Solutions, Hydrocarbon Conversion (oil, natural/shale gas, coal, biomass, waste), Syngas, Synfuels, e-Fuels, Biofuel, Gasification, Steam Reforming, Propane Dehydrogenation, Green Chemicals, Green Hydrogen, Green Ammonia, Green Methanol, Chlor-Alkali Electrolysis, Water Electrolysis, Petrochemicals and Plastics, Polyolefins, Oleochemicals, etc.

Astrid Schilderman is Technology Director at Synkero, a start-up developing PtL Sustainable Aviation Fuel production capacity, with a first facility in the Port of Amsterdam. Astrid has over 10 years international experience in the Oil & Gas industry at Shell, where she worked in engineering, operations, commissioning and start-up, and project management. In 2017 she moved to the renewable energy industry, focusing on wind project development. She holds a M.Sc. in chemical engineering from Delft University of Technology.

Astrid joined Synkero in 2020. Together with partners Municipality of Amsterdam, Port of Amsterdam, Royal Schiphol Group, SkyNRG and KLM, Synkero will focus on realizing a first commercial SAF factory in the Port of Amsterdam. The project will seek to connect with sustainable initiatives in the North Sea Canal area, such as the Hermes project.

Using his years of experience in Venture, Private Equity and Project Finance, and a strong background in financial analysis, Bastien Gambini has been investing across Europe and North America in both Venture and Private Equity. He holds specific knowledge of Environment and Energy industries (including renewable energy, waste and water treatment, energy efficiency, smart grid).

Former Managing Director for Europe at Equinor Ventures, he previously led the Spanish team at Demeter Partners as Partner and worked for Société Générale and Caisse des Dépôts. He has led deals in the renewable, power-grid, waste-management, artificial-intelligence and energy industries. Bastien has been a board member to more than 12 companies and holds two post-graduate degrees in Finance from Paris University Panthéon-Assas, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Aurélien Narminio is Head of Equity Listing at Euronext. Prior to joining Euronext in 2019, initially as Chief of Staff to the Group CEO, Aurélien worked in foreign exchange sales within the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities division of Goldman Sachs in London, and then as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris. Aurélien holds a Master in Business Administration from INSEAD, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Phil Giudice has over 40 years’ experience in the energy industry as a geologist, consultant, entrepreneur, executive, CEO, board director and State energy official.

Most recently Phil served as Special Assistant to the President for Climate policy during the start-up of the Biden Administration, focused principally on the power sector. Previously he was CEO of Ambri, and senior executive at EnerNOC (now EnelX), as well as Massachusetts Undersecretary of Energy and was founding Treasurer and Vice Chair for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Currently, Phil is Board Chair for FirstLight Power, a leading clean power producer and energy storage company in New England, with a portfolio that includes nearly 1.4 GW of pumped-hydro storage, battery storage, hydroelectric generation, and solar generation. FirstLight aims to accelerate the decarbonization of the electric grid by owning, operating, and integrating large-scale renewable energy and storage assets to meet the region’s growing clean energy needs and to deliver an electric system that is clean, reliable, affordable, and equitable.

Andreas Carlsson is Sustainability Manager at IKEA Industry and a member of the Inter IKEA Supply Sustainability Management. He is responsible for leading an ambitious agenda on health & safety, forestry, environment, and supplier code of conduct, with a specific engagement and focus on the energy and climate transformation and the IKEA Climate Positive initiative.

IKEA Industry, part of the Inter IKEA Group, is the world’s largest producer of wooden furniture and an integrated part of the IKEA value chain. The company strives towards 100% renewable energy use in 2025 and a constant reduction of energy use, with the target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2025 from the baseline year 2016.

Sopna joined the board of RWE Generation SE in February 2021, responsible for coordinating RWE’s hydrogen activities and driving strategy development, regulatory affairs and integration management.

At the start of her career in management consultancy with McKinsey & Company, Sopra mostly served clients in the financial services sector, and worked on transformation topics. She later joined the energy industry and held various positions at E.ON such as Director Energy Solutions, Director Business Development & Business Affairs for the renewables business and member of the inhouse consulting management team. At Uniper she was leading the area Energy Services & Infrastructure.

RWE all energy and resources are put towards making a sustainable life possible. Investing massively in expanding renewables and staying involved in innovative hydrogen projects, RWE is consistently reducing carbon emissions to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Daniel Goldman covers over 25 years of energy industry experience in strategy, corporate and project finance, and project development, as well as private equity/asset investment and early-stage venture investing.

Beside holding a wide range of advisor and board roles worldwide, Dan has been investing at the project and venture stages for most of his career with over $4 billion in transactions completed. He has also focused on policy advocacy work to bring investors, policy makers and technology developers together to address issues of finance, scale-up and commercialization, among other key issues.

Clean Energy Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage climate tech companies commercializing disruptive advanced energy technologies that can grow to scale and address global climate disruption. Clean energy innovations are poised to disrupt markets and achieve extraordinary growth in the coming decade.

With over 25 years of experience in private equity/debt, investment banking and industry in Europe, Mr. Lahnstein has a deep understanding of the private equity, venture capital and corporate finance market.
Between 2015-2018, Mr. Lahnstein was Managing Director at Siguler Guff a $14bn alternative assets manager, responsible for developing the firm’s business activities in Continental Europe. He also advised CIC, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, on its Germany strategy.
Between 2009-2014, Mr. Lahnstein was the Founder of RiverRock LLP, an early leader in Private Debt for European SME’s. During his tenure, the firm raised more than EUR 600 million, invested in a total of 15 companies, principally in Germany and the rest of Europe. Early LP’s were the European Investment Fund and the German Government. A significant part of the transactions were in cleantech and renewable energy. Previously, Mr. Lahnstein was the Head of Bear Stearns’ European Investment Bank and Member of the Executive Committee at Bear Stearns International. From 2003-2007 he was the Head of Investment Banking at UBS Investment Bank in Frankfurt, advising on transactions worth more than Euro 40 billion, mostly for Private Equity firms, the German government and large German families. He successfully led the “Private Equity Deals of the Year” in both 2003 & 2004. Prior to this, Mr. Lahnstein was Head of German TMT at UBS and at Merrill Lynch International in London.
Mr. Lahnstein began his career at Bertelsmann AG, Europe’s largest privately held media company, where his last role was Executive Vice President of the New Media division (AOL Inc, AOL Europe, etc.) and in charge of several corporate venture capital transactions. He holds an MBA (Diplom-Kaufmann) from the University of Cologne, where he also teaches Corporate Finance as guest lecturer. Florian is married, father of five and avid guitar builder and collector.

Dr. Steven Chu is an American physicist and a former government official. He is known for his research at Bell Labs and Stanford University regarding the cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips.

Dr. Chu served as the 12th United States Secretary of Energy from 2009 to 2013 in the administration of U.S President Barack Obama. As the first scientist to hold a Cabinet position and the longest serving Energy Secretary, he recruited outstanding scientists and engineers into the Department of Energy. He began several initiatives including ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy), the Energy Innovation Hubs, and was personally tasked by President Obama to assist BP in stopping the Deepwater Horizon oil leak.

Prior to his cabinet post, he was director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he was active in pursuit of alternative and renewable energy technologies, and Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University, where he helped launch Bio-X, a multi-disciplinary institute combining the physical and biological sciences with medicine and engineering. Previously he was head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Dr. Chu is a vocal advocate for more research into renewable energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combating climate change. He has conceived of a global “glucose economy”, a form of a low-carbon economy, in which glucose from tropical plants is shipped around like oil is today. On 22 February, 2019, Dr. Chu began a one-year term as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Mary Therese Winifred Robinson, is an Irish Independent politician who served as the seventh President of Ireland, becoming the first woman to hold this office. She also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002 and a Senator for the University of Dublin from 1969 to 1989. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister and campaigner. In the 1990 presidential election she became the first Independent candidate nominated by the Labor Party, the Workers’ Party and Independent Senators.

She is widely regarded as a transformative figure for Ireland, and for the Irish presidency, revitalizing and liberalizing a previously conservative, low-profile political office. She resigned the presidency two months ahead of the end of her term of office to take up her post in the United Nations. During her UN tenure she visited Tibet (1998), the first High Commissioner to do so; she criticised Ireland’s immigrant policy; and the use of capital punishment in the United States. She extended her intended single four-year term by a year to preside over the World Conference against Racism 2001 in Durban, South Africa; the conference proved controversial.

After leaving the UN in 2002, Robinson formed Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which came to a planned end at the end of 2010. Its core activities were 1) fostering equitable trade and decent work, 2) promoting the right to health and more humane migration policies, and 3) working to strengthen women’s leadership and encourage corporate social responsibility. The organisation also supported capacity building and good governance in developing countries. Mary Robinson returned to live in Ireland at the end of 2010, and has set up The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, which aims to be ‘a center for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle to secure global justice for those many victims of climate change who are usually forgotten – the poor, the disempowered and the marginalised across the world.’

Mary Robinson is Chairman of the Institute for Human Rights and Business and Chancellor of the University of Dublin. Since 2004, she has also been Professor of Practice in International Affairs at Columbia University, where she teaches international human rights. Mary also visits other colleges and universities where she lectures on human rights. She also sits on the board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organisation which supports good governance and great leadership in Africa and is a member of the Foundation’s Ibrahim Prize Committee. As well, she is an Extraordinary Professor in the Centre for Human Rights and the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender at the University of Pretoria. Since 2005 she is honorary president of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation EIUC. In addition, she is Chairman of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and a founding member and chairman of the Council of Women World Leaders.

In 2004, she received Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for her work in promoting human rights.

Jean-Bernard Lévy is Chairman and CEO of EDF Group since November 2014. From 2012 to 2014, he was Chairman & CEO of Thales Group, a group specialised in aerospace and defence industries. Prior to that, he was at Vivendi as COO from 2002 to 2005 and as CEO from 2005 to 2012. From 1998 to 2002, he was Managing Partner, Corporate Finance at Oddo & Cie. From 1995 to 1998, he was Chairman & CEO of Matra Communication. In 1993 and 1994, he served as Chief of Staff to Gérard Longuet, the French Minister for Industry, Postal Services & Telecommunications, and Foreign Trade. Earlier he held several positions at Matra Espace, Matra Marconi Space and France Telecom where he began his career in 1979 as an engineer in Angers. Jean-Bernard Lévy is a graduate of École Polytechnique (class of 1973) and Telecom Paris Tech.

Christel Heydemann has been Independent Director at Orange SA since 26 July, 2017. She has been Executive Vice President of France Operations at Schneider Electric S.E. since 3 August 2017. Ms. Heydemann is Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer of Schneider Electric France since April 2017. She served as Senior Vice President of Global Strategic Alliances at Schneider Electric since joining in 2014, where she was tasked with accelerating the launch of IoT solutions by developing a partnership ecosystem. She served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Alliances & Development at Orange S.A. since 2016. She served as an Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Transformation at Alcatel-Lucent since 22 August, 2011 and served as its Strategic Alliance Vice President for HP since June 2009. She was responsible for leading, developing and enhancing Alcatel-Lucent’s strategic relationship with HP. She focused on the go-to-market activities, the development of end-to-end solutions combining Alcatel-Lucent and HP portfolios and the alignment of Alcatel-Lucent products and services with HP products and services. In 2004, she joined the sales division at Alcatel- Lucent where she was key account manager for SFR and Orange SA. She served as Sales Director France at Alcatel-Lucent France since 2008. She held various managerial positions such as Key Account Manager for SFR and Orange SA among others. Christel joined Alcatel-Lucent, in 1999, in the Project finance team of the Chief Financial Officer. She began her career as Analyst at the Boston Consulting Group since 1997. She is a Director of Association AX and France Industrie. She was a Director of Fondation des Ponts et Chaussées. Ms. Heydemann is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees.

Mr Laurent Michel, is the General Director for Energy and Climate at the Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition. A graduate of the Polytechnique, Laurent Michel has held various positions at the Regional Directorate for Industry, Research and Environment (DRIRE) or at the School of Mines from 1991 to 2006. Director of the DRIRE Midi-Pyrénées from 2003 to 2006, he was then appointed Director of Pollution and Risk Prevention, delegate for major risks, within the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, before taking charge of the General Directorate for Risk Prevention (DGPR) when the Directorate was formed in 2008. Laurent Michel is the General Directorate for Energy and Climate (DGEC) at the Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition since December 2012.

From 2012 to 2018, Bill Weihl was the Director of Sustainability at Facebook.  He built a team that directs work on sustainability and energy efficiency across the company, driving projects to track and reduce the company’s environmental footprint in all aspects of its operations. Him and his team also drove cross-industry collaborations, including playing critical roles in RE100 and the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance.

Prior to Facebook, Bill was Green Energy Czar at Google, where his team pioneered Google’s work to buy clean energy for its data centers, and helped found the Climate Savers Computing Initiative with Intel and WWF.  In 2009, he was honored by Time Magazine as one of their Heroes of the Environment in recognition of the work he and his colleagues did at Google, in 2016 he was honored with the Global Green Award for environmental leadership, and in 2018 he was honored by Greenbiz with the VERGE Vanguard Award.

Earlier in his career, Bill was a Professor of Computer Science at MIT, a researcher at Digital’s Systems Research Center, and CTO of Akamai Technologies.  He holds an SB degree in Mathematics, as well as SB, SM, and PhD degrees in Computer Science, all from MIT.

Ambroise Fayolle has been Vice President of European Investment Bank since 24 February 2015. Before then he has had many roles: as Director General of Agency France Trésor, as the Head of the Multilateral Affairs and Development Department at the Treasury and Economic Policy Division, as Equity Analyst at Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division, as the Executive Director of International Bank For Reconstruction & Development. In addition, he was the Director of Caisse d’Amortissement De La Dette Sociale, he represented France on the boards of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, he served as Member of Supervisory Board of Agence Francaise de Development and he worked as a senior official for the G8 and co-chairman of the Paris Club.

Dr. Cyrus Wadia is the Former Vice President of Sustainable Business & Innovation at NIKE, Inc., where he is responsible for enabling the company’s sustainability strategy with the goal of driving change across Nike and the wider industry. The team he leads focuses on several areas including testing and prototyping of new business models, accelerating partnerships for scaling sustainable innovations, and supporting Nike’s broad innovation agenda through science and analytics.

Dr. Cyrus is also the former Assistant Director for Clean Energy and Materials R&D with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he advised the White House and Executive Branch leadership in the design of national policy in energy, climate, advanced materials, manufacturing, and critical minerals. In this role, which he held from 2010-2015, Dr. Cyrus was responsible for the creation and expansion of more than $1 billion (US dollars) in new budgetary initiatives, including the Materials Genome Initiative, and he led the development of the nation’s first policy framework and strategy on critical minerals.

Prior to joining the White House, Dr. Cyrus held a dual appointment with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the Haas School of Business where he was the Co-Director of Cleantech to Market and a research scientist. He also spent more than seven years in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, working with 15 start-ups in Silicon Valley. In 2009, Dr. Cyrus was named one of MIT Technology Review’s Top Innovators under 35. The Review cited his economic analysis of materials with good electrical properties that can effectively absorb sunlight, identifying two previously overlooked materials.

Since 2009, Dr. Cyrus has been a frequent speaker on sustainability, materials and innovation, with more than 65 keynote and invited speaking addresses. His work has been cited in more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles and he has patented methods for sustainable energy breakthroughs. US Patent 8425865 was granted for a method of synthesizing pyrite nanocrystals (also known as fool’s gold) as a non-toxic and naturally occurring candidate for photovoltaic material.

Dr. Cyrus earned his Ph.D in Energy & Resources from U.C. Berkeley, and holds both an M.S. and S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

Martha Broad is Executive Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), MIT’s hub addressing global energy challenges through member-sponsored research, education and outreach programs. As part of the MITEI leadership team, she works to link science, innovation and policy to transform the world’s energy systems.

She has a track record of successfully partnering with business, government and nonprofit stakeholders to support the clean energy transition. At MITEI, she works closely with member companies who collaborate with MIT researchers on a spectrum of topics including “Low-Carbon Energy Centers” focused on key topics, including electric power systems, energy storage and carbon capture utilisation and storage.

She also spearheads MITEI’s collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy on the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Women in Clean Energy Initiative and serves as a C3E Ambassador.

Previously, as part of the senior management team of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), she led programmes and studies that focused on the commercialisation of clean energy technologies. By collaborating with universities and public and private partners, she helped facilitate funding for cutting-edge research and the state’s successful installation of hundreds of megawatts of wind and solar projects.

Mechthild Wörsdörfer joined the International Energy Agency (IEA) on 1 October 2018 as Director of Sustainability, Technology and Outlooks. Wörsdörfer plans and co-ordinates the IEA’s work on energy sustainability, encompassing energy technology policy and climate change policy. She oversees several of the IEA’s major analytical reports including long-term scenarios and technology roadmaps. Wörsdörfer has been an active participant in the Governing Board of the IEA representing the European Union, as well as the EU contact at the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation.

Over the years, she served as Director for renewables, research and innovation and energy efficiency, as well as Director of Energy Policy at the European Commission. Wörsdörfer headed the adoption of the Energy Roadmap 2050, the Energy and Climate Policy 2030 Framework and the Clean Energy Package. She has served in the cabinet of Commissioner Erkki Liikanen on competitiveness issues, digital economy and international relations.

Wörsdörfer, a German national, holds a Master’s degree in Economic Policy and Management from the Brussels University, a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Economics (Finance) from the University of Montpellier and a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Economics, French and Spanish from the Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg.

Professor Dr. Jean-Michel Glachant is the Director of the Florence School of Regulation and the Holder of the Loyola de Palacio Chair, since 2008.

Dr. Glachant gained his Ph.D. in economics at La Sorbonne in France. He worked in the industry and private sector before becoming professor at La Sorbonne.

He has been advisor of DG TREN, DG COMP and DG RESEARCH at the European Commission and of the French Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE). He has been a coordinator and scientific advisor of several European research projects. He is a research partner in the CEEPR at MIT (USA), the EPRG at Cambridge University. Dr. Glachant has been the first editor-in-chief of EEEP: “Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy” (an IAEE journal) and is Vice-President of both the French and the International Association for Energy Economics.

His main research interests are the building of a common European energy policy (security of supply, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy technology policy, and climate change policy), the achievement of the European energy internal market (design, regulation and competition policy), the industrial organisation and market strategy of energy companies in a wave of innovation (decarbonisation, decentralisation, and digitalisation).

Akshat Rathi is a London-based senior reporter for Bloomberg News. He has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai.

He tells stories of the people and their ideas tackling the biggest problem facing humanity: climate change. He has edited a book of essays from young climate leaders and he is currently working on a book about scaling up climate solutions.

Previously, Akshat was a senior reporter at Quartz and a science editor at The Conversation. He has also worked for The Economist and the Royal Society of Chemistry. His writings have also been published in Nature, The Hindu, The Guardian, Ars Technica, and Chemistry World, among others.