Kadri Simson is the European commissioner for energy, a position she has held since December 2019. She previously held the position of minister of economics affairs and infrastructure of the Republic of Estonia from 2016 to 2019. During the Estonian presidency of the council of the EU (from July to December 2017), Simson chaired both the meetings of the energy ministers and transport ministers in the transport, telecommunications and energy (TTE) council as well as the meeting of economy ministers in the EU competitiveness council. From 2007 to 2016, she was a member of the Estonian Parliament (“Riigikogu”) and was re-elected in 2019. Simson has a degree in history at the University of Tartu and holds a master’s degree in political science from the University College London.

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.

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.

Jens Wiese is the Head of Group M&A, Investment Advisory and Partnerships at Volkswagen AG. He has held multiple roles during his tenure at VW, including as Head of Group Battery Strategy.

He is a member of the Supervisory Board of QuantumScape Corp. Prior to joining VW, he served as a management consultant and held senior roles at AlixPartners and Roland Berger, focusing on the automotive and other industrial sectors.

He holds an MBA from Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Aurélien Narminio is Head of Equity Listing at Euronext, the pan-European exchange in the Eurozone, spanning Belgium, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, and the UK. Aurélien holds a Master’s in Business Administration from INSEAD and a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics.

At present, Euronext operates regulated and transparent equity and derivatives markets, as well as leverages its expertise in running markets by providing technology and managed services to third parties. Founded in 2000, the company is based in Amsterdam with operations throughout Europe.

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 as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris.

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.

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.

Peter Carlsson is the founder and CEO of Northvolt, a company building Europe’s largest battery manufacturing plant, and part of several advisory boards for global supply chain and procurement organisations. Having worked in executive roles for more than 20 years in Automotive, Cleantech, Telecommunications, Consumer Electronics and Semiconductor industries, in global organizations in Europe, US and Asia, he’s known as an entrepreneur, angel investor and advisor.

With Northvolt, he’s made it his personal mission to build the greenest battery in the world with a minimal carbon footprint and the highest ambitions for recycling to enable the European transition to renewable energy. In 2017, Northvolt announced a bold and simple plan: to enable the future of energy by developing the world’s greenest battery cell, and establish a European supply of batteries.

Chris Burns is a Franco-American journalist and media expert with more than 30 years’ reporting
experience in Europe, the U.S., Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. He’s covered armed conflicts,
election battles, financial crises, natural and human disasters as well as film festivals. For Euronews he’s
been globetrotting to shoot magazine shows and was host of the hard talk show “The Network”. He was
a Bloomberg TV reporter based in Brussels and Berlin, and a CNN correspondent based in Germany and
the White House. He reported for the Associated Press from Paris, New York and Nashville. He’s also a
media consultant, media trainer and video producer, and has moderated panels including for the World
Economic Forum, OECD, OSCE, United Nations, World Bank and EU institutions. He graduated in political
economy at the University of California, Berkeley, and did post-grad studies in Europe. Chris speaks five
languages and has dual US-French nationality.

Henrik Henriksson is an internationally renowned leader in sustainability with a broad network within the industry and European politics. In 2020, Henrik Henriksson published the internationally acclaimed book Sustainability Leadership.

He was the CEO of Scania between 2016-2021, and a member of the executive team at TRATON SE, and currently sits on the board of directors at Electrolux, Hexagon, SAAB, Creades, and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. In 2020, Henriksson was Chairman of ACEA (The Commercial Vehicle Board of Directors of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association).

Henrik’s experience of transforming a world-leading commercial vehicle manufacturer into a global leader in sustainability is invaluable as Green Steel sets out to disrupt the traditional steel industry. He is a strong advocate of sustainability and profitability going hand in hand: “From personal experience, I know how crucial strategic partnerships are to be able to move with speed and achieve results. I see great potential to accelerate the green industrial transition.”

Besides her academic career in the fields of knowledge management, collaborative innovation and entrepreneurship, Elena Bou developed her professional career in the field of management consulting in both private and public companies. In 2010 she co-founded EIT InnoEnergy, the innovation engine for sustainable energy across Europe supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

She contributed to create InnoEnergy’s trusted innovation ecosystem which operates in more than 26 countries. In Elena’s Innovation Director role, she led the development of major efforts in creating and accelerating new start-ups and scale-ups in the energy field, including the investment process in such ventures. As a result, the company has now supported nearly 500 start-ups, including two unicorns.

Bo Normark is a pivotal figure in the field of energy storage. Having served in the electrical engineering industry working for ABB for nearly 40 years, Normark became Thematic Leader for smart grids and storage at EIT InnoEnergy, before settling into his current role as Industrial Strategy Executive, and being the mind behind the EBA, the European Battery Alliance.

As a member of numerous leadership boards and advisory roles, both in his native Sweden and abroad, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences to the Renewable Energy Institute of Japan, Bo looks to not only inspire innovation, but actually transform the industry and achieve a sustainable energy future for Europe, and turn ideas into reality.

Diego Pavía is a serial entrepreneur, having created seven companies in his lifetime. His main endeavour is to innovate, create – and implement operationally – all with the objective of creating value.

He is an electrical engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, with a major in electronics and automation. In 1988, he was as co-founder and CEO of a start-up, Knowledge Engineering, dealing with industrial controls systems using artificial intelligence and neural networks. Three years later he joined Sema Group, and started a long career with private companies. In SchlumbergerSema, Diego headed multicultural working groups all over the world in the field of energy, with revenues of $650M. Between 2002 and 2010, Diego was the CEO of Atos Origin, a leading international IT service provider, where he was responsible for Spain and South America, about 9,000 employees, and an annual turnover of €450 million.

Since 2010 and under Diego’s leadership, EIT InnoEnergy has become the largest global organisation supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in sustainable energy, having directly deployed €650M to nearly 500 innovative products and services.

Janelle Wang is an Industrial Designer turned Entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in Strategic Product Development, Brand Building and New Category Creation & Design for Fortune 500s to Start Ups, bringing breakthrough Innovation and Sustainability to reality. She co-founded ACTON 7 years ago.

Designing the future of Intelligent Micromobility. ACTON is a Bay-Area based, Mobility As A Service (MaaS) solution provider, passionate about moving people and goods. Today, they are offering a platform to empower 100+ local businesses and cities globally to build greener and more efficient cities – starting with micromobility.

Janelle was selected as one of Remarkable Women in Transport 2020; SVIEF Top 30 Innovation Award 2019; one of 19 Influential Women In Mobility in 2019; awarded Female CEO of the Year in 2016; featured in WSJ, FastCompany, CNN, VOGUE, BBC etc. She is a regular keynote speaker and panelist in mobility events. She also holds over 30 utility & design patents.

Vincent Ledoux Pedailles is Vice President of Business Development at Vulcan Energy. The company is aiming to decarbonize the carbon footprint of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, by producing a unique, world-first Zero Carbon Lithium™ product from its Vulcan Project.

He was previously Executive Director Corporate Strategy at Infinity Lithium Corporation, developing lithium production in Europe. He also worked at IHS Markit where he created and led the lithium and battery materials research team.

Vincent is a regular speaker at various industry events across the world presenting at chemical, mining, and energy related conferences, and was appointed as a lithium expert by the European Commission. He holds a Business Master’s in Risk Management and International Purchasing from ESDES Business School in France, with a thesis themed on the development and deployment of electric vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries. He has also studied at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Marshall University, USA.

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.

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.

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.

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 2010. Together with partners 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.

Ilka von Dalwigk is a senior technology and policy expert, keen on shaping and operationalizing policy visions into concrete actions and recommendations.

Ilka has more than ten years of experience in the energy transition in commercial, public, private, and policy environments with in-depth knowledge of major research and policy issues covering the battery value chain from the supply of raw materials to applications.

Notably, Ilka is the Policy Manager for Smart Grid and Storage working with the industrial development programme of the European Battery Alliance – EBA250 – with a strong focus on sustainability and supply chain topics. She has been instrumental in building up and managing the vast and complex network of the stakeholders in this initiative, as well as developing the set of recommendations that contributed to the design and content of the 43 actions that have been identified as necessary by the European Battery Alliance, to make the EU a key player in the global battery market.

Jan Votava is a highly skilled and respected Czech engineer and executive leader, who holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering. For 17 years, he held various managerial roles at LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest construction-materials company, including Head of Transformation Team for Europe, Technical Director for Central Europe, Executive Chairman and Managing Director for the Czech Republic. He also played a leadership role with the team that developed, constructed and optimized a €250 million cement plant in Hungary for Lafarge. He is currently responsible for leading Mangan Chvaletice s.r.o., Euro Manganese’s subsidiary in the Czech Republic including the company’s organizational and reputational development, as well as project permitting and development.

Matti Schurr is the co-founder of Avocargo, launched in March 2021. His professional record in the mobility industry includes positions at SHARE NOW, Free2Move (formerly Carjump), and Porsche. After starting out in the marketing field, he now mainly focuses on product management. Matti holds a Master’s in Automotive Management from HfWU Nürtingen-Geislingen.

Avocargo is Germany’s first free-floating e-cargo bike sharer. It allows end-users and businesses flexible access shared electric cargo bikes via the Avocargo app. Their aim is to enable urban life without owning cars – to transport larger items, children, pets and more.

Jennifer Dungs has spent nearly 20 years in the automotive industry, including Ford Motor Company (Detroit), BMW (Munich) and Porsche (Stuttgart). She has in-depth knowledge from the industry on topics related to sustainability (CO₂ strategy, air quality), alternative powertrain technologies (energy storage, heat management), technologies and services (autonomous driving, sharing, mobility as a service, last mile mobility) and business models for digital products and services for mobility and Smart Cities.

Jennifer also was the Director at Fraunhofer, responsible for Mobility and Smart Cities and established a joint lab with MIT called Ambient Mobility focused on using big data to understand mobility patterns and create mobility solutions to help revolutionize our cities. She holds both a M.S. Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. Chemistry.

Jennifer is responsible for the strategic investments in Energy for Transport and Mobility at InnoEnergy.

Cagri Selcuklu is the CEO and Co-founder of DUCKT, a smart micromobility infrastructure solutions company, that develops and operates docking, locking and charging infrastructure solutions for micro-mobility in urban environment.

A cosmopolitan, born in Turkey, he graduated with a masters in transportation in Italy and married in Norway, Cagri has worked in the automotive & mobility industries for over 15 years. He is a true believer that micromobility will become an indispensable part of our future in urban environments.

DUCKT was started with two co-founders, in 2019, with the objective to create the “USB standard” for the micromobility infrastructure, solve ecosystem issues, and create efficient and sustainable mobility services for all. Since then, DUCKT has become compatible with all major vehicle manufacturers & software providers globally, and has delivered 1000s of its charging stations across three continents and more than 20 countries. DUCKT is now an award-wining company holding several international recognitions around the globe.

Carina Krastel works at EIT InnoEnergy, a European public-private partnership, as the Commercial Director of the European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center (EGHAC) – an initiative supported by Breakthrough Energy.
The EGHAC will focus on supporting and accelerating large scale industrial green hydrogen projects to reduce CO2 emissions in value chains like steel making, fertilizer production, synthetic fuel production, shipping etc.
Carina Krastel is a sustainable energy engineer with experience in engineering, business and innovation. Since 2009, she has worked in the construction and the industrial gas industry on sustainable energy, air quality and innovation topics. Prior to joining InnoEnergy, Carina worked as the Director for New Offers for the Energy Transition for the Large Industry Business of Air Liquide, a French industrial gas company, focusing on offers for green hydrogen and carbon capture solutions.

Beres Seelbach has been a leader and entrepreneur in e-mobility solutions for over 10 years. At 24, in 2009, he founded the e-mobility solutions company Lautlos, distributing electric vehicles, as well as providing electric fleet management and maintenance services. Lautlos pioneered in providing e-vehicles throughout Germany.

In 2016, Beres, along with co-founders Murat Günak (former head of design for Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen) and Philipp Kahle (light electric vehicles expert), founded Tretbox GmbH,now known as ONO, to rethink and reshape modern urban transportation.

ONO is introducing a new category of emissions-free vehicle: The ONO Pedal Assisted Transporter (PAT) to improve city-life quality by reducing road congestion and road pollution. After a successful launch of the ONO PAT in November 2018, ONO is currently conducting pilot projects with large European and global companies in the CEP, food and urban logistics markets to gear up for mass production and commercialization of the vehicles.

Jacob Ruiter has held various positions in a wide variety of companies all related to energy. In his previous role he was the Director, Country Manager Energy Advisory of Benelux at DNV GL, where he was responsible for energy and renewables advisory activities in the Benelux, Africa and Middle East.

Previous to that, he worked for Dutch Utilities company, Essent, where he had a number of roles including Managing Director for metering data, Managing Director for local energy solutions and Managing Director for B2B.

Jacob began his career with oilfield service company, Schlumberger, as a wire-line field engineer. It was from there that he moved onto more commercial roles, starting with the position of Regional Manager Europe for drill pipe manufacturer Grant Prideco.

Jacob holds an M.Sc. in Mining Engineering from the Delft University of Technology and an MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Sascha Keen is an experienced investor, banker, project financier and entrepreneur. He held executive management positions with Australian, European and Asian investment banking and trading groups, including Rothschild and Mitsui for over 25 years. His sector expertise focusses mainly on natural resources, commodities, renewable energy, impact investment, power, infrastructure and digital media distribution.

He currently holds the position of Strategic Financing Advisor at Savannah Resources, a mineral resource development company focused on building cash generative and profitable mining operations. The company’s flagship asset is the Mina do Barroso Lithium Project in Portugal, a wholly owned opportunity to become the first lithium producer in Europe via the rapid development of the most significant spodumene lithium resource in the EU.