Laurent Bataille is Executive Vice President, France Operations, and Member of the Executive Committee of Schneider Electric.

Laurent started his career at Schneider Electric in the Corporate Strategy & Acquisitions department. Since 2019, he was Executive Vice President Digital Energy Division of Schneider Electric. From 2014 to 2018, Laurent oversaw the EcoBuilding Division in Boston (USA). Prior to this role, from 2011 to 2014, Laurent was based in Canada as Senior Vice President of the Solar Business of Schneider Electric. Since joining Schneider in 2004, he has held several senior leadership roles including Vice President of the CST Industry Division from 2008 to 2011. From 2006 to 2008, he was General Manager CST Industry Americas. Before joining Schneider Electric, Laurent was a consultant for McKinsey & Company. Laurent holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from Ecole Polytechnique (France).

Marieke Blom is Chief Economist and Global Head of Research at ING Group. She is also Chief Economist at ING in the Netherlands.

Marieke has worked at ING since 2014. She is a member of the board of the Dutch Royal Economic Society (KVS). She is also a member of the Advice Committee of the National Growth Fund. She regularly appears in the media.

Before joining ING, Marieke worked as a senior manager at start-up Amsterdam consultancy “De Argumentenfabriek”. She was a political advisor at the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA). She started her career as a trainee and economist at ABN AMRO in 1999.

Marieke holds a Master’s degree in monetary economics and wrote her thesis at the research department of the Dutch Central Bank.

 Alessandro Izzo, born September 5, 1973 in Rome. Holds a Bachelor Degree in Law (International Law) from the Università La Sapienza di Roma (1996), Masters of Law (LLM) from University of East Anglia, UK (1996). Admitted to the Italian Bar (Avvocato) in 1999 and admitted to the Rolls of Solicitors in England and Wales (Solicitor) in 2002. He specialized in international corporate and development finance in London (LLM – University College 2001) and Brussels (MSc – Solvay Business School 2005). Started his professional career in 1996 working on M&A, corporate and project finance as well privatizations with international law firms (Gianni Origoni – Linklaters, Rome and Herbert Smith LLP, London) working first in Rome and subsequently in London to then move into corporate investment banking (Credit Suisse London, Sanpaolo IMI Internazionale). Joined the EIB in September 2004 in Luxembourg first in the legal and then in the lending directorate focusing on infrastructure finance, project finance and PPPs in different markets (Italy, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Cyprus, Malta). From 2014 to 2017, he has been responsible for the Public Sector, Infrastructure and PPP Unit of the EIB Regional Office covering Italy, Malta and Western Balkans to become then Head of Division for Project Finance and Regulated Business activities of the EIB in Western Europe (France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). He was appointed Director of the Equity, New Products and Special Transactions Department of the Lending Operations Directorate of the EIB in September 2021 becoming responsible for the equity, growth capital and project finance activities of the Bank in the EU. 

Akshat Rathi is senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News. He is the host of Zero, a weekly climate podcast for Bloomberg Green and writes a weekly newsletter on climate solutions.

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 has worked for Quartz and The Economist. His work has been cited in widely read global publications, including New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

Akshat is also author of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions, that describes a journey across five continents, Climate Capitalism tracks the unlikely heroes driving the fight against climate change. From the Chinese bureaucrat who did more to make electric cars a reality than Elon Musk, to the Danish students who helped to build the world’s longest-operating wind turbine, or the American oil executive building the technology that can reverse climate damages, we meet the people working to scale technologies that are finally able to bend the emissions curve.

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Roger Harrabin is one of the media’s most influential voices on the environment, energy and climate change. As Energy and Environment Analyst he reported for the BBC for over 30 years. Roger has been a global pioneer in environment reporting. He was founder presenter of the BBC environment programme Costing the Earth and has won many awards for his work in radio and TV. His quest for impartiality led him to broadcast two three-part series on Radio 4 tackling the risks and uncertainties in climate science and technology. His reporting on new topics has often been trend-setting – he was, for instance, the first mainstream reporter to highlight the central role that energy would play in the environment. He has interviewed many influential figures including Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ban Ki Moon, Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough.

He is an Honorary lifetime fellow of St Catharine’s Cambridge; Associate Fellow, Green College Oxford and Wolfson College, Cambridge and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Cranfield University for work on the environment.

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.

Roger Harrabin is one of the media’s most influential voices on the environment, energy and climate change. As Energy and Environment Analyst he reported for the BBC for over 30 years. Roger has been a global pioneer in environment reporting. He was founder presenter of the BBC environment programme Costing the Earth and has won many awards for his work in radio and TV. His quest for impartiality led him to broadcast two three-part series on Radio 4 tackling the risks and uncertainties in climate science and technology. His reporting on new topics has often been trend-setting – he was, for instance, the first mainstream reporter to highlight the central role that energy would play in the environment. He has interviewed many influential figures including Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ban Ki Moon, Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough.

He is an Honorary lifetime fellow of St Catharine’s Cambridge; Associate Fellow, Green College Oxford and Wolfson College, Cambridge and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Cranfield University for work on the environment.

Roel van Diepen is Investment Director for the Benelux region at EIT InnoEnergy. Prior to this role he spent 15 years in international investment banking and financial- and capital markets at ING Bank in Amsterdam, New York, and London. He was co-founder of a successful medical devices company, acting as CFO and Head of BD. At InnoEnergy he is combining his finance- and entrepreneurial experience to support start-ups in sustainable energy via a combination of cash investments and services provided through InnoEnergy’s pan-European innovation engine and ecosystem. Roel also takes place in supervisory boards and has early-stage investment experience as angel investor and VC LP.

Daniel Goldman has more than 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.  Over the course of his career, Mr. Goldman’s experience has spanned the upstream, mid-stream and downstream oil, gas, coal and power generation sectors of the industry, and since 2000 has included an extensive focus on clean energy asset development and finance, energy efficiency technology development, as well as venture and project investments, both domestically and internationally.  In addition to co-founding CEVG, since 2006, he has held executive positions at GreatPoint Energy, including until September, 2016 as its president and chief financial officer.  GreatPoint Energy is a clean energy gasification company which Mr. Goldman helped to raise over $280 million from investors such as Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Citi, Dow Chemical and China Wanxiang.  GreatPoint Energy is now a subsidiary of China Wanxiang.

From 2002-06, Mr. Goldman co-founded and was the chief financial officer at New Energy Capital, one of the first firms focused exclusively on investments in clean energy assets using proven technologies with backing from the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) and VantagePoint Capital Partners.  New Energy Capital invested in a portfolio of clean energy and bio-fuels projects[1] during 2004-05 and ultimately sold a large portion of the portfolio in 2006 at an exit multiple (net of fees) of approximately 2.1x, delivering an annualized IRR of approximately 30% for the investors.  Previously, from 1996-2001, he held senior development and finance positions in Hong Kong and Boston at InterGen, a Bechtel-Shell joint venture global power development company, where he was involved in developing and financing thousands of megawatts of power generation facilities globally. Mr. Goldman started his professional career at Arthur D. Little, where he held positions of increasing responsibility as a senior member of the global energy consulting team in Cambridge, MA and Singapore from 1989-1996.  He was responsible for Arthur D. Little’s Asia Pacific Energy Consulting Practice from 1992-96.

Mr. Goldman holds a wide range of advisor and board roles: co-founder and director of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2); member of the board of directors, or a board observer, of several clean energy technology companies, including the following Fund I portfolio companies: LineVision (director), SparkMeter (director), ConnectDER (director), ClearTrace (director), ndustrial (director), ClearFlame Engines (observer), Advanced Ionics (observer), and Nth Cycle (observer); and the following pre-Fund I SPV companies: REsurety (director) and Quidnet Energy (observer).  Mr. Goldman also serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors, and member of the Executive Committee, of the Northeast Clean Energy Council, the leading advocate for the clean energy sector in the Northeast region and a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of Browning the Green Space, a 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to bring more diversity into the clean energy and climate tech ecosystem.  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.

Mr. Goldman received a B.S. from Cornell University and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics.  He is a member of the External Advisory Board (and board chair from October 2013-15) of Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and has previously held other advisory board positions at Cornell.  Mr. Goldman lives in Newton, MA with his wife and three children, and is a competitive road cyclist and triathlete.

Tim is currently leading ING’s activities in the Battery & Charging value chains globally. He is embedded in the Sustainability Value Chains which focuses on supporting and accelerating the build-out of the value chains that will be needed to further decarbonize the economy, which also includes cleantech manufacturing, food production, and voluntary carbon credits. Throughout his 15+ year working life, he has been focused on financing the energy transition, shifting from an initial focus on renewable energy to building out sustainable value chains over time. Tim has led several award-wining transactions, including the original Northvolt Ett financing. Tim is a CFA charterholder.

José Antonio de las Heras is the CEO of FertigHy, a new player in low-carbon fertiliser production, launched to accelerate decarbonisation of the food value chain. He brings more than 25 years of c-level executive and non-executive corporate and venturing experience, many of them in the fields of green hydrogen, renewables and natural gas. Combining his engineering background and commercial mindset, he previously served as CEO of Sunrgyze, a green hydrogen technology start-up owned by Repsol and Enagas as well as developed national markets working for Enagas and Renovalia. 

Edouard Piens is strategy, strategic marketing and innovation Director of InVivo Group, one of Europe’s leading agricultural groups which operates along the entire value chain, from farm to fork, as a leader of its four major strategic business lines: international grain trade, agriculture, agri-food (Malting, Milling/ingredients/bakery, wine), gardening and food distribution. In his position, Edouard brings new digital and non-digital solutions to accelerate the transformation of agriculture towards the 3rd agricultural revolution. He previously served as a strategy consultant within Roland Berger and BCG.

Gustaf Forsberg has a MSc in Engineering physics, a MSc Agriculture and a PhD in Agriculture. After previous experiences in development of industrial technologies for agriculture, Gustaf founded NitroCapt in 2016 together with Peter Baeling, with an idea how to make nitrogen fertilizers in a sustainable and economically competitive way. A collaboration with world-leading researchers around Europe started to create the technology. In 2018, while still in stealth mode, NitroCapt joined the InnoEnergy highway programme. In 2022, the company received investments in equity and grants of ~€3M, followed by a EU LIFE programme grant in €2.1M in 2023. The company currently has 20 employees and another 10 people from academia are engaged in collaboration projects. The plan is to have the first pilot plant started in Q1, 2024 and to scale from there.

Nathalia Posena is Sustainability Project Manager at HEINEKEN. She has over 10 years of experience working in Procurement positions, in which the last 6 years focused on sustainability leading renewable energy sourcing and decarbonization projects through value chain. Nathalia is responsible for an ambitious agenda on sustainable ingredients, driving scope 3 carbon reduction in raw materials focus on the energy and climate transformation of suppliers and leading carbon reporting & calculation methodology.

A graduate of the Faculty of Law and Administration of Warsaw University and joint Warsaw School of Economics’ and the Paris SciencesPo Programme of European Studies. Holds MBA diploma from WSE and University of Quebec at Montreal. Between 2000 and 2004 Mr. Lewenstein worked in the Polish public affairs sector, the Canadian Embassy in Warsaw and the Secretariat General of the European Commission. In 2004 he began his work for Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo S.A. in the field of European integration and the energy sector regulatory framework. In 2006 and early 2007 Mr. Lewenstein worked in the European Commission, in DG Information Society and Media. After returning to Poland, he became the Director of the Office of the Polish Electricity Association. In 2008 he rejoined PGNiG S.A., where he was responsible for planning of Group’s strategy, business expansion and development of the company’s power generation projects as the Director of Strategy Department. Since January 2016 he works for InnoEnergy as Innovation Officer and Thematic Field Leader of Energy for Circular Economy.

For more than 20 years, José Noldin has been leading industrial projects with high innovation and decarbonisation challenges. After starting his career at Tecnored, a company developing a revolutionary new ironmaking technology owned by iron ore giant Vale, he then spent a decade in Belgium in leadership positions at Lhoist, a major player in the lime, dolomite and minerals industry. More recently, José Noldin was the Head of Technology Strategy of one of the largest steel production companies in Latin America, Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, in Brazil, where he was in charge of decarbonation issues.

Steffen Grosse is the chief executive officer of Siemens Financial Services’ (SFS) global Equity Finance team where he leads Siemens’ investment activities worldwide, focused on the energy, infrastructure, and healthcare markets. Managing a portfolio of investments in more than 15 different countries across five continents, his team is comprised of approximately 90 finance professionals.

Previously, Mr. Grosse was the chief financial officer of SFS’s global Energy Finance team and was responsible for managing all aspects of the business’ financial health including performance controlling, strategic planning, budget development and forecasting for the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as in the Asia and Australia regions.  Mr. Grosse has been with Siemens since 2002 and has held several executive financial and leadership roles during his tenure.

Mr. Grosse is an accomplished international finance executive with 20 years of experience in financial management with expertise in performance controlling and reporting, strategic planning, budget development and forecasting.

Mr. Grosse received a B.A. degree from Staatliche Berufsakademie Dresden (Germany) and an M.B.A. in international leadership and finance from University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

Vice President for Development of Boryszew S.A. Capital Group and President of Boryszew Green Energy & Gas Sp. z o.o. Responsible for investments in new technologies in the energy sector and greening of industrial production. Member of the team of the European ELEXIA project under the direction of the Norwegian Research Center (Digitised energy system integration across sectors enhancing flexibility and resilience towards efficient, sustainable, cost-optimised, affordable, secure and stable energy supply). The ELEXIA project is carried out by a consortium of 22 participants from Norway, Portugal, Finland, Greece, Spain, UK and Poland.

Roger Harrabin is one of the media’s most influential voices on the environment, energy and climate change. As Energy and Environment Analyst he reported for the BBC for over 30 years. Roger has been a global pioneer in environment reporting. He was founder presenter of the BBC environment programme Costing the Earth and has won many awards for his work in radio and TV. His quest for impartiality led him to broadcast two three-part series on Radio 4 tackling the risks and uncertainties in climate science and technology. His reporting on new topics has often been trend-setting – he was, for instance, the first mainstream reporter to highlight the central role that energy would play in the environment. He has interviewed many influential figures including Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ban Ki Moon, Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough.

He is an Honorary lifetime fellow of St Catharine’s Cambridge; Associate Fellow, Green College Oxford and Wolfson College, Cambridge and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Cranfield University for work on the environment.

Frank Menchaca is President, Sustainable Mobility Solutions at SAE International, the oldest and largest technical organization for engineering in ground and air transportation. Frank incubated and developed SAE’s work in sustainability and has also led the organization’s product development, marketing, information publishing, professional learning, events and international business. Frank has a deep background in information products and served as Executive Vice President at Cengage Learning. Frank holds degrees from New York University and Yale University and is a candidate in the Chief Sustainability Officer certification program at MIT. A musician and artist, Frank has released ten records of original music under his own name and in the duo Hourloupe; his visual art practice includes painting and digital media.

Riccardo Barberis was appointed Regional President, Northern Europe in May 2021. In this role, Barberis oversees all of ManpowerGroup’s brands and offerings across the region – Manpower, Experis and Talent Solutions. Barberis will lay the path to further accelerate ManpowerGroup’s diversification, digitization and innovation plans, creating even more value for clients and candidates and strengthening our performance in the region.

Barberis joined ManpowerGroup in 1998 and has held numerous leadership positions in Europe and Latin America, most recently as country manager for ManpowerGroup Italy. With 25 years of experience including many international roles his deep industry knowledge and passion for a client-first, candidate-centric approach consistently delivers superior results.

Barberis holds an Executive MBA at Bocconi University (Milan), has accomplished management programs at INSEAD and speaks five languages. He currently serves as Europe Board Member of Junior Achievement, and has been Vice President of the Italian Industry Association, Assolavoro and President of ManpowerGroup’s Human Age Institute. Barberis lives with his wife and three children in Amsterdam.

Henning Ehrenstein is Head of Unit for Skills, Services and Professions in the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs in the European Commission. Prior to that in 2020-2022, Henning was Deputy Head of the Energy Intensive Industries and Raw Materials Unit, leading its hydrogen team. In 2014 to 2020, Henning already acted as Deputy Head of the Services Directive and Policy Unit, following five years in the Single Market Policy Unit of the Commission’s Directorate-General for the Internal Market (2009 – 2014). From 2005 to 2009, Henning worked at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, representing the interests of clients in EU policy-making and legislative procedures. A German national, Henning holds an MA in Economics and Politics from the University of Edinburgh.

Tetiana Dzhumurat is a Principal Banker, Natural Resources team at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Tetiana has over 10 years of experience in impact investing. Since joining EBRD in 2014, Tetiana has led a number of complex project financings involving debt, syndications and equity with a total value of more than EUR 1 billion. In her current role Tetiana is responsible for leading origination and execution of investments in the mining sector in the EBRD’s countries of operations.

Before EBRD, Tetiana worked as an associate in a corporate finance team at KPMG.

A Ukrainian and British national, Tetiana holds an MSc degree in Finance from Lund University, Sweden.

EU official, currently heading the team on energy-intensive industries, raw materials and hydrogen at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. Previously, head of policy coordination for Energy Union, 2030 climate and energy package, low emission mobility strategy and the circular economy at the Secretariat General. Past EU trade negotiator (steel, WTO market access and industrial tariffs). Former UK government official, coordinated UK preparations for 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Graduated in French and Politics from the University of Bristol. Studied at France’s Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA). 

Mrs. Dr. Yun Luo is co-founder and CEO of ROSI, a French deeptech startup company leading the campaign of circular economy for photovoltaic industry. She holds a bachelor’s degree of physics from Fudan University in Shanghai (CN), a Diploma of Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris (FR), and a PhD degree in Microstructure Physics from Max-Planck-Institute in Germany. With full respect to science, technology, and industry, today Dr. Luo is leading ROSI team at worldwide forefront towards high value critical raw materials recycling and revalorization from and for photovoltaic industry, a key element for the successful relocalization and revival of European PV manufacturing.

Keith Coughlan is the Executive Chairman of European Metals Holdings Limited. European Metals is a mineral exploration and development company advancing the Cinovec Lithium Project in the Czech Republic. He has more than 30 years experience in Mining Finance and advising resource companies on projects covering most metals and commodities and in many varied jurisdictions. He was responsible for finding and acquiring the Cinovec Project on behalf of European Metals in 2013. European Metals are partnered in the project by CEZ, the Czech national power utility.

Franz Geyer has a degree in economical engineering, mechanical engineering and a Doctor in Engineering by the University of Dresden in Germany. He has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry and serves in different roles the development of Zero Emission Mobility since 2009 at BMW. He’s a Board member of BEPA, the Batteries Partnership, Board member at e-motive, Industry chair at Batteries Europe and he is also BMW representative at EUCAR and ACEA.