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.

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.

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.

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.

Diego Pavía is a serial entrepreneur, having created seven companies in his lifetime.

He graduated as an electrical engineer, specialising in electronics and automation from the Polytechnical University of Madrid. 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, Diego has been CEO of InnoEnergy.

Elena Bou is the Innovation Director and member of the executive board of InnoEnergy. She has been involved in this company since 2007 being member of the founder team of EIT InnoEnergy.
Prior to that, she developed her professional career in the field of management consulting in both private and public companies, nationally and internationally, giving her the opportunity to manage and develop many European Multinational Projects involving a high degree of complexity and stakeholders and including the creation of two spin-offs.
Elena is also Associate Professor of ESADE Business School since 1998. Former Director of the Executive Master of Operations and Services and cofounder and former director of the GRACO Research Group (IIK) at ESADE. Consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge and Innovation Management and author of several publications.
Elena Bou holds a PhD in Management Sciences from ESADE-URL (Doctor Europeus) and has a degree in Business Administration and Management and an MBA from ESADE Business School. She also studied in Florida University and Copenhagen Business School.

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.

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).

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.

Mars Geuze is Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder Hardt Hyperloop , the European company that brings sustainable high-speed transportation to the world that is faster than airplanes, yet more energy-efficient than trains. At Hardt, Geuze is responsible for the collaboration with stakeholders worldwide to develop hyperloop routes and standardise hyperloop technologies. Before co-founding Hardt Hyperloop, Geuze led the technical team of Delft Hyperloop, winning Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition by successfully testing the first hyperloop in cooperation with over 75 private and public partners. Geuze has been involved in the energy transition in the automotive sector for several years, leading a team in the development of the electrical system of an electric race car at DUT Racing. Geuze holds a B.Sc. degree in Applied Physics from the Technical University of Delft.

Aurélie Balcon is Director of Electric Mobility at ENGIE. Green mobility is a major focus for ENGIE: it’s a key element of ENGIE’s strategy around Zero-Carbon solutions for B2B customers, cities and territories. Previously, Aurélie has worked on building the electricity supply offer for B2B and publics customers in France, developing the customer approach and go to market to provide customers with competitive and innovative offering. Before joining ENGIE in 2008, Aurélie worked as a consultant at Eurogroup and as an energy analyst at Crédit Agricole. Aurélie Balcon is a graduate of AgroParisTech.

Dr. Henrik Thiele is Founder and Managing Director of Qwicc GmbH, a company that develops user-centric charging infrastructure for the public space. Dr. Thiele is also Founder and Managing Director of Blue Whale Capital Ltd., Hong Kong, a company that engages in early start-up investments in B2B / IoT companies.Previously he was member of the executive board of Knorr-Bremse Rail Asia Pacific Ltd, Hong Kong, a company that develops and produces major train sub-systems, he was also Managing Director of Merak S.A.,which develops
and produces air conditioning systems for trains. Dr. Thiele has a Master of Science in economics at London School of Economics and Ph.D. in economics/game theory and wissenschaftlicher Angestellter at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich.

Dr. Andreas Preuß is a founding partner, director and global Head of Science & Technology at The Future Energy Consulting Company (TFECC). TFECC is a consulting company dedicated to future sustainable energy development and it’s mission is to drive the three most important future challenges: secure the energy supply, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and prevent climate change. Clients are global players in the wind and solar industry as well as governmental organisations, SMEs, and start-ups in Europe and the Middle East that strive for innovation in sustainable energy.

Before joining The Future Energy Consulting Company, Dr. Preuß was Client Partner at Korn/Ferry International. Before that he was Partner in a Munich based business consultancy, focusing on the Chemicals and Life Sciences Industry and prior to that experience he worked for one of the largest media corporations worldwide (Bertelsmann), where he was responsible for the Business Development of the Healthcare activities.

Dr. Preuß started his career in the Pharmaceutical Industry as Director of Clinical Research and Development where he was responsible for clinical R&D of blood plasma products and genetically engineered proteins. During his studies he focused on Analytical/Solid State Chemistry and Economics and he holds a Ph.D. in Solid State Chemistry.

Bastien Gambini has more than 15 years of experience investing in venture and private equity in the energy transition sectors. By training he has a strong background in financial analysis. Former lecturer at University Paris-Dauphine, he holds two master’s degrees in Finance and an MBA at Insead. After being the junior founder of one of the Cleantech pioneer funds, Demeter Partners, back in 2005, he joined Equinor Energy Ventures in 2017. Skilled in cross boarder team management and with international work experiences (France, Venezuela, Spain and UK), he sits at the board of several energy related companies in the US, Germany, Norway and the UK.

Paweł Poneta graduated from Civil Engineering Department at Warsaw University of Technology (2004,Poland) in the specialisation of Building Structures. PHD at Rzeszow University of Technology, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Experienced in some prestigious buildings construction e.g. Hotel Hilton in Warsaw (2005). Since 2005 he worked as a of Head of Research and Development Department in Mostostal Warszawa S.A for almost 9 years, managing R&D activities of the company. Currently he is employed at TAURON Polska Energia S.A holding the position of the Head of the R&D office in the mother company for the TAURON Group – one of the largest energy utility Group in Central Eastern Europe. He is actively involved in innovative European research projects as well as start-up activities of the company. Also holding a position of the Member of the Supervisory Board at InnoEnergy Central Europe and Member of the Management Board at National Council of Research Project Coordinators KRAB – Poland.

Florent Andrillon started his career at Schlumberger before joining Capgemini Invent in 2005. He has worked in France and abroad with players in the Energy and Utilities sector: large companies, players wishing to enter this market or parapublic organisations. He has supported these organisations for the past 18 years in their strategic projects of energy transition, acceleration, and global transformation.
More recently, Florent worked a lot with clients willing to leverage digital technology to accelerate their energy transition projects, especially in the area of smart building, e-mobility and smart energy.

As CTO and Corporate Venturing Director, Jaime Martin Juez is deeply convinced that to drive the energy transition is needed to translate research into new technology pathways. Jaime fosters a hybrid approach to the development and deployment of technologies, investing in disrupting startups and building up an ambitious R&D portfolio

Lucette Voorneveld is an experienced Head Of Human Resources with a demonstrated history of working in the renewables and environment industry. Strong human resources professional skilled in Coaching, Organisational Development, Curriculum Development, Change Management, and Dutch.

Antoine Delafargue is the Senior Investment Manager and Chief of Technology for Total’s Corporate Venture Capital team, Total Energy Ventures. The company takes minority stakes in clean tech and Oil&Gas start-ups that are relevant to Total’s businesses.

Xavier Perrette is Senior Project Manager and Business Developer in diverse environments (aerospace, energy) and highly international contexts. Senior Expert in Systems Engineering, availability and life cycle management. Recognised Project Director for development of international Human Capacity Building and training services in the field of low carbon energies, including nuclear. Author of papers on Human Capacity Building and speaker at international conferences.

Xavier has a passion for energy issues, energy systems, low carbon energy including nuclear. Interest for management & leadership, international environment, technical & economic issues, and relation with people. Recognised analytical and solution finding skills, high ability for “affordable innovation”, proven ability to adapt in different types of environments.

Simone Accornero is FlexiDAO CEO and Co-founder. Energy Engineer formed at 4 different universities and graduated from the EIT InnoEnergy MSc Energy for Smart Cities. Expertise in electricity markets (wholesale and local), smart distribution systems and blockchain. Driven by the strong believe that the only aspects of the smart grid that can be truly smart are the consumers within it.

Senior Executive Advisor, Strategy at PwC, David Branson has over 30 years experience in the industry, and is a geophysicist by training. David has engaged in upstream operations and business planning with Shell, VP Business Development with Wintershall. His current role with PwC Strategy& involves working closely with IOCs, NOCs and OFSEs on strategy, organisation and performance. David is a firm believer in the need for energy transition, but that oil and gas will remain important for many years to come.

Karl Farrow has over thirty years in the international energy sector leading project execution strategies as a commercial director for major IOC’s and NOC’s across oil gas and renewables sectors. An entrepreneurial business leader who has supported many successful start-ups bringing innovative services and technology to the energy sector. Karl has worked as advisor to various organisations and government bodies world wide in relation energy transition and knowledge transfer along with raising sustainable private and public sector funding and financing of major capital projects.

Arnaud de Moissac is Founder and CEO of DCBrain: a tool to operate and optimise your Datacenter : better availability, better efficiency, reduced costs, thanks to machine learning and bigdata.

Inge Helmers is Chief Learning officer at Alliander, a company that supports over three million customers with energy in a large part of the Netherlands. The energy transition to sustainable sources of energy has a major impact on skills and competencies. Its a major challenge to drive the corporate strategy and align the development of people with the business goals.

Prof.Dr.ir. Gielen has extensive experience with R&D in the telecommunication and software technology sector as well as in raising venture capital, university-industry collaborative research and spin-off creation.

Prof.Dr.ir. Gielen held a number of technical and management positions in the software industry. He started as a software architect with AT&T Bell Labs in the USA and was director of software technology at Alcatel.

In 1998 he joined Tellium, a US based start-up company in optical network technology, as the VP of Software Engineering. Tellium had a successful IPO on NASDAQ in 2001. He then returned to Europe in 2001 as the CEO for Tellium EMEA.

From 2010 to 2015 he was the Director of the Incubation & Entrepreneurship at iMinds, the leading digital incubator and business accelerator in Flanders. The iStart incubation programme of iMinds was ranked number 4 in UBI’s global ranking of university accelerators in 2015.

Prof.Dr.ir. Gielen was head of the EIT Digital Professional School with the ambition to lead the innovation of professional development and executive education for companies, organisations and individuals going through a digital transformation.

Since 2017 he has been the Education Director at InnoEnergy.

Currently he is also a professor of software technology entrepreneurship at the University of Ghent.

Before joining InnoEnergy, Jakub Miler worked for over 10 years in various international leadership positions in the engineering sector including mining, construction, and energy industries. Jakub also worked for the non-governmental sector. In each of his roles he has helped develop various regional and national programmes as an energy expert.

Jakub received an MBA from Georgia State University and Poznan University of Economics. He also holds a MA in Psychology from Adam Mickiewicz University.

Jakub joined InnoEnergy in 2014 and since January 2016, he has been the CEO of InnoEnergy Central Europe.

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.

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.