Speakers

Speakers

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Stella Farrington

Head of content

Energy Risk

Stella Farrington has been writing about energy markets for over 20 years, working at Futures World News and Dow Jones Newswires before moving to Energy Risk in 2004. She spent eight years as the editor of Energy Risk and six as a writer, before moving into her current role as Energy Risk’s head of content and a commercial editor with Infopro Digital’s Ignite team.

Elisa Scarpa

Deputy director, market strategy & structuring

Edison SpA

Elisa Scarpa is Deputy Director Market Strategy & Structuring at Edison, EDF Group.
Her activities concern the development of market strategies on power, oil, gas and LNG markets, the implementation of pricing models for structured energy products and the evaluation of the optionality in Edison portfolio. She has been working for Edison for the last 16 years. Previously Elisa has been involved for four years in several projects at Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei in the International Energy Market Unit. She holds a degree in Economics (DES) from Bocconi University and a master’s degree in Energy Finance and Trading from Politecnico of Milan. She is the author of papers on commodity finance and price forecasting. She conjugates the activity at Edison with lectures on Energy economics and Energy fundamentals and she is part of the steering committee of the European Energy Analyst meeting. She is the Leader of the Topic Energy & Utilities for Bocconi Alumni Community.

Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz

Energy Analyst Europe

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

Ana Maria is an Energy Consultant and Training Facilitator with international experience in power, academia and natural gas industry. She holds BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering degrees.  

Ana began work in Colombia with Electric Utilities and Gas Distribution Company, and also worked at Universidad de Norte, becoming Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Programme.

In UK she has worked as Energy Consultant in great variety of projects, such as: European Gas Model, Worldwide Gas Production and Transportation Costs, Natural Gas Markets of several countries, Advising the electricity regulation in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Nigeria's Presidential Task Force on Power. She worked as individual contractor for UNFCCC.

Since 2013 she has been designing and delivering Energy Training programmes in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Europe.

From the beginning of 2021, Ana Maria has been working as energy analyst for IEEFA’s Europe team on topics related to gas, LNG, hydrogen, as well as other relevant European energy issues. 

Languages: English, Spanish

André Jäger

Senior vice president, product management

ION Commodities

Mr. Jäger currently serves as Head of Industry Solutions Group responsible for ION’s Commodity Management Solutions. In addition to his Product Management responsibilities, he heads up ION’s Berlin office.

Since joining ION/Openlink in 2004, Mr. Jäger has been involved in numerous European and international product implementations, eventually transitioning from consultant to sales support to product management responsibility.

After the ION acquisition of Openlink in 2018, Mr. Jäger took over the role as Head of Industry Solutions Group in the Product Management Team, where he leads a global team of market SMEs overseeing ION’s Energy and Commodities product portfolio.

Mr. Jäger holds a Master of Science in Management from Stevens Institute of Technology and Diplom-Ingenieur (Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen) degree from the Technische Universität Berlin.

George Christoforou

Head of market risk

Petrocas Energy Group

Matthew Stone

Managing Director

Prima

Mat Stone is the founder and Managing Director of PRIMA, an award-winning research and data firm specializing in the low carbon transportation fuel markets since 2015. PRIMA joined Resourcewise in 2022 to work alongside verticals in forestry, pulp and paper, petrochemicals, methanol and biogenic carbon. Mat has worked across energy and agricultural commodities in pricing, research and broking in the US, Europe and Asia since 1998. He has established several listed price benchmarks for emerging low carbon commodity streams as well as pioneering market research into new energy streams. PRIMA’s data and analytics are widely used across the energy industry for their insights into the renewable energy interface between policy, markets and fundamentals.

Alexander James McDonald

CEO

European Venues and Intermediaries Association (EVIA)

EVIA MISSION STATEMENT 

 

The European Venues and Intermediaries’ Association promotes and enhances the value and competitiveness of Wholesale Market Venues, Platforms and Arranging Intermediaries by providing members with co-ordination and a common voice to foster and promote liquid, transparent and fair markets. It maintains a clear focus and direction, building a credible reputation upon 50 years of history, by acting as a focal point for the industry and providing clear direction to their members when communicating with central banks, governments, policy makers, and regulators. 

Its core strength is the ability to consolidate views and data and act as a common voice for an industry operating in a complex and closely regulated environment, by acting as a central point for the industry and providing clear communication with central banks, governments, policy makers, and regulators.  

It provides specific standards and maintains a clear focus and direction for the participant s and stakeholders across the market ecosystem, building upon a credible reputation from over 50 years of experience.  

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ALEXANDER MCDONALD – BIOGRAPHY 

Alexander McDonald has been CEO of European Venues and Intermediaries Association (“EVIA”), previously known as the Wholesale Market Brokers Association (“WMBA”) and the London Energy Brokers Association (“LEBA”) since 2009. 

EVIA/LEBA member firms are global and wholesale venues and intermediaries, providing services and arranging transactions in the cash and derivative Rate, Credit, Foreign Exchange, Equity and Commodity marketplaces. He currently also holds a SM1 permission as Benchmarks Administrator to two Specified Indices under the UK authorisation, EURONIA and RONIA. In the decade until 2020 he was also responsible for SONIA which was subsequently taken over by Bank of England as the UK RFR. 

Prior to joining WMBA, Alex has spent his career as Managing Director in the Treasury and Trading divisions of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, before moving into Fund Management where he worked for Bluecrest, Olea and BSAM as either Portfolio Manager or Principle. He holds an MA from Cambridge University in Geophysics/Geochemistry. [see notes[ii] for details]. 

He has over twenty years of experience as a market maker, franchise leader, macro trader and portfolio manager, focusing on risk in commodities, fixed income and currencies worldwide. Additionally, he was a director, in charge of Emerging Markets and currency trading at CSFB for eight years, and prior to that he was Executive Director at Goldman Sachs on their fixed-income proprietary trading desk. He joined JP Morgan in 1988 and subsequently traded with and managed their futures, fixed income arbitrage and FX teams.  

Latif Faiyaz

Head of Energy Trading & Strategy

Northern Gas and Power

Latif Faiyaz, Head of Energy Trading & Strategy,Northern Gas and Power (NGP Ltd)

Latif has a wealth of experience from within the energy industry, currently at Northern Gas and Power, Latif heads the Trading department of six Traders and two Analysts, managing over 450 commercial customers with over 6TWh of energy under management. 

He has experience in developing carbon projects and trading carbon internationally. Latif has also worked at utilities; Engie and Orsted, implementing the integration of energy service offerings (PPAs, CHPs and Demand Management) into supply contracts. His experience is varied too. He’s worked ‘on the other side of the fence’ as an Energy Manager for the NHS, before returning back to energy trading for LG Energy and Yorkshire Energy.

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Navin Rauniar

Co-chair, ESG working group, and member & UK SteerCo member

Professional Risk Managers'​ International Association

Stéphanie Mielnik

Director of Research

Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute

Director, Research

Stephanie Mielnik, CFA, is Director of Research at the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute (AFII), a research organisation empowering fixed income investors to drive the climate transition. She is currently leading extensive research projects on sustainability-linked bonds and integration of nature considerations into fixed income investments.

Stephanie has a master’s degree in software engineering from HEI Lille and a M.Sc. in financial engineering from Skema Business School. Prior to joining the AFII, she was a Vice-President in Northern Trust Asset Management’s Strategic Products Team where she led the development of sustainable strategies and worked on the implementation of SFDR. Stephanie started her career at Natixis as a quantitative analyst before joining the equity derivatives desk as a structurer.

Stephanie is a passionate mountain sportsperson and is a member of the non-profit Protect Our Winters.

Louis Redshaw

CEO and Founder

Redshaw Advisors & Net Zero Markets

Louis Redshaw is the CEO and founder of Redshaw Advisors and Net Zero Markets. He has been an advocate of the use of carbon markets to combat climate change from early in his career, having been active in the sector for more than 20 years.

Notably, Louis established Barclays’ Environmental Markets Team which he led for ten years. His insights and advice are sought by governments, legislatures and corporations, while also frequently being asked to participate in conferences to share his expertise.

In 2014, he established Redshaw Advisors which has grown to become one of Europe’s leading environmental markets advisory and procurement firms. Additionally, in 2022 Louis launched Net Zero Markets, which aims to transform the voluntary carbon market through increased standardisation and transparent tradability of carbon solutions.

Sujoy Roy

Director, Head of Financing

Shinsei International Limited

Sujoy joined SBI Shinsei International Limited, a subsidiary of SBI Shinsei Bank in 2019, having previously worked at Santander Bank. At Shinsei International, Sujoy is responsible for the Bank's deal sourcing, advising and international syndication & distribution activities in the renewables, infrastructure, real estate, aircraft and shipping sector. In this role, he was instrumental in the development of the Bank’s international investments platform and originate to distribute model.

Over fourteen years of experience in debt syndication and structuring transactions. For the past eight years, much of his focus has been on the EMEA renewables and infrastructure sector. While working alongside many major sponsors, developers, lenders as well as with a variety of commercial banks, export credit agencies and institutional investors, he has built a strong experience in the debt syndication, structuring, advising and negotiations of large and complex project finance transactions.

Joe Miletic

Head of asset and portfolio management

Amberside Energy

Joe Miletic – Head of Asset and Portfolio Management

Joe Miletic joined Amberside Energy in July 2022, a renewables development and management company, providing investor support and asset/portfolio management on solar projects in the UK. He previously worked for Foresight Group as senior portfolio manager (portfolio lead for solar, ~1GWp) and head of JLEN solar. Prior to that, Joe held senior asset management roles for UK and international solar projects at John Laing, Armstrong Energy and Sonnedix. He holds a master’s degree in engineering from ENSIP and an advanced master’s degree in renewable energy from Mines Paristech.

Georges Panaghoulis

Head of price risk and hedging

Island Oil Ltd

Georges Panaghoulis is the head of price risk and hedging at Island Oil Holdings, a physical supplier of marine fuel headquartered in Cyprus.

He has been working in risk management since 2015 where he has had various roles and been involved in the set-up of hedging procedures & strategies, exposure reports, clearing accounts, implementation of ETRM’s as well as derivatives trading and live price evaluation.

Georges is an engineer specializing in Mechanics Energetics and started his career in 2011 as an area sales manager, and he was in charge of developing sales for a manufacturer of flexible heating elements across various industries and applications.

Aurel Mindrican

Commercial optimisation & market insights director

ČEZ Group

Aurel Mindrican, Commercial optimisation & market insights director, CEZ Romania 

 

Aurel holds a license degree in Hydroelectric and environment and a master’s  in Optimisation of Hydro Power Plants operation from Universitatea Politehnica Bucharest followed by another master’s in Energy with FABIZ – ASE, Romania. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of electricity suppliers’ association in Romania (AFEER) in 2006-2008. After 5 successful years as a senior engineer in Hidroelectrica (the biggest power producer in Romania) contributing to the start of electricity market in Romania, he took the position of Trading Director in Romelectro, one of the top 5 trading companies in Romania. From 2008 to 2021 Aurel was Trade Development Manager and General Manager in CEZ Trade Romania, as well as  Trading Manager in Ovidiu Development (CEZ Wind farm) from 2016 to 2021. Since 2021 he has taken the position of Trading and Market Strategies Director in CEZ Romania Group. 

Riccardo Rossi

Head of southern Europe origination

Centrica Energy Trading

Paul Horsnell

Head of Commodity Research

Standard Chartered

Paul Horsnell is the Head of Commodities Research at Standard Chartered Bank, leading a team that covers the key metals and energy markets. He was previously Head of Commodities Research at Barclays, and Head of Energy Research at JPMorgan. Prior to becoming a financial analyst, he was Assistant Director for Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Praelector in Economics at Lincoln College, Oxford.  Paul is a former Chairperson of the British Institute of Energy Economics and holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a doctorate in Economics from Oxford University. He is the author of the Oxford University Press books “Oil in Asia” and (with Robert Mabro) “Oil Markets and Prices”.

Nicholas Jupe

Renewable Energy, Generation and Derivatives, UK and Ireland

Trailstone Group

Nick leads the origination business for Trailstone Renewables in UK and Ireland, Nick has more 15 year’s experience working in diverse sectors as micro generation for domestic, to large coal and gas fired power stations.   Currently working in a trading environment at Trailstone Nick is responsible for offering risk management solutions to generators, utilities and asset managers to protect against wholesale market exposures.   

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Jens Gobel

Director gas, power and emissions trading

Cepsa

Jens Gobel started his career at Enron Capital & Trading in the Continental European Power desk in London in 1998. Eventually Jens served in various roles in Origination, Trading and Principal Investments at Enron’s offices in London, Houston and Frankfurt. In 2002 he joined Statkraft Markets in Germany as Head of Structuring and eventually assumed more commercial responsibility as Head of Origination for Western Europe, managing director of Statkraft’s Hungarian affiliate and “Prokurist” for Statkraft Markets GmbH.

In 2008 he joined the Leadership Team of Shell Energy Trading where he was responsible for Power Trading Development. After the merger with Shell Energy Europe Jens became Head of Structured Trading Power at the merged entity Shell Energy Europe. He also served on the Board of the Shell UK Pension trust company and served on its Investment Committee.

Since July 2013 Jens has been with eni Trading And Shipping in London and currently serves as Head of Power and Emissions Trading. Since June 2015 Jens has also been a Deputy Chairman on the EEX Exchange Council.

 

Paul Dawson

Head of regulatory affairs

RWE Supply & Trading

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Stella Farrington

Head of content

Energy Risk

Stella Farrington has been writing about energy markets for over 20 years, working at Futures World News and Dow Jones Newswires before moving to Energy Risk in 2004. She spent eight years as the editor of Energy Risk and six as a writer, before moving into her current role as Energy Risk’s head of content and a commercial editor with Infopro Digital’s Ignite team.

Jo Burnham

SME risk and margining

OpenGamma

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Federico Tondi

Head of technology innovation

Shell

Christian De Santis

Chief financial officer

Vårgrønn AS

Christian DE SANTIS

Chief Financial Officer at Vårgrønn AS

Since 2021, Christian DE SANTIS is Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Vårgrønn AS which is a Norway-based company with the ambition to reach an installed capacity in the North Sea and Baltic Sea region of 1 GW towards 2030.

Previously, he spent most of his 20+ years international career within the oil & gas trading business of Eni Group. From 2015 until June 2021, he was CFO of Eni Trading and shipping Inc., an oil & gas trading company based in Houston (Texas) along with the same role in Eni Transporte y Suministro México, S. de R.L. de C.V.  based in Mexico.

From 2008 until June 2015, he had various roles within Eni Trading and Shipping SpA, the primary energy trading Company of Eni based in Italy with branches in London, Brussels and Singapore; he primarily supported the Company to implement and streamline the Accounting and Back Office processes. During the same period, he was also the Chief Financial Officer of Tecnomare, a Company providing on shore and off-shore engineering services to eni upstream affiliates.

At the earliest stage if his career (2003), he joined the Eni Advisory Team managing the Eni Group transition from Italian Gaap to IFRS so to became an IFRS and US Gaap subject expert.

Frank van Doorn

VP, Head of business unit trading and General manager

Vattenfall

Frank van Doorn, Vice President, Head of Business Unit Trading and General Manager for Vattenfall Energy Trading GmbH

Biography (August 2022):

Frank van Doorn is leading Vattenfall’s Trading Unit, which covers all the Group’s wholesale trading in power, gas, coal, biomass, carbon and green certificates. He started his career in the energy industry in 1998 as business analyst at Mobil Europe Gas, and after stints at EDF Trading, Essent and RWE, he joined Vattenfall in 2011. Since then, Frank has held several managerial positions in the Trading Unit, before taking up the responsibility for all trading activities in April 2018. Vattenfall is one of the main traders in the European Energy market.

Vattenfall:

Vattenfall is a leading European energy company, which has electrified industries, supplied energy to people’s homes, and modernized our way of living through innovation and cooperation for over 100 years. We now want to make fossil-free living possible within one generation. That's why we are driving the transition to a sustainable energy system through initiatives in renewable production and climate smart energy solutions for our customers. We are one of the main traders in the European Energy market.

Elisa Scarpa

Deputy director, market strategy & structuring

Edison SpA

Elisa Scarpa is Deputy Director Market Strategy & Structuring at Edison, EDF Group.
Her activities concern the development of market strategies on power, oil, gas and LNG markets, the implementation of pricing models for structured energy products and the evaluation of the optionality in Edison portfolio. She has been working for Edison for the last 16 years. Previously Elisa has been involved for four years in several projects at Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei in the International Energy Market Unit. She holds a degree in Economics (DES) from Bocconi University and a master’s degree in Energy Finance and Trading from Politecnico of Milan. She is the author of papers on commodity finance and price forecasting. She conjugates the activity at Edison with lectures on Energy economics and Energy fundamentals and she is part of the steering committee of the European Energy Analyst meeting. She is the Leader of the Topic Energy & Utilities for Bocconi Alumni Community.

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Ilia Bouchouev

Managing partner

Pentathlon Investments, New York University

For nearly twenty years Ilia Bouchouev has been managing the global derivatives business for Koch Industries, the world second largest privately held company. Koch's derivatives group operates globally with trading desks in New York, Houston, London and Geneva with the focus on energy trading. Ilia also serves as a President of Koch Global Partners, proprietary trading group specializing in trading foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives. Ilia has PhD in Applied Mathematics, and has been a regular speaker at various industry conferences.

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Harry Huang

Managing director gas trading

Uniper

Harry Huang has over 20 years’ experience in the European energy industry. He is currently the Head of Trading for PetroChina International (London) Co. Ltd. In this role, he is responsible for the company’s trading in European physical gas and power as well as in all other energy derivatives including crude oil, refined products, carbon emissions and coal. Prior to joining PetroChina in 2013, Harry spent over 10 years with Statoil and held various positions in trading and structuring, including setting up their flexibility and options trading desk. His earlier career was with National Power PLC in the UK and TXU Europe Energy Trading in Switzerland where he had roles ranging from project management, analysis and risk management. Harry holds a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing and a PhD from Imperial College in London

Sidhartha Dash

Chief Researcher

Chartis Research

Sid is the Chief Researcher at Chartis Research with more than 20 years of experience in the financial, energy and commodities markets in various functions across the trade and software development lifecycles. He has held various roles in product development, trading, risk management, software development and consulting in banks, hedge funds, and risk advisory and software firms, including Standard Chartered Bank, TCG Group, HCL and Cognizant.

Sid’s specific areas of interest and research include risk data, model risk management, quantitative models in illiquid markets, high-performance analytics, energy and commodity trading risk, market structure design, new computational models, and the use of innovative mathematical methods in various emerging areas of risk management .He has a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management and is a qualified Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst CAIA, Financial Risk Manager (FRM) ,Energy Risk Professional (ERP), Member of GARP and CIPM from the CFA institute.

 

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Navin Rauniar

Co-chair, ESG working group, and member & UK SteerCo member

Professional Risk Managers'​ International Association

Ritika Wattan

Head of strategy

SSE

Ritika is a strategy and business transformation executive experienced across consultancy and energy industry. In her current role she is the Head of Strategy and Planning for SSE’s Energy Solutions Business Unit which involves shaping strategic positioning of ECS in the market place and in line with the future energy market developments and ensuring alignment of the portfolio with strategic priorities.

Prior to this she has performed variety of roles in organisations including British Gas / Centrica, Logica / CGI and Tata Consultancy Services within strategy and transformation and brings with her wide experience of delivering high impact programmes targeted at innovation, operational efficiencies and customer centricity.

Ritika enjoys reading and is an avid traveller - one of her most memorable trips being a solo trek to the region of the notorious Eyjafjallajökull volcano (aka E15) in Iceland!

 

Qualifications:

Competitive Strategy and Innovation - London School of Economics

Master’s in Business Administration - Symbiosis University, India

 

Derek Bunn

Professor of decision sciences management science and operations

London Business School

DEREK W. BUNN: Brief Introduction 

Derek is a Professor at London Business School. He is the author of over 200 research papers and 10 books in the areas of forecasting, decision technology and energy economics. He is a former Editor-in-chief of Energy Economics, the Founding Editor of the Journal of Energy Markets and has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Forecasting for many years.  He has worked with the electricity sector for over 35 years, advising many organisations including the House of Commons, and providing expert witness evidence in legal disputes. He is currently chairman of the UK Government's panel for the capacity market and an independent board member of the Balancing and Settlements Code.  

 

Richard Payne

Non-executive

Cobblestone Energy

Richard serves as a non-executive at Cobblestone Energy supporting strategy development and execution.  Richard has over 25 years’ experience in the commodities industry as a commercial executive and consulting leader. 
He has worked at Rosneft Trading, at Rio Tinto and Cargill and was the MD of Accenture’s commodities trading consulting practice. 
Based in Geneva Richard is a British national and speaks French and German.  He has degrees from the University of Oxford and Henley Business School.

Klaus Prommersberger

Head of risk management trading regulation

Axpo Group

Abraham Papakirillou

Director risk management

Public Power Corporation S.A.

Abraham Papakirillou is the Director of Risk Management (Chief Risk Officer) of PPC SA. He has been with PPC for 11 years starting as CFO of PPC Renewables and has since had various senior roles in Finance and Business Development. Prior to joining PPC he had worked at the JS Latsis Group, Lloyd’s Register and the Boston Consulting Group.

Abraham is a Naval Architect and Mechanical Engineer, has an MBA from INSEAD and is a CFA charterholder.

Christophe Idareci

Head of credit risk EM&T

Centrica

Christophe heads the Credit Risk team at Centrica Energy Marketing & Trading, the entity in charge of energy trading operations for the Centrica group. He started his career in banking and has gained extensive international experience in the areas of credit risk, treasury and finance in several major energy trading houses.

Georges Panaghoulis

Head of price risk and hedging

Island Oil Ltd

Georges Panaghoulis is the head of price risk and hedging at Island Oil Holdings, a physical supplier of marine fuel headquartered in Cyprus.

He has been working in risk management since 2015 where he has had various roles and been involved in the set-up of hedging procedures & strategies, exposure reports, clearing accounts, implementation of ETRM’s as well as derivatives trading and live price evaluation.

Georges is an engineer specializing in Mechanics Energetics and started his career in 2011 as an area sales manager, and he was in charge of developing sales for a manufacturer of flexible heating elements across various industries and applications.

Nathan Cole

Head of risk management

Drax Power Ltd

Nathan Cole

Risk Management

Nathan is currently the Head of Wholesale and Treasury Risk at Drax Group. Nathan specialises in the oversight and management of market, credit and operational risk across the Energy, Banking and Treasury sectors. Previously, Nathan has established and managed risk functions in EMEA and Asia across the energy and banking sectors. He has over 10 years experience in Risk and over 20 years in the energy and Banking sectors.

Julian Bouchard

Head of corporate energy market risks

EDF

Alex Whittaker

Risk manager

Bonroy Petchem Co Ltd

Started in energy trading in 2006.  Over 16 years I have gained experience across all sides of the industry from busy financial and physical trading desks to professional services and presales at technology vendors, and advisory at consultancies.  The result is I have a well-rounded perspective based on lived experience as a client and end user, combined with the sales and marketing side of a vendor and consultant, as well as experience working on projects as a contractor.  Currently I am General Manager at a new commodities trading house with responsibility for all our risk, compliance, operations, and technology activity. 

Stuart Large

Business development director

Jupiter Intelligence

Stuart Large, Business Development Director.

Based just outside London, Stuart operates in the Energy, Mining, and Industrial sectors, covering the Europe, Middle East and African markets for Jupiter Intelligence.

Stuart has more than twenty years of experience in Business Development and Product Management, providing technical solutions to challenges in Oil & Gas, Energy, Security, Infrastructure, Smart Cities and Transportation.

Francesco Benvenuto

Head of energy management

Renantis

Francesco Benvenuto

Head of Energy Management

Graduated in Engineering/Industrial Management, going on to complete a Master’s in Energy Finance at the MIP Politecnico di Milano university. Since 2016, he has been a Chartered Financial Analyst and member of the CFA Institute.
From 2003 to 2006 he worked for Accenture S.p.A. where he was involved in advisory projects on energy issues for major Italian utilities including Enel and Eni. In 2006, he worked at Dalmine Energie, a wholesaler in the commodities market owned by the Tenaris Group (then acquired by E.On), where he was involved in market analysis, evaluation of investment opportunities and planning and auditing. In 2008, he joined the EDF Group, first working at Edison Trading in Milan as a market analyst and assistant trader and then at EDF SA in Paris.
At EDF SA, he held various positions, initially dealing with strategy, investment evaluation and medium/long-term structuring of the group’s asset portfolio, then becoming Head of Pricing and Sourcing of the retail and wholesale portfolio for the group in France (around 330 TWh), and finally assuming the role of Head of Portfolio Management with responsibility for medium/long-term planning and optimisation of the EDF group’s generation assets in France. Since 2018 Francesco has been responsible for the Energy Management Area of Falck Renewables S.p.A. and he is managing director of Falck Energy S.r.l.

Jack Sharples

Research fellow on the gas research programme

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

Dr. Jack Sharples joined the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in January 2018. He is an expert in supply-side dynamics of the European gas market, in particular with regard to Russian gas supplies to Europe. He holds a PhD in the Political Economy of Russian Gas from the University of Glasgow. Prior to joining OIES, he spent four years as a Lecturer in Energy Politics at the European University in St Petersburg. Outside OIES, he has been the author of the ‘Gazprom Monitor’ monthly analytical reports for the European Geopolitical Forum (Brussels) since June 2012.

 

His most recent publications for OIES include: 'Falling Like Dominoes: The Impact of Nord Stream on Russian Gas flows in Europe (August 2022); 'The Curious Incident of the Nord Stream Gas Turbine' (July 2022); 'REPowerEU and the Short-Term Outlook for the European Gas Market' (July 2022); 'The EU plan to reduce Russian gas imports by two-thirds by the end of 2022: Practical realities and implications' (March 2022); 'Ukraine Invasion: What This Means for the European Gas Market' (March 2022); 'The Potential Impact on the UK of a Disruption in Russian Gas Supplies to Europe' (February 2022).

In addition, Jack is a co-author of the OIES Quarterly Gas Review and regular co-contributor to the OIES podcast series 'The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on Energy Markets', both alongside Mike Fulwood. All these publications and podcasts are publicly available on the OIES website at www.oxfordenergy.org. You can also follow him on Twitter @JackDSharples.

Sándor Misik

Head of financial risk management

MVM Group

Sandor Misik is the Head of Financial Risk Management at MVM Group being responsible for managing market risk, setting the framework and ensuring risk oversight on Group level. Previously Sandor held various positions related to market risk management: between 2019-2021 managed interest rate risk and debit issuances in Debt Capital Market team at Diageo,  between 2016-2019managed price risk at MOL Group (Hungarian integrated oil company) after closing a decade of broker sales carrieer.

 MVM Group is a fully state owned predominant player in Hungarian and regional natural gas and electircity market.  MVM Group is the 3rd largest company in Hungary, and the 13th in Central Europe by balance sheet.

Cátia Mota Lopes

Head of risk management & control

Galp

Cátia Lopes is the Head of Risk Management & Control at Galp, an integrated energy operator, present throughout the entire oil and natural gas value chain, and in the marketing of electricity.

 

She has several years of experience in energy commodities supply and trading, operations, control, and implementation of ETRM.

Cátia has a background in Economics and Finance, and, prior to joining Galp, over 10 years ago, she held different positions in the banking sector, in assurance for one of the Big4’s and in the largest utility company in Portugal.

George Axiotis

Head of market risk

E.ON

George Axiotis is the Head of Market Risk at E.ON SE; he is responsible for the monitoring and governance of commodity risk management.  George started his career in the energy industry by joining Aquila Energy in London in the role of structurer.  He then moved to RWE Supply and Trading where he was responsible for modelling and evaluating structured transactions (take-or-pay contracts, PPAs, tolling agreements, etc.).  After a number of roles in UK with RWEST and npower, George moved to Germany to work for RWE’s affiliate company, innogy.  He joined E.ON in 2020 with innogy’s acquisition. 

George holds an Economics degree from Rutgers University and a master’s degree (MSc) in Finance from Warwick Business School. 

Aiman El-Ramly

Chief business officer

ZE PowerGroup Inc

Aiman El-Ramly, MBA, CMC, Chief Business Officer, ZE PowerGroup has been an active member of the energy and commodities industries for 30 years. Aiman has significant understanding of what is needed for corporations to run effectively in complex global markets. ZE PowerGroup is the developer of the ZEMA™ enterprise software for data management. Aiman and his team have been recently expanding ZEMA’s capability to include advanced analytics and machine learning in resolving key industry challenges in trade, risk and operations. He is a frequent presenter, and market expert, in data and data analytics.

Aiman is also the Chief Operating Officer for ZE Power Engineering, ZE’s engineering design firm for utilities. Aiman holds an MBA from Royal Roads University and a BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Ricardo Rossi

Head of Southern Europe Origination

Centrica

Riccardo Rossi – Head of Southern Europe Origination – Centrica Energy Trading

Riccardo leads the origination teams in renewables for Central and Southern Europe for Centrica Energy Trading. 

Riccardo joined the Centrica Group in 2017 as Head of Energy Trading Regulation, leading a team of international experts to support trading, route-to-market, and LNG activities of Centrica. Between 2013 and 2016 he worked for Gazprom Marketing & Trading, being responsible for financial and energy trading regulation. He has been coordinator of several working groups within energy associations such as EFET, the European Federation of Energy Traders.

He developed his experience in market design of energy markets working for the E.ON Group in Dusseldorf and Milan from 2006. He started his career at Dalmine Energie in 2003.

Lamé Verre

Head of strategy innovation &sustainability

SSE

Lamé Verre,

Head of Strategy, Innovation & Sustainability, Energy Customer Solutions at SSE PLC

Co-founder & Board Co-chair of Lean-in Equity & Sustainability

Lamé is a Fellow of the Energy Institute (FEI), and She is currently Head of Strategy, Innovation & Sustainability Energy Customer Solutions at SSE PLC. SSE PLC is an FTSE 100 leading generator of renewable electricity and one of the largest electricity network companies in the UK.

 

Lamé was previously Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Transition at the UK-based Alaric & Associates, an independent energy consulting firm focused on upstream, midstream and renewable energy sectors. In addition, she co-founded ScanTech International, a service company focused on providing low carbon pipeline construction and rehabilitation solutions to the energy industry.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Lamé Verre started her career with ENI E&P as a Petroleum Economist working in Italy and Nigeria before relocating to the UK, where she held several instrumental positions for companies such as Sterling Energy Plc, E.ON E&P, Baker Hughes and Halliburton, where she ran the Regional Finance Treasury function for Europe, Eurasia & Sub-Sharan Africa.

 

Lamé is passionate about the growing focus on the social aspect of the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) factors for measuring sustainability and the societal impact of an investment in a company or business.

Lamé is the co-founder & board co-chair of Lean-in Equity & Sustainability, an independent gender diversity and inclusion initiative under the LeanIn.Org umbrella. Lame’s goal as a business leader is to help organisations achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals –

  1. SDG5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”;
  2. SDG7: “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”;
  3. SDG13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Lamé currently sits on the board of trustees for Uganda Conservation Foundation, a charity to support wildlife populations. She also served as a governor for Nescot (North East Surrey College of Technology), a UK Further Education College.

 

Lamé recently won the GRIT Award by Ally Energy. She was named on the 2021 Power List: 50 Pan-African Female Leaders in Energy by African Oil Week, TE100 by the Transition Economist and 100 Female Executives in Africa.

 

Lamé Verre has an MBA from Imperial College Business School; a post-graduate certificate in Corporate Finance from the London Business School; a Masters in Energy, Environmental Management and Economics from the Eni Corporate University; and a B.Sc. in Economics and Statistics from the University of Benin, Nigeria. She also completed the Oxford Saïd Business School Women in Leadership Executive Program.

 

For more information:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lameverre/

https://leaninequity.org/

Jorge Arenillas

VP global energy management

Sonnedix

Jorge Arenillas is VP Global Energy Management at Sonnedix, an international Renewable Energy Producer (REP) with over a decade-long trajectory of sustainable growth which develops, builds, and operates renewable energy projects for the long-term. Sonnedix currently has a total capacity of over 2 GW, including a development pipeline of more than 4GW, across Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, USA, and UK. Jorge has an extensive experience in the energy sector, especially in renewables, with previous positions in Cepsa, Engie or Acciona, where he was Head of Trading & Risk Management, being responsible for negotiating and operating energy derivatives and long-term contracts (PPAs) to control and minimize the merchant risks associated with renewable portfolios. Moreover, Jorge holds a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering as well as an Executive MBA at IESE Business School. 

 

Nick Jupe

Renewable energy generation and derivatives UK and Ireland

Trailstone Group

With over 17 years in the energy industry, Nick Jupe manages Origination in the UK and Ireland for Renewable Generation and Risk Solutions at Trailstone, providing renewable balancing solutions, volume hedging, and shaping solutions for renewable generators and offtakers to manage renewable energy generation into the wholesale markets.    

Joe Miletic

Head of asset and portfolio management

Amberside Energy

Joe Miletic – Head of Asset and Portfolio Management

Joe Miletic joined Amberside Energy in July 2022, a renewables development and management company, providing investor support and asset/portfolio management on solar projects in the UK. He previously worked for Foresight Group as senior portfolio manager (portfolio lead for solar, ~1GWp) and head of JLEN solar. Prior to that, Joe held senior asset management roles for UK and international solar projects at John Laing, Armstrong Energy and Sonnedix. He holds a master’s degree in engineering from ENSIP and an advanced master’s degree in renewable energy from Mines Paristech.

Aurel Mindrican

Commercial optimisation & market insights director

ČEZ Group

Aurel Mindrican, Commercial optimisation & market insights director, CEZ Romania 

 

Aurel holds a license degree in Hydroelectric and environment and a master’s  in Optimisation of Hydro Power Plants operation from Universitatea Politehnica Bucharest followed by another master’s in Energy with FABIZ – ASE, Romania. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of electricity suppliers’ association in Romania (AFEER) in 2006-2008. After 5 successful years as a senior engineer in Hidroelectrica (the biggest power producer in Romania) contributing to the start of electricity market in Romania, he took the position of Trading Director in Romelectro, one of the top 5 trading companies in Romania. From 2008 to 2021 Aurel was Trade Development Manager and General Manager in CEZ Trade Romania, as well as  Trading Manager in Ovidiu Development (CEZ Wind farm) from 2016 to 2021. Since 2021 he has taken the position of Trading and Market Strategies Director in CEZ Romania Group. 

Latif Faiyaz

Head of energy trading & strategy

Northern Gas and Power

Latif heads the energy trading and strategy for industrial and commercial customers at Norther Gas and Power; overseeing 33TWh of energy undermanagement. He has over 10 years’ experience in energy trading and services, including the development of international carbon projects and integrating energy generation into supply contracts. He has previously worked for Orsted and Engie.

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Michael Haigh

Executive vice president, commodity economist

PIMCO

Jacques Tohme

Director

Tailwind Energy

Alexander James McDonald

CEO

European Venues and Intermediaries Association (EVIA)

EVIA MISSION STATEMENT 

 

The European Venues and Intermediaries’ Association promotes and enhances the value and competitiveness of Wholesale Market Venues, Platforms and Arranging Intermediaries by providing members with co-ordination and a common voice to foster and promote liquid, transparent and fair markets. It maintains a clear focus and direction, building a credible reputation upon 50 years of history, by acting as a focal point for the industry and providing clear direction to their members when communicating with central banks, governments, policy makers, and regulators. 

Its core strength is the ability to consolidate views and data and act as a common voice for an industry operating in a complex and closely regulated environment, by acting as a central point for the industry and providing clear communication with central banks, governments, policy makers, and regulators.  

It provides specific standards and maintains a clear focus and direction for the participant s and stakeholders across the market ecosystem, building upon a credible reputation from over 50 years of experience.  

Shape

ALEXANDER MCDONALD – BIOGRAPHY 

Alexander McDonald has been CEO of European Venues and Intermediaries Association (“EVIA”), previously known as the Wholesale Market Brokers Association (“WMBA”) and the London Energy Brokers Association (“LEBA”) since 2009. 

EVIA/LEBA member firms are global and wholesale venues and intermediaries, providing services and arranging transactions in the cash and derivative Rate, Credit, Foreign Exchange, Equity and Commodity marketplaces. He currently also holds a SM1 permission as Benchmarks Administrator to two Specified Indices under the UK authorisation, EURONIA and RONIA. In the decade until 2020 he was also responsible for SONIA which was subsequently taken over by Bank of England as the UK RFR. 

Prior to joining WMBA, Alex has spent his career as Managing Director in the Treasury and Trading divisions of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, before moving into Fund Management where he worked for Bluecrest, Olea and BSAM as either Portfolio Manager or Principle. He holds an MA from Cambridge University in Geophysics/Geochemistry. [see notes[ii] for details]. 

He has over twenty years of experience as a market maker, franchise leader, macro trader and portfolio manager, focusing on risk in commodities, fixed income and currencies worldwide. Additionally, he was a director, in charge of Emerging Markets and currency trading at CSFB for eight years, and prior to that he was Executive Director at Goldman Sachs on their fixed-income proprietary trading desk. He joined JP Morgan in 1988 and subsequently traded with and managed their futures, fixed income arbitrage and FX teams.  

Edmund Lehmann

Managing director

Grey Epoch Europe

Ed is an experienced business developer and trader, now heading up Grey Epoch’s European business. Grey Epoch is one of the larger traders of emissions offsets, with a particular specialism in the options space. Previously, Ed spent 15 years in commodities. At Shell Ed was bringing projects to a financial close in the natural gas and power sectors, and later spent five years trading Crude Oil. At BG, he built up the North West Europe physical and financial trading business, transforming it from passive term seller of crude oil to active trader of physical oil and financial derivatives. Ed has an MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona. 

Ed is an experienced business developer and trader, now heading up Grey Epoch’s European business. Prior to Grey Epoch Europe, Ed spent 15 years in commodities. At Shell Ed was bringing projects to a financial close in the natural gas and power sectors, and later spent five years trading Crude Oil. At BG, he built up the North West Europe physical and financial trading business, transforming it from passive term seller of crude oil to active trader of physical oil and financial derivatives. Ed has an MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona

 

Annegret Groebel

President

Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER)

Dr. Annegret Groebel

1986 Diploma in Economics, University of Heidelberg 
1996 Dr. rer. pol., University of Mannheim 
2004 M.A. (Master of European Administrative Management), FH Bund (Bruehl)

Dr. Annegret Groebel was appointed Vice Chair of the International Confederation of Energy Regulators (ICER) in June 2020. She was elected President of the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) in January 2019, having previously served as CEER Vice President since 2012. She was reelected for a second term in July 2021. She is a member of the Board of Regulators of the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). She is also actively involved in the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and in the European Regulators Group for Postal Services (ERGP) as well as IRG Rail. She is a member of the the OECD’s Network of Economic Regulators (NER Bureau), a working group of the OECD looking at cross-sectoral governance issues of economic regulators. 


Dr. Groebel is Head of Department “International Relations/Postal Regulation” of the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway (BNetzA) and has served in different posts for the German regulator since 1997. 

Dr. Groebel lectures on different subjects in economics, finance, social policy, trade policy and regulatory frameworks at different universities and vocational training academies in Germany, Italy and in Switzerland. She has authored publications in the field of telecommunications and energy regulation.
 

Peter Styles

Managing director

Stratos European Policy

Peter Styles is since 2002 principal consultant in Stratos Energy Consulting and Managing Director of Stratos European Policy. Since 2000 Peter has been a Member of the Board of the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET) and since 2001 a founding Member of the Board of EFET Deutschland. In 2010 Peter was appointed an Honorary Lecturer in the Social Sciences Faculty at Dundee University.

His corporate career prior to 2002 encompassed project work in upstream oil and gas, power plant development, the management of a gas pipeline business and the establishment of the first truly independent pan-European power and gas trading business.

Through Stratos Energy Consulting Peter advises clients on many aspects of the European electricity, gas and carbon markets, applicable European Union (EU) legislation and resulting national regulation. A speciality is the wholesale electricity market, both as it functions in practice and as it is affected by EU and national market design measures. Clients apart from EFET have included utility companies, independent commodity trading firms, investment managers, energy exchanges, national governments, the European Commission, energy media publishers and conference organisers.

Peter is a lawyer by profession and speaks French and German.

Anje Stiers

Head of EU representation office

European Energy Exchange AG

Anje has been working for EEX for eight years a as a financial markets legislation expert. As of this year, she also heads their office in Brussels, leading on EEX’ engagement with European institutions.  
For the last five years she has also been heading the Financial Markets Working Group of Europex, the association of European energy exchanges. Before her time at EEX, she has been serving both as an in-house as well as external advisor to several companies on EU energy policy. Anje has Master degrees in economics, finance and philosophy.

 

Héni Zouiouich

Commodity e-sales EMEA

BNP Paribas

Heni joined BNP Paribas London commodity sales desk in 2018 as Head of Commodity e-sales with the aim at developing and promoting the bank’s digital platform Cortex Commodity Derivatives (Cortex CD). Winner of the Energy Risk OTC Platform of the Year in 2021, Cortex CD pioneered a new era of transparency and independence for corporate hedgers. The platform accelerates digital creativity to overcome barriers created by illiquid markets and seamlessly integrates risk management using state of the art algorithms. In his current role Heni is responsible for maximising electronic commodity sales around the globe leveraging the versatile product offering brought by Cortex CD.

Having started his career 10 years ago as an energy marketer covering corporates and trade finance clients, Heni gradually developed his expertise around electronic execution capabilities across energy and other commodities.

Antoine Bouvet

Senior rates strategist global markets research

ING

Josephine Richardson

Head of portfolio strategy

Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute

Josephine Richardson, FCMA CGMA

Head of Portfolio Strategy

Previously a senior flow trader from JPMorgan, Josephine covered all aspects of credit trading, market making of structured products, risk management, analysis, valuations and controls. She leads the development and application of AFII’s portfolio management techniques and actively manages AFII’s model portfolios. She has a BA Hons Mathematics from Trinity College Cambridge.

Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute is an NGO using market-based approaches to empower the fixed income market to align with Net Zero.

jor@anthropocenefii.org

Costis Stambolis

Chairman and executive director

IENE

Mr. Costis Stambolis is a founding partner of the Athens based Institute of Energy for SE Europe (IENE) while he currently serves as Chairman and Executive Director. He also serves as a full member of the Greek government’s standing committee on Energy and Climate Change (NECP). Costis has over forty years experience in the broad energy sector having worked under various capacities on renewables (solar and wind), natural gas, energy market analysis and energy policy.
He holds graduate and postgraduate degrees from the Architectural Association in London and from the Said Business School at Oxford University. He is also the founder and managing editor of Energia.gr, Greece’s foremost energy portal.
Mr. Costis Stambolis, Chairman & Executive Director, IENE, Greece

Virginie Krone

Unit manager gas trading

BDEW

Virginie Krone, Unit Manager Gas Trading, BDEW

After studying Economics (Master of science) at Free University of Berlin and at the university of Potsdam, Germany; Virginie specialised in Energy Economics and worked at this chair focusing on LNG determinants. Later she worked in consulting for power specific themes and implementation issues for smart metering. Latest Virginie works for the biggest association in Germany for Energy and Water Industries. There her field is in trading gas and gaseous fuels, also gas market design and gas market access, balancing group management gas and REMIT as well as competition and transparency issues. For hydrogen she focussed on ramp up a market and the topic around guarantees of origin. She is also involved in working for umbrella associations for eurogas, eurelectric and as associate member for hydrogen Europe. In terms of the Energy crises we are in, she takes part in regular meetings with national regulatory authorities and Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and climate action and provide deep understanding of the processes of market roles and different emergency stages.

Gavin Knott

Chief Economic Advisor

Ofgem

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Helen Bartholomew

Editor-at-large

Risk.net

Helen Bartholomew is editor-at-Large for Risk.net, based in London. Prior to joining Risk, she was derivatives editor for International Financing Review, part of Thomson Reuters, where she previously reported on debt and equity capital markets. Helen holds a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Durham, UK.

Florent Pelé

Cross commodity strategist

Société Générale

Florent Pelé joined Société Générale’s Commodity Research team in March 2018 and focuses on developing signals from a fundamental and quantitative angle for commodity derivative markets. Previously he worked as a sustainable investment solutions structurer and is now in charge of ESG analysis applied to commodity future contracts. Florent is a graduate from ESSEC Business School’s Advanced Master in Financial Techniques programme. In 2021 and 2022, the Société Générale Commodities Research team was voted by the industry as the best Cross-Commodity Research team in Energy Risk, a highly respected publication dedicated to risk management, trading, and regulation for the global commodity markets.

Jorge Alejandre

Principal consultant

KWA Analytics

Jorge Alejandre, CFA, ERP has over 10 years of experience working as a data analyst, developer, consultant, and quantitative analyst in front office and risk roles in the Energy and Banking industries, with experience across multiple countries in Europe, Asia and America. He has successfully contributed in several ETRM implementations providing training, audit services, UAT support, report configurations, and technical services. Jorge has also spent the last years enhancing his Python development and Machine Learning skills, completing several courses on those topics.