Asia Energy Transition Conference

Richard Meyer serves as Vice President of Energy Markets, Analysis, and Standards at the American Gas Association, which represents more than 200 local energy companies that deliver natural gas throughout the United States.

Richard is responsible for overseeing AGA’s energy markets, analysis, and codes and standards activities that support the association’s outreach to advance awareness of the vital role that natural gas utilities serve in meeting the needs of a clean energy economy.

In his tenth year at AGA, Mr. Meyer’s work relates to natural gas supply and demand fundamentals, gas end-use economics, greenhouse gas emissions including methane topics, climate change policy, renewable gases, energy efficiency, and distributed generation technologies like combined heat and power, reliability and resilience, and innovation including advanced gas production and end-use technologies.

Before AGA, Mr. Meyer was a Senior Associate with ICF International in its Fuels and Technology group. He worked on a range of natural gas and propane market modeling, analyses, and climate-related projects. He has an M.A. in Global Environmental Politics from American University and an M.S. in Physics from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.

Richard serves on the Business Council for Sustainable Energy Board of Directors and Council of the National Capital Area Chapter of the United States Association of Energy Economics.

Richard and his wife Samantha, with their son Rex, live in Washington DC.

Fergus Eley is the Head of Maritime Enterprise at BHP and is passionate about delivering decarbonization, technology, and commercial solutions to improve global supply chains. Seafarers continue to play an integral role in keeping the global economy running – building health, safety, and well-being of all front-line workers is at the forefront of this work. BHP moves cargo along its commodity supply chain using bulk, break-bulk, wet, and containerized freight and plays a leading role in decarbonizing the maritime industry while driving safe and efficient business solutions.

Dhruba Purkayastha is CPI’s India Director, where he leads and guides the Delhi team in developing innovative finance and policy solutions in support of the renewable energy and green growth plans of the Government of India. Dhruba is also the Director of US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF), for which CPI serves as the Program Manager. USICEF is India’s first project preparation facility to scale up distributed renewable energy businesses and drive long-term debt financing from OPIC and other international financial institutions.

Dhruba comes with over 20 years of experience and his expertise lies in management consulting, investment banking, credit rating and international development financing in Asian countries. In addition to his role at CPI, he is a guest faculty at leading business schools in India. Dhruba also advices a wide range of government and public sector institutions banks and financial institutions, multilateral institutions, regulators in areas of policy and institutional development.

Dhruba joined CPI from International Finance Corporation (IFC) where he served as the Program Manager for Investment Climate Advisory. Prior to IFC, he worked with The World Bank as a Senior Specialist, in the South Asia Finance and Private Sector unit in lending operations for infrastructure financing and clean energy financing, public-private partnerships, SME finance, banking, and capital market reforms, private sector development – improving investment climate and competitiveness. He has also worked with ICRA Limited as a Group Head for Infrastructure and Government Consulting practices.

Dhruba is an Engineering graduate from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Ranchi, and a Post Graduate in Management from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta and has a PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi in Financing Infrastructure Investments in Developing Countries. He is also advising the Department of Economic Affairs in the Government of India’s Ministry of Finance, on revising the approach to credit ratings for infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) projects in India, and on setting up a credit enhancement facility in India to enable credit enhanced bonds for infrastructure PPP projects.

Dhruba regularly speaks at events and as an expert to media on financing, clean energy, infrastructure, and climate investments in developing countries.

Wandrille DOUCERAIN is Head of Business Development (Data Centres) at ENGIE South East Asia, part of the ENGIE Group, one of the largest independent power producers in the world and leader in energy efficiency services worldwide.

Wandrille oversees all data centre business activities across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with a view to help customers meet their energy needs while implementing their transition towards carbon neutrality.

Prior to this appointment, Wandrille was Head of Digital Solutions & Strategic Projects at ENGIE South East Asia since September 2019, to accelerate the digital transformation of ENGIE and its customers businesses in the region through innovations and new business models which elevated the company’s end to end value proposition for low-carbon energy solutions. He also played a key role in establishing ENGIE as a strategic partner for corporates and cities eager to embark on their sustainable transformation.

Wandrille joined ENGIE in 2010 and has been involved in many large M&A projects to accelerate ENGIE’s portfolio transition towards low-carbon infrastructure assets. In March 2019 he relocated from ENGIE Group France to Asia.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from NEOMA.

Neva Espinoza is the Vice President, Energy Supply and Low-Carbon Resources at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

In this role she is leading a team focused on the research, development, and application of technologies for safe, reliable, and affordable power generation while supporting energy transformation in the power system. Research areas are focused on a range of energy supply technologies, including both existing and future generating assets and how they can be best leveraged in a deeply decarbonized power system. This includes the existing fossil fleet, large-scale renewable generation assets, bulk energy storage, and the production and use of low-carbon energy carriers.

In addition, Espinoza is leading the Low-Carbon Resources Initiative, in partnership with Gas Technology Institute, to accelerate development and deployment of low-carbon technologies.

Espinoza previously served as the Director of R&D for EPRI’s Generation Sector. She joined EPRI in January 2012 with more than 10 years of operational and engineering experience in the power industry, across a diverse set of assets and technologies. Prior to EPRI, Espinoza served in technical and leadership positions at NRG’s Arthur Kill Power Station, Exelon’s Oyster Creek Power Station and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.

Espinoza received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Rutgers University and Master of Business Administration degree from Wake Forest University. She is a graduate of the U.S. Navy’s Officer Nuclear Power Program and held a senior reactor operator license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Irtiza was appointed as President of ExxonMobil Indonesia in December 2020.

Irtiza joined ExxonMobil in 2006 in Houston, Texas, and has held a variety of management positions in the corporation’s natural gas marketing and business development organizations with portfolios covering Americas, Europe, Russia, Caspian, Middle East and Asia Pacific. Irtiza has also held senior positions in corporate finance, strategic planning and refining.

Prior to joining ExxonMobil, he worked in industrial healthcare and banking.

Irtiza holds a degree in Engineering and an MBA.

He is married with two daughters. Irtiza enjoys spending time with family and playing golf.

Trinity Lloyd leads the Energy Transition and Sustainability practice for Google Cloud. She is responsible for aligning Google’s vast inventory of sustainability assets to the ESG priorities of the world’s largest corporations. Activating an ecosystem of collaboration and innovation powered by big data, Ms. Lloyd brings industries and sectors together to tackle tough challenges, capture emerging markets, and accelerate a sustainable, resilient, and profitable future.

Prior to joining Google, Trinity spent 25 years building successful programs for top technology firms including; Dell, Cisco, and VMWare. Her work was recently cited in the Wall Street Journal and the Biden White House Sustainable Aviation Plan.

Richard joined the South Australian Government in 2001 and since that time has worked across the energy, climate change, industry development and low carbon economy portfolios.

He currently heads up a Directorate within the Department of Energy and Mining that is charged with capturing the economic growth and decarbonisation opportunities associated with South Australia’s clean energy transformation towards net 100% renewables, as well as sharing this story with the world.

Richard has spearheaded the development of SA’s Hydrogen Roadmap, Hydrogen Action Plan, Hydrogen Export Modelling Tool, and overseen the development of the State’s Electric Vehicle Action Plan. He is passionate about opportunities to further grow and attract energy intensive value-added industries to SA and is part of the Leadership Team for the Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition Co-operative Research Centre (HILT CRC).

Luca Lo Re is a physicist working as international climate policy analyst in the Environment and Climate Change Unit at the International Energy Agency, and member of the secretariat of the OECD-IEA Climate Change Expert Group (CCXG). His work focuses on international carbon markets, Article 6 and net zero. He is the lead author of several publications in these areas, and contributing author of the IEA Net Zero by 2050 Global Roadmap Report and of the 2021 UNEP Emissions Gap Report, among others. In the past, he has worked as climate policy advisor for the World Resources Institute (WRI), EcoAct and Perspectives Climate Change.

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Professor Dr. Emmanouil Kakaras has been Executive Vice President NEXT Energy Business at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries EMEA since 1 April 2021.

Prior to this role, he was Senior Vice President for New Products and Energy Solutions at MHI Group company Mitsubishi Power Europe since January 2018. Up until then he served as Vice President and Head of Research & Development at Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe since September 2012. His research and development activities mainly focus on flexible operation of thermal plants, on fuel cells and electrolysers, the development of large-scale energy storage and the utilization of CO2. He is a member of the Board of Directors of EU Turbines.

Professor Kakaras’ academic background is on clean energy generation technologies and since December 1991 he has been Professor at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. He has been also guest lecturer at the Universities of Warsaw and Tokyo. He participates as an external member in various working groups organized by the European Commission (CAG, Energy Committee), the Advisory Council of the Technology Platforms on Zero Emission Power Plants and on Smart Networks for Energy Transition as well as the Scientific Board of Industrial Associations (VGB, Rhein Ruhr Power, BDI). Professor Kakaras is also a member of several advisory committees of academic institutions (EASAC, Academy of Athens, EASE).

Phil Napier-Moore is Mott MacDonald’s Energy Sector Leader for ASEAN and East Asia, responsible for the Group’s regional support to clients on the global energy transition.

Working across the energy value chain for 18 years, he has overseen support to multilateral agencies, national governments and diverse private companies on low-carbon power projects in 30 countries around the world, in particular within Asia and Europe.

During 2018 to 2021, was global practice leader for Mott MacDonald’s work in renewable energy, to coordinate the company’s global strategy, systems, tools and research work in this area – including founding of the company’s Renewable Energy Academy for training the next generation of engineers supporting the energy transition, now in its fifth year.

A Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Energy Institute, he obtained his Masters of Engineering from Oxford University.

Duncan Burt is the Chief Sustainability Officer at National Grid Group, leading the Group’s engagement in decarbonisation and climate change.

Duncan was Director of Operations for the UK electricity and gas transmission grids until May 2020 when he took up the post of Director of COP26 and Responsible Business.

He has held a variety of commercial and engineering roles at National Grid. Prior to joining the company, he worked in Pharmaceuticals for GlaxoSmithKline.

National Grid is one of the largest listed utilities in the world, with operations in the UK and the US.

Howie joined OCBC Global Treasury as an Economist in January 2019. He is responsible for providing commodities insights covering both the near and medium-term horizons. As an economist, his market views have been widely sought after by both the local and international media. He has been consistently quoted by numerous media outlets, including The Straits Times, The Business Times, Channel NewsAsia, Bloomberg, Reuters and the Nikkei Asian Review.

In his seven years in the industry, Howie has gained professional experience on the buy side, sell side and the government. He began his career at local derivatives broker Phillip Futures, before moving on to agricultural commodity powerhouse Olam International, where his detailed coverage of his portfolio aided the trading desk in churning out profits for three consecutive years. Howie also had a stint with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), where he applied his econometric expertise to conduct stress tests on the local financial sector.

Howie holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Economics from the National University of Singapore and has passed Level I and II of the CFA exam.

Xander Japin is working as business developer hydrogen (H2) and carbon capture and storage (ccs) at the Port of Rotterdam. He is a specialist in the establishment of cross-sectoral cooperation (public-private partnerships) and developing new business opportunity's related to the Energy Transition. He is involved in the development of a CCS supply chain in Rotterdam through Porthos and responsible for setting up an H2 import terminal strategy for the port of Rotterdam. He is experienced in international relations and familiar with politics (United Nations, European Union, Netherlands). Xander truly believes in an impact society, where organisations incorporate impact (financial and non-financial) in their decision-making processes.

Yaw Yan Chong is the Director of Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters) Oil Research & Forecasts in Asia, part of its Commodities Research division. He is also the inspiration behind the Asia Oil Flows Assessment Module, that provides fundamental assessments of cargo flows across the oil barrel to and from demand and supply regions, after having learnt the fundamentals of Supply & Demand in the more than 10 years that he has been in the oil industry, starting out as a Price Editor in Platts, being an Energy Correspondent with Reuters and also having spent some time as a Trading Analyst in Merrill Lynch.

Vipul Tuli is the Managing Director of Sembcorp Energy India Limited (SEIL) – the Indian subsidiary of Sembcorp Group. He also heads Sembcorp’s South Asia business and oversees Sembcorp’s investments and key stakeholder relationships in India and Bangladesh as CEO, South Asia. He has been associated with the Sembcorp group since 2015 in various capacities, including the role of Chief Executive Officer & Country Head, India, as Managing Director of Sembcorp’s thermal businesses in India, and as the Head of Group Strategy at Sembcorp Industries.

In addition to heading Sembcorp's India business, Mr. Tuli also chairs the Power Committee at FICCI.

Prior to joining Sembcorp, Vipul was a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company and helped build and lead the Asian energy practice. Mr. Tuli’s experience spans power generation, fuel management, upstream oil and gas, refining, marketing and distribution, petrochemicals and speciality chemicals. He has also advised government institutions across Asia on issues of energy policy, organisation, industry structure and regulation. He is an alumnus of IIM, Calcutta, and IIT, Delhi.

John Davis is South Pole's Commercial Director, APAC & North America. He is an expert within the financial sustainability market, with global experience ranging from Europe to New Zealand. Prior to joining South Pole, John accumulated a decade of profound experience in the environmental and energy markets at Spectron and CF Partners. John has traded with and advised participants in all global carbon markets including the EU-ETS, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea.