Rolf Adam leads the European Utilities & Smart Grid business development for Cisco. In his role, he is responsible for working with our European customers, partners and regulators in defining the future industry model of the utilities industry and identifying opportunities for Smart Grid build-out and business transformation. In addition to his responsibilities at Cisco, he is an industry advisor to WHEB Ventures and an expert to the European Commission on Smart Grid.

Prior to joining Cisco he was a Principal at Booz Allen Hamilton where he had built and managed the European Smart Grid Practice and led major assignments with many of the top European utilities. Outside of Europe, he worked in the US and the Middle East.

He holds a Masters Degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Eichstaett and a MBA from Webster University.

As a keymember of the Research & Innovation team, she co-founded and now leads the innovation and cleantech practices for Veolia Environnement, the
world’s largest environmental services company.

Marie-Anne has been working in the environmental business for 13 years, leading international business development initiatives for Veolia Energy throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. She also led the Veolia Energy Executive Training Practice from 2003 to 2005. Marie-Anne started her career as Business Development Manager for North Africa and Middle East in the construction field, for Bouygues, a French construction company.

She has a Master’s Degree in Political Science from Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris in 1992, a Master’s Degree in Management from HEC School of Management in 1994 and a Stanford Executive Program Certificate in 2007 from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mike Brooks has more than 25 years of experience in a wide range of areas including: chemical plant operations management; refinery planning and scheduling; distributed control and instrumentation project implementation; advanced control application development; as well as development of process information management systems and graphical user interface products. He also has 12-years experience with various software companies including director of products and technology at Wonderware. Brooks was also co-founder of INDX where he led marketing and product development efforts for the model-based visualization product that he invented. Brooks focuses on software architecture technologies to support operational activities for all Chevron refineries and the company's supply chain. Brooks is currently a board member for the Manufacturing Enterprise Systems Association and User Council chair of the OpenO&M initiative that drives interoperability standards for manufacturing.Brooks earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Bradford University in the United Kingdom.

Jenny Chase is the manager of Bloomberg New Energy Finance's global Solar Insight Service. She joined BNEF mid-2005 and launched the Solar Insight Service in early 2006.

Jenny has conducted or overseen all the research of the Solar Insight Service over its four-year lifespan. This has included PV experience curve analysis, which enabled the team to make a definite prediction of an upcoming sudden 35-40% fall in crystalline silicon module prices, a year before it happened and while most analysts were expecting slow 5-10% per year price slides.  The timing of the price decline in early 2009 was predicted by BNEF's solar team with some accuracy in 2007, based on global supply and demand analysis.
The team, comprising eight analysts on three continents with backup from BNEF's international resources, conducts regular and rigorous price surveys across the PV value chain, the industry's only Silicon and Wafer Forward Price Index, detailed and timely analysis of policy and its implications for the solar sector, and extensive technology and economic analysis of PV and solar thermal electricity generation. Jenny is the author of BNEF's quarterly PV Market Outlook, which draws together updates and output of proprietary models to give a detailed account of demand, supply, price, margins and investment activity in the PV industry.

She holds a BA in Physical Sciences and an MSci in Physics from the University of Cambridge, England.

Finlay Colville is a Senior Analyst with Solarbuzz, and is responsible for reporting on solar manufacturing equipment including technologies, trends and forecasts within the solar industry. He has been a frequent speaker at major solar industry events worldwide, and is a regular contributor to leading solar trade magazines and online newsletters. Prior to joining Solarbuzz in March 2010, he was Director of Marketing for Coherent, Inc.’s solar business unit. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from University of Glasgow and received a PhD in Laser Physics from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland

James Cox is a Principal Consultant with responsibilities for gas and electricity market modelling, and how wind intermittency impacts and disrupts energy markets.

He is currently running a major multi-client study investigating the impact of wind intermittency on the NWE electricity markets for a number of major utilities and system operators across Europe, investigating how prices, running patterns and investment will change, and how interconnection, storage and market design can alter this picture.

During 2009 and 2010, James led a multi-client study on how wind intermittency will impact gas markets in GB and Ireland, which involved 10 utilities, looking in particular at how the value of gas storage will change in the future.  In early 2009 he completed another large multi-client project investigating the implications of large volumes of renewable generation on the UK and Irish electricity markets.  This project led to a publically available study that has been quoted extensively, and has redefined the debate for the future of the GB electricity market.

 Harry is director business development of the Philips Lighting and Cleantech Incubator and responsible for scouting emerging business innovation areas in the lighting and adjacent cleantech domain. He is active in business development in various professional and consumer markets for more than 15 years. Since 2002, he is part of the Philips incubator organization and has worked in different ventures where he has focused on developing technology licensing businesses. In 2009, he moved to the Lighting & Cleantech Incubator. Harry holds a master degree in Physics from the Delft University of Technology.

Bazmi Husain heads the Smart Grid Initiative for ABB Group and is based out of Zurich, Switzerland. His responsibilities include identifying and driving the growth opportunities for ABB in the area of Smart Grids.

He has been with ABB since 1981. He has served ABB in different capacities, most recently as Head of Automation Research for ABB Group and Director of R&D for ABB in Sweden.

Earlier in his career,  Bazmi held various leadership positions in ABB in multiple countries and his contributions include establishing R&D center in India, running Automation, both  Industrial and Power, business in India and developing the Regional center for Automation systems in Singapore to serve the North and Southeast Asian markets.

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 117,000 people.

Tore Land currently serves as Director Ecomagination of GE International. He has responsibility for the ecomagination initiative of GE in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before joining GE, Tore has been serving as President & CEO of  PEMEAS Fuel Cell Technologies, a leading alternative energy company created by him in 2004 through a venture capital backed spin-off. PEMEAS was acquired by BASF SE in December 2006 and Tore integrated the business into the global operations of BASF. His previous experience includes senior management positions at chemical and life science companies like Celanese, Aventis and Hoechst. Since 1999, Tore has led numerous corporate venture capital initiatives and has served on the Board of several start-up companies in the USA and Europe. Tore lives with his wife and three daughters in Frankfurt (Germany) and Chicago (Illinois). He obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Philipps University of Marburg (Germany).

Michael Liebreich is the CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a specialist provider of financial information and services to investors in renewable energy, low-carbon technologies and the carbon markets.

Michael is an experienced venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has helped build more than 25 companies. Before founding New Energy Finance early in 2004, he was UK managing director of a division of Groupe Arnault which invested $700m of technology venture capital. From 1995 to 1998, Michael was deputy managing director of Associated Press Television and founding director of Sports News Television, the world’s leading wholesale provider of sports news video. At the same time he acted as non-executive director of Interactive Investor prior to its IPO on the London Stock Exchange.  Before that, Michael spent five years with McKinsey & Company in their London office focusing on operations and finance.

Girish Nadkarni started his career as an attorney on Wall Street focusing on international banking and M&A. His business career spans Prudential where he was responsible for creating the Pru-Shelf  financing facility which currently has 600 customers with a portfolio value of $47 Billion, GE Capital and GE where he worked for Jack Welch on strategy and business development, and United Healthcare as Chief Operations Officer. He has also had a stint as an entrepreneur when he founded and ran vSimplify, VC funded startup. 

Girish has been at ABB since 2003, during which time he has been responsible for ABB’s global cost migration program and ran the global automotive business for the Robotics Division. In October 2009 Girish started ABB Technology Ventures, ABB’s corporate venture fund.

Girish earned his undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Bombay where he was a gold medalist, his masters of law degree from the University of Virginia which he attended as a DuPont Fellow, and an MBA from Harvard where he was designated a Baker Scholar.

Rob Jelsma is a nationally recognized expert on practical environmental consumer initiatives that help make the world a better place and save energy / money. Since he joined team IBM in 2000, Rob has become a valuable resource for energy & utility (E&U) organizations interested in protecting the environment and improving performance. Rob initiated several Smart home initiatives in the Benelux. He was also one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Smart Home Energy Framework which helps organizations to kick-start projects around this interesting theme. Before Rob joined IBM he was active in various sales- and marketing roles for large global accounts.

As a Senior Investment Director with RBVC, Nils Schöche is mainly responsible for investments in the Energy & Environment sector. Prior to this assignment he was the General Manager for Engineering Hybrid Systems of Bosch in Japan and served as Business Development Manager of the product unit Hybrid Systems. Nils has an educational background as a mechanical engineer from RWTH Aachen, Germany, and Michigan State University, USA. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and was trained on Corporate Finance at INSEAD.

Oliver is a co-founder and director of OST Energy, a dedicated solar technical consultancy with extensive experience in the sector.   OST Energy has advised on approximately 100 multi MW photovoltaic projects totally close to 1 GW of solar generation.  OST has experience in Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Eastern Europe and India at all stages of project development and operation and has worked for Owners, developers, Lenders, Utilities, technology providers, and private equity. Oliver holds an Electrical Engineering degree and a Masters in renewable energy systems technology

Sabrina Soussan is a senior executive with 20 years of experience in guiding companies to market success and profitability.

She currently serves as Global Head Marketing and Key Account Management, Building Automation – a US$3 billion global business unit of Siemens Building Technologies Division. Under her leadership, Building Automation successfully markets Smart Building technologies and solutions including energy efficiency for buildings, distributed generation from renewable sources, and advanced topics such as dynamic management of smart consumption, storage and production of energy in buildings. In addition, Mrs. Soussan oversees the Sustainable City initiatives of Siemens Building Technologies, which analyzes and promotes innovative concepts and solutions that contribute to CO2 abatement potential of large cities as well as the Global Key Account Management.

Prior to joining Building Technologies, Mrs. Soussan held management positions in the automotive industry within Siemens and Renault.  She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering, and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration.

Dirk-Jan van Ouwerkerk is an independent advisor in the cleantech investment space.  A former strategy consultant for the Harvard-founded Monitor Group and Paris-based utility-experts CVA, Dirk combines 10 years of experience in assisting leading companies across the energy value chain.  With a passion for the subject, he developed a deep expertise in a number of areas including renewables integration, energy storage, and smart metering. His main challenge however has been the renewal of the energy industry not just from a technological, but importantly from a business model innovation point of view.  Recently, Dirk has decided to take a more active role in bringing about this change by linking his network of entrepreneurs, utility managers, and investors across Europe, the US, and Asia in concrete projects.