Torben Brabo

President, GIE & Senior Vice President, Energinet Group

Torben Brabo is CEO of the Gas TSO in Energinet, the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and gas – which is an independent public enterprise owned by the Danish state under the Ministry of Climate, Utilities and Energy. He has 25 years of experience in the energy and gas sector in Denmark and abroad.

Prior to joining Energinet, he took part in European power and gas projects as part of the liberalisation of the Danish gas market in 2002-2004. As the current CEO in Energinet Gas TSO, Torben Brabo is highly involved in European renewable and low-carbon gas projects.

Besides of being GIE’s President, he is engaged in ENTSOG (European Network of gas TSOs) and the European gas capacity trading platform PRISMA, and promoting ERGAR. Moreover, he participates in several decarbonisation projects, such as the Green Gas Initiative and Gas for Climate. He has held a position as chairman of the board of the Danish-Swedish gas exchange ‘Gaspoint Nordic’.

Torben Brabo
@torbenbrabo

Dr Philippe Vassilopoulos

Director of Product Development, EPEX SPOT

Philippe Vassilopoulos is Director of Product Development at EPEX SPOT where he also served as Economist and Market Surveillance Officer. Before joining EPEX SPOT, Philippe Vassilopoulos was an Associate Director with IHS CERA. He specializes in the European wholesale power and gas markets. His expertise includes market design, price formation and price modelling, asset valuation and due dilligence, regulations, and market surveillance.  Dr. Vassilopoulos also carried out applied research on price signals and investment incentives in the European electricity markets for the Commission de Regulation de l’Energie. He holds a master’s degree and a PhD from the University of Paris-Dauphine.

Ralph Bahke

Hydrogen Area Sponsor, GIE & Managing Director, ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH

Ralph Bahke, born 1964, studied Information Technology at the Technical University of Dresden. He joined VNG – Verbundnetz Gas AG in 1994 and became responsible for the planning of automation technology. In 2001 he changed to the Gas Transportation Department where he held various senior management positions.

Between January 2006 and November 2008, Bahke worked in senior management posts of the Network Marketing Department in the newly established transmission system operator ONTRAS. Since November 2008 he has been one of the two ONTRAS managing directors, responsible for the division controlling and development.

From December 2009 to December 2015 Bahke was board member of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG).

In 2011 Bahke was appointed member of the Energy Advisory Board of the German Free State of Saxony. Since December 2012 Bahke was Chairman of the board of "Vereinigung der Fernleitungsnetzbetreiber Gas e.V.", the association of German Transmission System Operators for Gas. He gave up this position in 2020 and joined GIE (Gas Infrastructure Europe) board in January 2021.

Alex Barnes

Alex Barnes is an independent consultant specialising in energy market design and regulation. He has nearly thirty years’ experience in the oil and gas sector, most of it spent in the liberalisation of gas and electricity markets.

He has worked for a range of companies including Total, BG Group and Gazprom, helping them manage the impacts of energy liberalisation, both exploiting new opportunities and defending existing positions. At BG Group he led the team which secured an exemption from third part access regulation for the Dragon LNG terminal, enabling investment to go proceed. He established the Regulatory Affairs function for Gazprom Marketing & Trading in 2009, supporting its rapid expansion in gas and power trading in Europe, and also advised Gazprom on gas market liberalisation related issues. He has helped draft gas market rules as an industry representative on expert panels for the European Network of Transmission Operators for gas (ENTSOG) and the European energy market regulator ACER. He has also represented the European Federation of Energy Traders at the Madrid Forum organised by the EU Commission.

Recent work has focussed on decarbonisation of the European gas market, carbon pricing and regulation of future hydrogen markets.

He has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University, and an MBA from Henley Management College.

Alex Barnes

Christopher Andrey

Director, Artelys

Christopher Andrey is an associated director at Artelys and is heading Artelys’ Brussels office since 2018. Ever since completing his PhD in high energy physics from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL – Switzerland), Christopher has worked in the energy sector. After having carried out long-term investment planning studies in the context of national energy transition strategies, Christopher specialised in the economic analysis of energy/climate policies, market design proposals, and of infrastructure projects. He works for clients all along the energy value chain: from project promoters to regulators, from TSOs to NGOs, from national entities to the European Commission. In the recent years, Christopher has devoted his time to analysing the synergies and interdependencies that emerge in closely integrated energy systems

Publications

• Artelys on behalf of Gas Infrastructure Europe, Value of the gas storage infrastructure for the electricity system, 2019
• Artelys on behalf of the European Commission, “METIS study on costs and benefits of a pan-European hydrogen infrastructure”, 2021

Dr Thierry Bros

Professor, Sciences Po

Dr Thierry Bros’ expertise is in energy markets, policy, climate and geopolitics. Thierry is a Professor at SciencesPo Paris and a contributor to Natural Gas World website. In his 30+ years long career, Thierry was Vice President Research of a energy start-up, Senior Policy Manager & Lead Analyst for an oil&gas organisation in Brussels, Senior European Gas and LNG Analyst in a bank, notably accredited as the best European gas analyst for five years, as well as Senior Financial Equity Analyst, dealing with gas stocks (from upstream to regulated). Previously, Thierry was in charge of Security of Supply at the French Ministry of Economy and Finance where he liberalised the French gas market and supervised the European Contingency Gas Plan. On the academic side, Thierry has been a Senior Research Fellow in Oxford. In his first book, published in 2012, Thierry rightly forecasted that the surge in US oil and gas production combined with the European energy transition was going to deeply alter the energy and geopolitical landscapes.

Publications

• Dreaming isn’t going to solve the energy crisis – EURACTIV.com

Gergely Molnár

Gas Analyst at International Energy Agency (IEA)

Greg Molnár has extensive experience within the Gas, Coal and Power Markets Division under the Directorate of Energy Markets and Security at the International Energy Agency.

Greg Molnár

Dr Leigh Hancher

Senior Advisor, Baker Botts

Dr Leigh Hancher is skilled in European competition and regulatory law.

She’s senior advisor at Baker Botts but also Professor of European Law at the University of Tilburg (the Netherlands) and part-time Professor, responsible for EU Energy Law and Policy at the Florence School of Regulation, of the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). She is also a Research Associate at the Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG), at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University.

Publications

• 18 January 2022, New EU Guidelines on State Aid for Climate, Environmental Protection and Energy to Support the Transition to a Carbon Neutral Economy
• January 2022, The EU New Gas Package - Will it Prove Fit for Purpose?

Carole Mathieu

Head of EU Policies, Ifri’s Center for Energy & Climate

Carole Mathieu is Head of EU policies at Centre for Energy & Climate of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), a Paris-based think-tank conducting independent research on international issues and global governance.

Her research areas primarily cover the geopolitical dimensions of the EU’s transition to climate neutrality and the implementation of the EU Green Deal. Before joining Ifri, she was a Policy Officer at the French Energy Regulator (CRE), in charge of representing CRE in discussions with EU institutions, electricity and gas network operators and market players. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration – Energy from Sciences Po Paris.

Axel Wietfeld

Dr Axel Wietfeld serves as CEO of Uniper Hydrogen. From January 2016 to November 2020, in his position of Managing Director of Uniper Energy Storage, Axel has been leading one of Europe’s largest gas storage operators with facilities in Germany, Austria and the UK, and has successfully developed power-to-gas/hydrogen projects to support renewable energies.

In his previous roles at Uniper/E.ON, Dr Axel Wietfeld held several key executive positions: CEO of E.ON Southern Africa Ltd (South Africa), CEO of E.ON Földgaz Storage (Hungary) and Vice-President Group Energy Projects in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).

Since August 2020, Dr Axel Wietfeld has been President of Gas Storage Europe (GSE). In June 2017, he was elected to be a representative of the Gas Storage Europe Executive Committee towards the GIE Board.

Dr Axel Wietfeld received a Doctor’s degree from the Institute of Energy Economics at Technical University, Cottbus (Germany).

Axel Wietfeld

Camille Bonenfant-Jeanneney

GSE President

Camille Bonenfant-Jeanneney, an engineer and political science graduate, was previously Executive Director of CPCU (Compagnie Parisienne de Chauffage Urbain), a subsidiary of ENGIE Group. After spending three years at the head of France's leading district heating network, which provides heat and hot water to 500,000 equivalent housing units, she began a new phase in her career with the ENGIE Group by taking over the management of Storengy, one of the world's leading underground natural gas storage companies, a developer of geothermal energy solutions and a producer and storer of low-carbon energy.

Camille Bonenfant-Jeanneney began her training at Ecole Polytechnique (2000) and then followed a double degree at École Nationale des Ponts Chaussés and Institut d'études politiques - Sciences-Po. She began her career in European affairs, as a diplomat at the Permanent Representation of France to the European Union (2006-2012) on industrial and environmental issues and as an advisor to the cabinet of the Minister Delegate in charge of European Affairs (2012-2013). In 2013, she joined RATP as head of the Greater Paris mission and then Chief of staff to the Chairman and CEO (2014-2015).

In 2015, she joined the ENGIE Group, initially as Director of NewCorp within the General Secretary. In 2018, she took over the management of the Paris district heating company; as a director of Storengy since 2018, she got to know the company she is joining today.

Camille Bonenfant-Jeanneney
@camille-bonenfant