Speakers 2024

Richard Sandford is Co-Chair of the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC), the senior Government and industry forum established to drive the development of the offshore wind sector in the UK, he’s also Chairman of the World Forum Offshore wind (WFO), dedicated to fostering the global growth of offshore wind energy. Since July 2022, Richard has been Vice President at bp, responsible for the development, construction and operations of bp’s UK offshore wind portfolio. He has held senior leadership roles in the offshore wind industry since 2008, before joining bp, he was previously Director of Offshore Development Europe at RWE Renewables, one of the world’s largest renewables businesses.  Richard is an engineer by background and has worked in power generation since 1987, holding various leadership positions.

Sean is a professional engineer and Principal Renewable Energy Specialist with the International Finance Corporation. His work focuses on IFC’s investments in both onshore and offshore wind. He is the co-founder and co-lead of the World Bank Group’s Offshore Wind Development Program which works with over 20 governments around the world to accelerate their uptake of offshore wind. He is also the co-founder and co-lead of IFC’s Scaling Wind program which works with governments to develop and tender bankable utility-scale onshore wind projects. Prior to joining IFC in 2011, Sean spent six years as Vice-President of the Canadian Wind Energy Association and also worked as a senior energy consultant and project developer with ICF/Marbek. He started his career in wind in 1993, spending five years in Madagascar designing, building and installing windmills for rural irrigation projects. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Queen’s University in Canada.

Matthias leads bp’s offshore wind business and is responsible for leading its expansion as well as overseeing delivery of all existing projects. Matthias joined bp in August 2022 from Ørsted where he worked for nine years, most recently serving as president for the Asia-Pacific region. He has over 13 years’ experience in renewable energy with a focus on developing, building and operating offshore wind projects. Prior to Ørsted, Matthias worked for Siemens, heading its global business development for offshore wind.

Teaera Strum is the Chief Executive Officer of Strum Contracting Company Inc. (SCC). She oversees the company’s operations and is responsible for driving the organization’s sustainable growth, market diversification and revenue. As a socially responsible company, SCC is also focused on enriching the local community with skills development and upskilling opportunities. Ms. Strum is very active in the local Baltimore community as she serves on the national board for the Jane Addams Resource Corporation and currently serves as President of the JARC Baltimore Industry Advisory Council. The organization provides workforce development training in the areas of welding and CNC manufacturing. In 2021, Ms. Strum was appointed to the MarylandGovernor’s Workforce Development Board, and the Business Network for Offshore Wind International Board. As an advocate for small business Ms. Strum has testified in front of the US House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources, to ensure small businesses were included in the offshore wind growing supply chain. She also served as a panelist for the 50th Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference: Transportation Braintrust, served on the Maryland Offshore Wind Stakeholder Roundtable to advocate for the passage of the Promoting Offshore Wind Energy Resource (POWER) Act during the 2023, 445th legislative session, and has participated in various advocacy initiatives to bring awareness to the American offshore Wind supply chain and the opportunities offshore wind brings to MWBE. Ms. Strum was awarded the 2022 Reginald F. Lewis Trailblazer award, inducted into the class of 2022 Marquis Who’s Who, featured in numerous campaigns advocating for small, minority and women owned businesses in the US, served as panelist for 11th Offshore Wind Economic Forum in Helgoland, Germany. Featured panelist at the 2022 Wind Energy Hamburg Summit in Hamburg, Germany and spoke on behalf of US Small, Minority and Women Owned businesses entering into the global offshore wind supply chain in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September 2023. Previously, a member of the Baltimore Business Journal 40 under 40, class of 2019. Ms. Strum holds a Bachelors of Arts in Communication from Trinity University in Washington, DC and a Masters of Business Administration with concentration in New Business Development from Anderson University, Anderson Indiana.

Masayuki Sugiyama is an Executive Officer of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL) since April 2023. He is responsible for the Carbon Power Solution Unit and Wind Power Projects Unit. He joined MOL in 1993 and established his career mainly in the LNG, coal carrier, and oil tanker businesses. During this time, he gained experience in a wide range of shipping affairs in the energy sector, including ship operation, chartering, sales & marketing, contract management, etc. In 2016, he was transferred to a subsidiary company in Houston, USA, and assigned to manage business development in the North America area for the energy sector. After 3 years working in Houston, he returned to MOL Tokyo and took the role of General Manager of the Coal and Energy Project Division with responsibility for not only coal carriers, but also for the wind power business. In 2023, he was newly appointed as an Executive Officer in MOL. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Keio University in March 1993.

Marieke is a partner in the energy practice group at German law firm Chatham Partners, which she joined in 2016. Chatham Partners is a boutique law firm with a focus on energy, infrastructure and real estate projects and further expertise in EU/competition law, corporate, M&A, tax and finance. Marieke advises energy utilities, investors and project developer with a focus on project development and complex real asset transaction for renewable and decarbonisation projects (in particular offshore wind, hydrogen, solar, geothermal, storage solutions). She has particular expertise on the drafting and negotiating of PPAs and other energy supply contracts, site securing contracts, project development contracts and cooperation agreements. In addition, Marieke advises her clients on regulatory issues such as tender regimes for renewable energy projects, grid related questions and new concepts such as energy islands, offshore H2 projects and stand-alone batterie storage systems. Marieke is a co-chair of WFO’s Offshore Wind to Hydrogen subcommittee on regulation.

As from 2019 Hugo Bouvy is Managing Director of DEME Offshore, providing the most comprehensive offering to offshore oil, gas and renewable energy customers. In this capacity he is also member of the Executive Committee of the DEME Group. Hugo graduated as Master of Science in Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Delft, including a minor in offshore engineering. Over the years he successfully participated in management programs of INSEAD and followed many specialised courses in the field of behaviour based safety. Hugo began his career as Installation and Project Engineer at various destinations in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1995 he started working as Superintendent on board of the fallpipe vessel Rollingstone, followed by his appointment as Project Manager at Tideway where he was responsible for various striking rock placement operations all over the world. Before he was officially appointed Managing Director of Tideway B.V. in 2007, Hugo worked intensively as Area Manager for the DEME dredging activity line in the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East. In this period DEME successfully completed projects like the Hazira LNG project for Shell or Indian Oil Paradip facilities. In this period DEME also started the prestigious Doha airport project and completed the Pearl of the Gulf. In 2011 he became member of the DEME Management Team and Hugo was appointed as Board Member at numerous DEME entities worldwide. Finally, Hugo is heavily involved in DEME’s deepsea mining activities and was appointed as Director of GSR as from the beginning. Meanwhile GSR has worldwide concessions for the exploitation and exploration of manganese nodules and has tested different mining crawlers in the Clarion Clipperton zone.

Immanuel Capano, Chief Commercial Officer at Saitec Offshore Technologies, is a civil engineer with over 20 years infrastructure industry experience and a broad technical, commercial, and operational background. He has extensive international engineering experience in management, and implementation of large infrastructure schemes.

Meriem joined Green Giraffe Advisory in 2011 and heads the Madrid office. She coordinates Green Giraffe’s efforts in Iberia and lead multiple innovative transactions globally in PV, offshore and onshore wind, both on the equity and debt side Meriem also supported with project development works and tender advisory services providing financial modelling, contracting and bankability analyses to offshore wind projects in Belgium, Danish tenders or to MASEN to design the first PV tender in Morocco Meriem structured non recourse debt for greenfield projects or restructurings on international transactions for clients such as C-Power and Walney offshore wind projects, EDFR, Mitsui, Neoen, Velocita or Solvay. In 2022, supporting NPI with the restructuring of their portfolio debt at holdco level for their renewable energy projects in Spain M&A sell-side transactions include the sale of minority stakes of a portfolio of French solar and wind assets for La Compagnie du Vent, an Engie subsidiary to financial investors and the sale of Van Oord stakes in the Borssele 3&4 offshore wind project to Luxcara. M&A buy-side advisory mandates for the acquisition of a UK fund investment manager in renewables or for a CSP portfolio of operational assets in Spain She holds an MSc in finance from Grenoble Graduate School of Business

Iain Grainger has over 30 years experience in offshore marine construction around the world. He spent the early part of his career engineering and managing the installation of major offshore infrastructure before moving into commercial and strategy roles with tier one contractors. Iain is a chartered engineer and has an MBA. He is a past president of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) and was previously supporting IMCA in expanding its position in offshore renewables. On 1 June 2023, Iain became the new CEO of IMCA.

Antonia Munz has joined EnBW’s Portfolio Development Offshore Wind unit as Project Lead Regulatory in 2022. She focuses on legal frameworks of offshore wind auction designs in European waters. Prior to joining EnBW, she was a Senior Project Manager at the German Energy Agency (dena) working on dena’s offshore wind projects as well as several EU projects with a focus on renewable energy and clean technology regulation. Antonia holds a master’s degree in European Political and Governance Studies from the College of Europe (Belgium).

Lara leads the Industry Development team for Xodus Renewables, focusing on global offshore wind policy developments, supply chain analysis and stakeholder engagement. She uses the latest market insight to support clients across the industry to assess market entry opportunities, and potential areas of investment. Prior to joining the company, she worked as a Senior Energy Analyst and Strategic Relations Manager for the Energy Industries Council (EIC), a non-profit trade association advising supply chain companies on opportunities in the energy industry. Lara was responsible for the global tracking of offshore wind projects and market trends, gaining in-depth insight into the supply chain potential and development opportunities in the sector.

Arne Vatnoy, Communication Manager in Norwegian Offshore Wind. Vatnoy is working with government policy and PR on behalf of the network´s members. Norwegian Offshore Wind´s goal is to establish world leading supply chains within floating offshore wind. With close to 400 members ranging from agile startups to large offshore wind developers, they are the biggest industry cluster in Norway.

Dr Hayden Marcollo of AMOG/Moorsure is the founding chair of WFO’s Cable and Floating Substations Subcommittee of the Floating Wind group. Through this role, Hayden, along with the WFO team, have steered operators, contractors and technology developers through monthly discussions, presentations and workshops on the challenges that dynamic cables will face in the future floating wind industry. Dr Marcollo was the founder and first Chairman for the Society of Underwater Technology Melbourne Branch. He is an Adjunct Professor in Ocean Engineering at the University of Tasmania. He holds four international patents in riser systems along with two provisional patents in offshore renewable energy. Dr Marcollo is currently serving in the role of Official Discussor on the ISSC (International Ship and Offshore Structures Congress) Loads Subcommittee and serves on the IEC TC114 Marine Energy committee.

Thierry Aelens has been working in the energy sector for more than 25 years including almost 20years in renewables. He has unique experience in offshore wind energy projects and has been directly involved in the implementation of more than 5 000 MW of operating renewable energy projects. Thierry Aelens holds an RCI Civil Engineer Degree from UCL (Belgium) and post graduates from RWTH (Aachen-Germany) and UG (Gent-Belgium), as well as an Executive MBA from INSEAD. He has broadened his knowledge in the marine engineering, oil and gas and energy sectors through various professional trainings and studies. Since 7 March 2022, Thierry Aelens has been Chief Executive Officer at Ignitis Renewables.

Alfredo Parres is Senior Vice President, Head of Renewables at Hitachi Energy. As a renewable sector thought leader for almost two decades, Alfredo drives Hitachi Energy global strategy and sales in the renewables segment. In addition, Alfredo is member of the WindEurope Board and Chair of its System Integration Working Group and its Grid Codes Task Force. He also spent 5 years in China where he acquired a deep understanding of the Chinese Wind Industry and was Chair of the Renewable Energy Working Group at the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. Alfredo is Spanish citizen, born in Belgium and has engineering and business administration degree from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL – Belgium). He is married with 2 children. He is currently based in Madrid.

Ana is the Deputy Country Manager for Spain and also works as a Senior Geotechnical Engineer at OWC, closing on five years of experience in the offshore renewable energy sector. Holding a Civil Engineering degree from her home country and an MSc in Soil Mechanics from Imperial College London, Ana’s work has been mainly focused on geosciences package management and providing geosciences site investigation support for offshore wind developers across the globe, with a strong emphasis on streamlining data acquisition and risk management. As Deputy Country Manager for Spain, Ana leads the expansion of OWC into the Spanish and Portuguese onshore and offshore renewables markets at exciting times for both countries. Ana is also the Chair of the Shadow Board of her parent organisation, the ABL Group, where she works closely with Senior Management of her company in company-wide strategies.

Carlos is the founder and CEO of BlueFloat Energy, an offshore wind developer with presence in several markets across the globe including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy and France, and a mission to accelerate global deployment of offshore wind as a key enabler for the energy transition and economic growth. Mr. Martin has worked in the energy sector for more than 15 years, where he has developed unparalleled expertise in the design, development, financing, construction, and execution of offshore wind projects. Carlos served as Director for Floating Wind at EDP Renewables (EDPR) based in Madrid, where he was responsible for the WindFloat Atlantic project successfully achieving FID in 2017 and led the team in charge of negotiating the necessary permits and regulatory framework.

Alexander Ohff, graduated with Master of Business Administration from Mannheim Busi-ness School and Tongji Shanghai SEM; being the Executive Vice President Renewables of TÜV NORD Group. Alexander contributes as Expert for the Renewables & Green Hydrogen topic with his 15 years of experience in the Re-newables industry on behalf of internationally active, independent technology services com-pany the leading technical service company for TÜV NORD Group. Prior to his work at TÜV NORD, he worked 7 years at RWE in the Off-shore Wind department functions and was re-sponsible for the Asia-Pacific region at the Ger-man wind turbine manufacturer Enercon for 3 years.

Magnus Killingland, The Regional Segment Lead for Hydrogen and CCUS in Northern Europe in DNV, is chairing the Offshore Wind to Hydrogen Committee in WFO. He is advising on strategies and de-risking investment decisions for a range of new technologies for a fast and safe energy transition. As a Segment Lead he is discussing and analyzing pathways to bankability with new business models including subsidies, safety and risks, and technology development for hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic fuels as well as capture of CO2 for use in synfuels, or permanent storage. Magnus discuss these topics with IOCs/NOCs, utilities, OEMs, regulators, and various stakeholders in projects or part of other industry networks and hydrogen taskforces, e.g. WSCBD World Business Council for Sustainable Development, CIGRE and the Norwegian-German Chamber of Commerce.

Daniel is a founder of GSTF. He is a driver of innovation and early adopter of disruptive technologies such as offshore/offgrid PtX. He has 25 years of experience in large scale structural/civil engineering projects, incl. 10 years at RWE/innogy as civil engineering offshore head where he supervised and managed technical risks of offshore assets amounting to EUR 5 bn. He graduated in Structural Engineering from RWTH Aachen, studied in Valdivia, Chile and has doctoral degree in Civil Engineering – Design of seawater mixed grouted connections from University of Kassel. He is a Charted Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers UK.

David is an Executive Director and Head of Energy Transition at the market intelligence provider Westwood Global Energy Group (Westwood), with a specific focus on Offshore Wind, Hydrogen and Carbon markets. He has more than 15 years’ commercial experience across the global energy value chain and has held key Commercial and Regulatory roles at Corus, BP, Mott MacDonald and Wood Mackenzie. David also hosts the Energy Transition Now podcast. He has a degree in International Management and German from the University of Bath.

Richard Britton is the Global Head of Offshore at Renantis responsible for delivery of their offshore wind pipeline in the UK and Italy. With over 15years experience in offshore wind, Richard has worked on projects around the world at all stages of their lifecycle. More recently responsible for development phase projects at Iberdrola as Global Development Director he has overseen approx. 5GW of consents and is an industry leader in the permitting and environmental sustainability field.

Bruno Geschier is the Chairman of WFO’s Floating Offshore Wind Committee and until recently served as Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of BW IDEOL for 10 years. Beyond providing senior advisory and consultancy services and exploring future long-term career opportunities within the renewables and offshore wind industry, Bruno still spends most of his time advocating floating offshore wind to policy makers, financial institutions, asset developers and utilities across the globe. He is a regular speaker and chairperson at offshore wind events in the US, Asia and Europe and co-organizes the world’s largest annual event solely dedicated to floating offshore wind (FOWT) for which he also serves as founding Chairman of its Scientific and Technical Committee. Bruno initiated WindEurope’s Floating Offshore Wind Work Group which he chaired for 3 years and sits on the advisory board of several floating wind industry initiatives.

Energy and ICT expert with more than 25 years’ experience globally, active in smart energy grids, offshore wind energy, energy management for transport grid connected customers in regulated and deregulated markets. Holding a Master in Electrical Power Engineering, post graduate European Law, Master in Business Administration – General Management. I believe in a more interconnected and transparent dynamic energy market, offering our planet an optimized balance between renewable energy resources and consumption. Enjoy the gift of life, dream big and get it done.

Aaron Smith joined Principle Power in 2016 and currently serves as the Chief Commercial Officer and leads the New Business & Innovation department, with overall responsibility for Strategy, Technology Innovation, Business Development, Marketing and Public Affairs. In addition, Aaron serves as a board member of the Global Wind Energy Council, an advisory board member at the Business Network for Offshore Wind, and a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee. Prior to joining Principle Power, Aaron was an Economist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where he directed a portfolio of work designed to identify high-value R&D opportunities for land-based and offshore wind technologies, providing the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior with strategic decision support and working with industry to commercialize innovative technologies. Aaron graduated with honors from the University of Vermont and holds degrees in economics and political science.

Raul Martin is the Head of Offshore Wind and New Technologies at Greenalia, an Independent Power Producer (IPP) focused only on renewables. A graduate from West Virginia Tech, Raul is a Licensed Professional Engineer in the United States and holds more than five years of experience in the offshore wind industry. Greenalia is present in six technologies (biomass, solar pv, onshore and offshore wind, storage and green hydrogen) in two countries (Spain and the USA), with a pipeline of 6 GW out of which 1 GW is under operation or construction.

Peter C. Brun has a long and broad professional background in the global wind industry which he joined in 2006. He works currently as Global Offshore Wind Segment Leader in DNV, which he joined in 2017. Brun brings more than 30 years of experience in the wind energy industry and international diplomacy where he has worked with international companies, organisations and most notably with the European institutions. In his current role for DNV he works with business and market development of offshore wind in emerging markets like USA, Asia, Australia and Europe. Over the last two years Peter Brun has driven an upskilling and training program for offshore wind services to sustain the high growth and expand the expertise and delivery capacity of DNV in new markets. His rich and varied expertise in the wind industry, includes holding dual Vice Chairman roles at EWEA (now WindEurope) and Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) between 2009 to 2013. He had also been appointed as Chairman of Danish Wind Energy Association (now Green Denmark) from 2007 to 2011. In addition to his work for national and international wind associations, Peter has held many roles in private companies, including Group Senior Vice President, within Vestas for over seven years, where he worked with the development of wind power together with a broad range of stakeholders worldwide. Peter Brun has a master’s degree in political science from Copenhagen University and an MBA from Copenhagen Business School.

Alex has an Industrial Engineering degree from UPC, a postgraduate degree in Sustainable Energy Systems from the MIT-Portugal program, and was selected in the 2017 Global Solutions Program (GSP) at Singularity University focused on Climate Change. He has extensive experience in the sector, having worked since 2007 on various projects related to marine renewables both in Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands before co-founding X1 Wind in 2017.

Adrian has been involved in the offshore renewables industry since 2010, having worked in academia, project development and consultancy sectors. With an early focus in technology development, Adrian holds a PhD in offshore renewables. He has spent the last 5 years on the development side, developing offshore wind projects in numerous countries such as UK, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal. In his current role as Chief Origination Officer at Simply Blue Group, he has created a pipeline of projects beyond 10 GW and he leads opportunity identification and origination of projects in different geographies, as well as bidding strategy. Adrian was recognized in 2016 with the Young Professionals Green Energy Award for his contribution to the Scottish renewables industry.

Stefan is a Partner in the Projects and Structured Finance Group. Stefan specialises in project finance. He regularly advises banks, sponsors and developers on the project finance and other financing transactions in relation to offshore wind projects, where he has been active for more than 12 years, onshore wind farms, solar parks and other energy and infrastructure projects in Germany as well as in other European and non-European jurisdictions. Stefan is recognised as an expert energy and project finance lawyer in Germany by legal directories Chambers Europe and IFLR 1000. In 2018, the former quoted a client as describing Stefan as “the first choice for project financing”. In 2021, Chambers called him a “very capable lawyer” and Clients find him to be “very precise in his analysis, calm and experienced.” He has also been chosen to be the “Lawyer of the year” 2021 in Banking & Finance Law and in 2020 for Project Finance and Development Practice. He has been recognised as one of “The Best Lawyers in Germany 2023” in the fields of Banking Law, Project Finance and Development Practice, Banking and Finance Law and Corporate Law by Best Lawyers in cooperation with business magazine Handelsblatt.

Stuart joined the Energy Industries Council (EIC) as CEO in 2016, after a 25-year career leading global businesses in oil & gas, power, renewables and defence. Winner of the 2023 ‘King’s Award for International Trade’, and the 2023 OWI ‘Market Intelligence Platform of the Year’, the EIC is energy agnostic and one of the world’s largest energy trade associations with nearly 1000 member companies. Stuart co-chairs the UK Energy Supply Chain ministerial taskforce, is architect of the Energy Exports Conference, which brings 20 inward delegations to the UK annually, and is author of the Survive & Thrive annual report which highlights preferred growth strategies in tough markets.

Pablo Alcón Valero is a MEng in Civil Engineering and MSc in Offshore Renewable Energy who has mostly developed his career internationally: started in London in a consultancy of renewable energy, BPPTech, to continue in ENI-Saipem and Iberdrola as a Lead Project Manager for offshore installations and windfarms such as Wikinger, East Anglia One and Vineyard Wind 1. He has a wide experience in the offshore industry being responsible for projects since the development phase going through the financial, construction and operation. In 2021, he joins Capital Energy in Madrid to start the offshore business and to support the expansion of the industry in Spain and Portugal. More recently, he has been appointed as Offshore Director at Qair group where he is leading the offshore wind portfolio in Iberia with more than 5GW in development.

Dr. Stefan Kaufmann, who was born in 1969, served as Innovation Commissioner for Green Hydrogen at the German Ministry of Education and Research from June 2020 to July 2022. The position was created by the German Cabinet on June 10, 2020, as part of its national hydrogen strategy. In this position, he was a regular guest at the State Secretaries’ Committee for Hydrogen of the Participating Ministries as well as the National Hydrogen Council. Since August 2022 Dr Kaufmann is working as a Senior Adviser. In one of his mandates he was adviser for the last 16 months to the thyssenkrupp board regarding all cross-business hydrogen activities and projects and represent the company nationally and internationally in all matters related to hydrogen. Other companies he is working for are the global management consultancies Horvath and Drees & Sommer, the Swedish companies Nordion Innovation and Plagazi, the Canadian company World Energy GH2 and the German Startup Turn2X. Prior to his appointment as Innovation Commissioner for Green Hydrogen, the fully qualified lawyer served as chair of the Study Commission “Vocational Training in the Digital Work Environment” and CDU/CSU spokesperson on the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment of the German Bundestag. Dr Kaufmann has been a directly elected Member of the Bundestag for his Stuttgart constituency from 2009 to 2021.

Jérôme Guillet is a Managing Director of SNOW, focused on supporting the early development of renewable energy projects. Previously, he was a founder and Managing Director of Green Giraffe, the pure player renewable energy financial advisory firm, from 2010 to 2021 and has been a pioneer in the financing of offshore wind projects. Before creating Green Giraffe, he worked in the energy project finance teams of Crédit Lyonnais (1996–2002) and Dexia (2002–2010). Jérôme has a long history of public writing about energy policy. Jérôme graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique ParisTech and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the EHESS (Paris)

Clint Purkiss brings over 22 years of experience in the energy sector, notably dedicating more than 20 years to renewables. Currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Orchid Energy Pty Ltd, he is spearheading the development of a significant portfolio of early-stage offshore wind projects in Queensland, Australia. His efforts aim to leverage the region’s natural advantages, positioning it as an ideal location for offshore wind and hydrogen initiatives and helping to decarbonise one of the nation’s most carbon intensive states. Having previously contributed extensively to offshore wind projects in the UK and Europe, Clint’s 15 years in Australia has concentrated on the entire lifecycle of projects, encompassing development, construction, financing, and operations, for projects totalling over 5,000 MW of operating renewable energy. His diverse background includes roles with developers, utilities, investment funds, and advisory sectors, giving him a comprehensive understanding of new technologies and their application within the Australian context. Clint Purkiss holds a BSc Hon in Physical Geography from UWA (Wales) and an MSc in Geophysics from Portsmouth University. Currently, he serves as the Technical Director of ICA Partners, a prominent financial advisory firm specializing in the Australian renewables market, while also assuming the role of CEO at Orchid Energy and Allmontes Developments Pty Ltd since early 2018.

Martin Skiba holds a  doctorate in mechanical engineering and has been working exclusively as an independent consultant in the growing offshore wind market since 2014. Currently, he is also a board of the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation as well as co-founder and Vice-Chairman of the World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO), member of the supervisory board of 8.2 Consulting AG, honorary professor at Leibniz University Hannover and lecturer at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH). Between 2008 and 2013, he was responsible for the development, construction and operation of all offshore wind power plants at RWE Innogy GmbH. Prior to that, he built up the offshore wind energy division at REpower Systems AG between 2001 and 2008. 

Gunnar Herzig is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of the World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO) a non-profit organisation founded in 2018 to advance offshore wind energy worldwide. Gunnar has 15 years of experience in the renewable energy industry. From 2009 to 2018 Gunnar held various positions in the renewable energy division of the German energy company RWE focusing on offshore wind. Gunnar holds a degree in International Business Administration from the University of Tuebingen (Germany) and studied as an exchange student at the National University of Singapore (Singapore) and at Harvard University (USA). Gunnar also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Cambridge (UK).