Speakers

Arnaud joined BP Trading and Shipping in 2020 where he is heading the origination team for power and renewables. The team is originating PPAs and flexibility deals and supporting the group investments in offshore wind and solar as well as hydrogen. He joined from SG in NY where he was responsible for the commodities structuring activities in the Americas region and previously in Europe as co-head of gas, power and coal sales and trading.

Before that, Arnaud was with ENGIE (formerly GDF Suez) energy trading venture in Paris, first as Chief Operating Officer and then as Head of structuring, providing the Utility and its

Sonia Battikh joined Citi in September 2021 as the Global Head of Carbon Offsets Trading. She has 20 years of trading experience across equities and commodities derivatives within Banks and Trading houses. Sonia started her career in 2003 as a Vanilla Equity derivative trader on European Indices in Commerzbank. In 2007, she joined the Exotic Commodity trading desk where she focused on oil (crude and distillates). During her career she gained expertise in other commodities via trading Precious metals, Base metals, Agricultural commodities, Emissions (EUA) and Carbon Offsets. Prior joining Citi, she was with Shell for close to 6 years, where she initiated the Carbon Offsets business. Sonia holds a Masters in Financial Markets, Commodities and Risk Management from Paris Dauphine University.

Michael Haigh is Managing Director and Global Head of Fixed Income and Commodities Research for Société Générale and is based in London. Previously, Michael was the Commodity Economist at PIMCO after leaving Société Générale as the Head of Commodities Research in early 2023. Haigh has also held the role of Global Head of Commodities Research at Standard Chartered Bank, based in Singapore and prior to joining Standard Chartered Bank, Haigh held the positions of Managing Director at K2 Advisors LLC, a Global Hedge Fund of Funds where he focused on Commodity Research/Investing. Haigh also spent several years as the Associate Chief Economist at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). 

Haigh began his career in academia and held a position as a tenured Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, US. Haigh has taught graduate (MBA) and undergraduate derivative courses at several universities including NYU Stern School of Business, Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University and supervised numerous Ph.D. dissertations on the commodity and financial markets. He has published numerous scholarly research papers on the commodity and derivative markets in several leading journals, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Business, Journal of Futures Markets and the Journal of Applied Econometrics. Michael holds a PhD in Economics with a minor in statistics from North Carolina State University.

Victoria Collins' career spans over 25 years working in financial institutions, in trading, finance and risk roles, predominately in risk management. 

She has been with Nomura for ten years, focused on enterprise-wide risk management. Collins was appointed global head of climate risk & ESG three years ago. She is responsible for establishing and managing the global risk management framework for climate risk and ESG, and for ensuring risk management is aligned to the firm’s sustainability objectives, such as net zero.

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.

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.

Charlie is a strategist focusing on LGIM’s Climate Action Strategy, launched Q4 2023, where he works on thematic research, investment idea generation,  fundamental analysis, and company engagement. Prior to the launch of this fund, he was responsible for integrating LGIM’s climate scenario insights into investment strategies through metrics and research. Charlie joined LGIM in 2021 having previously worked at Legal & General Retirement as an investment analyst. He began his career at Mercer specialising in insurance investment. Charlie graduated with a Masters in Earth Sciences from University of Oxford in 2015.

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.

Răzvan is a seasoned risk management professional, entrepreneur and also former journalist. But before all these, he has been, is and remains a communicator and a very inquisitive storyteller.

Răzvan has a vast experience in various industries as a risk management professional such as commodity exchanges, oil & gas, insurance and for the last 7 years only in energy. Most recent experiences are with Hidroelectrica (biggest hydro-power producer in Romania) and Electrica, double listed energy company (on LSE and BSE) acting in distribution, supply, production and services. During 2022 he was also a board member for the energy supply subsidiary of Electrica.

He is currently acting as a Risk management & KYC Director for the Electrica Group.

Over the last years, he presented over 100 dedicated trainings and discourses, in extremely varied fields such as: Financial Risk Management, Risk Management Fundamentals, Introduction to Risk Management, Trading of Derivatives (the options), Enterprise Risk Management, ISO 31000, ISO 27001.

Răzvan is also a member of the Technical committee of the ESG Exchange, an international initiative for how-to deliver decision-useful sustainability information, no matter the area of regulation.

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.   

Mario Dell’Era holds a MSc. in Theoretical Physics and PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Pisa, visiting PhD at Finance Institute of Lugano and also a Master in Data Science &Artificial Intelligence at Cambridge Spark UK, and he is actively involved in researches within Neuroscience and Generative AI field. Presently, he occupies the position of Head of Quant Risk front Office at Petroineos Ltd, London UK. He taught Quantitative Finance and Stochastic Processes at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, for PhD students and International Corporate Finance at Pisa University, where he was an External Professor and webinars on AI applications in Finance at Ca' Foscari in Venice. His research spans PDEs methods in Finance, Stochastic Calculus and AI.

Dr Maria Carvalho has over 14 years of research and advisory experience for international institutions, governments and the private sector to set policies and plans to decarbonise the economy, with a strong focus on achieving net-zero goals. Maria previously worked as the Head of Public Affairs at South Pole, and as an analyst for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and at New Energy Finance. She has a PhD and Master’s in Environmental Policy and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Bachelor’s in Economics and International Development at Queen’s University, Canada.

Franziska Danz is part of ION’s Industry Solutions Group and serves as Market Owner for ION’s commodity management solutions in EMEA. Since joining ION/Openlink in 2005, Franziska Danz has been involved in numerous European and international product implementations. Afterwards she served in sales support before she built up ION’s implementation standardisation program, eventually transitioning to product management responsibility.

After the ION acquisition of Openlink in 2018, she joined the Industry Solutions Group in the Product Management team. In this role, she oversees the strategy, positioning and roadmap development of ION’s Energy and Commodities product portfolio in EMEA.

Franziska Danz holds a Master of Science in Finance and International Business from Aarhus University and is a financial risk analyst by profession.

Domenico Franceschino is Head of Origination for West and East Europe and member of the Management Board of Axpo Solutions AG. He joined Axpo in 2009. Domenico previously worked in London for Enron and EDF Trading and in Italy for ENEL. He holds a degree in Business Economics and Finance from the LUISS University of Rome and a postgraduate degree in International Trade and Finance.

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.

Chris has been a professional in the energy industry since 1996. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with various companies at different growth stages, ranging from innovative start-ups to well-established multinational corporations. His efforts have significantly contributed to expanding their business operations and market share in the renewable energy sector.

Chris's roles have predominantly centred on the procurement of renewable power from new build or development assets. Recently, his focus has been on long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy and utility-scale battery storage solutions with the Engie Origination team.

Navin (Nav) is a senior executive holding 20+ years experience across Financial, Corporate, and Professional Services institutions. As a leader & practitioner, Nav operates in portfolio roles across a suite of companies, where he advises on Sustainability, Capital Markets, and Risk Management. His competencies are focused on strategy, governance, training, and implementation - driven by prudential & principled regulation across ESG, Climate Risk, Carbon Markets, Sustainable Financing, and Net Zero for financials and real economy sectors.

His corporate experience spans companies such as Tata Group, HSBC Group, Credit Suisse, and Commerzbank. Nav's Front Office, CRO, COO, and Programme Management experience assists in building diverse and international teams.

Externally, Nav sits on a number of government & private industry committees, developing & influencing public policy on Sustainability standards. He supports the financial markets community via mentoring of professionals and serving as the Co-Chair of the PRMIA ESG Working Group & PRMIA SteerCo.

Nav is a regular speaker and chair at conferences, as well as a frequent commentator & author to the media on financial market regulations, including a regular column on Sustainability for the financial press.

Gaurav Garg is a Managing Partner based in Germany and holds a degree in Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science. Gaurav brings 23+ years of experience specialising in energy and commodity trading technology industry. 

At capSpire, he is responsible for build-up & operations of capSpire’s entity in India and is a Global lead for Operations & Support services.

Gaurav has proven history of leading several international teams, establishing global delivery capabilities for large transformation programs, defining and implementing trading technology & business landscapes, improving quality & operational effectiveness for leading Global investment bank & European utilities organisation.

Prior to joining capSpire in 2022, he was holding an executive management position with the responsibility for managing their Power, Gas & Emissions Trading (ETRM) technology landscape, forging business partnerships across various stakeholder groups at all levels. 

Della Newton is an Originator at ENGIE UK Markets, specialising in structured products, green power sourcing, and battery optimisation. Integral to ENGIE's entry into the battery optimisation space, Della also played a key role in signing ENGIE's first third-party collocated PV and BESS offtake.

Currently pursuing an MBA in Sustainable Energy Futures and a Level 7 Systems Thinking Practitioner apprenticeship, Della holds a Master's degree in Physics from Nottingham Trent University. With a background on ENGIE's UK shift trading desk, she has extensive experience in trading power and gas, and deep understanding of the UK wholesale markets