Speakers

In 1988 after working at the Centre for Policy Studies with David Willetts, he trained as smaller companies analyst and subsequently became a Corporate Finance Director of the Australian owned International Pacific Securities, specializing in cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

In 1997 Gregory Barker became an Associate Partner of the leading financial public relations firm, Brunswick Group Ltd. The following year he was appointed head of International Investor Relations for Sibneft, a major Russian oil company, where he helped lead the company’s drive to modernize in the post Soviet economy and open up to Western markets. He returned to Britain in May 2000, to continue as a director of Bartlett Scott Edgar, the recruitment advertising business, of which he helped lead a "management buy-in" in 1998. The company was sold to TMP Worldwide in 2001. Gregory Barker was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Bexhill and Battle in his native Sussex in June 2001. He served on the House of Commons Environmental Audit select committee between 2001 and 2005. He was appointed to the Opposition Front Bench as a Conservative whip in 2003. Gregory Barker was appointed Shadow Minister for Climate Change & Environment in December, 2005 and led the passage of the Climate Change Bill through the House of Commons in 2008 and was a key author of the Conservative Party’s ‘Low Carbon Economy’ green paper, launched in January 2009. In October 2008 he was promoted to Shadow Climate Change minister in the new Shadow Department of Energy and Climate Change.

He has worked with energy companies, investors, policy makers and NGOs. Marcel joined McKinsey in 1999 in Amsterdam and has been in London since 2005. Marcel has worked in Western Europe, the US, the Middle East, Russia and Japan. Within the climate change space, Marcel co-leads the McKinsey’s Carbon Economics service line and has developed McKinsey’s Carbon Markets Model.

Prior to joining the Firm, Till worked for six years as a consultant at Bain & Company in the U.K. and Germany, where he focused on projects including commercial due diligence, post-merger integration, and organic company growth. Till received a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Applied Science in Lübeck, Germany in 1999 and an MBA from IESE, Universidad de Navarra, in Barcelona, Spain in 2004. Originally from Germany, Till speaks German, French, and Spanish.

Prior to Zouk Capital, he was appointed CEO to transform an important UK distressed power company and has successfully worked with a number of banks to turn around other distressed power assets. He ran the Corporate M&A division of TXU Europe, where he led a series of profitable and high profile transactions. At Mitsui Babcock, he ran the project financing function and was involved in one of the world’s largest independent power projects in China. Colin is a chemical engineer and Chartered Accountant by training.

He has over 10 years experience in private equity investments. During his career, Enrico held positions at the European Investment Fund focusing on investments in mid-market and venture capital funds, including clean-tech funds, and PM&Partners and InvestIndustrial focusing on buyout and growth capital investments in mid-sized businesses. Enrico holds a Master in Merchant Banking from LIUC, University Carlo Cattaneo, and a degree in Economics from the University of Siena.

He is a member of the European Advisory Board of the Cleantech Group and a founder of the Club Cleantech AFIC (French Private Equity Association), a platform to foster the entire cleantech ecosystem in France. Prior to that, Nicolas Chaudron worked mainly in the sectors of information technology and semiconductors, and he led Idinvest Partners’ investments in Soamai (sold to ASG), Alchimer, Median Technologies (IPO), and Telemarket (sold to Système U). Between 2001 and 2005, he was also a board member of several start-ups, including Siriatech and Vizelia, two start-ups pioneering cleantech in France.

Before joining Idinvest Partners, Nicolas Chaudron started his career in venture capital at Europatweb, the Internet investment company founded by Bernard Arnault. In addition to his involvement in the operational launch of Europatweb, he participated in various investments and led the one in Webhelp (LBO exit in 2007).

Nicolas Chaudron is an alumnus of the Ecole normale supérieure (Paris, France) and of the Peking University (Beijing, China). He holds an MSc in mathematics from the University of Paris IV, an MBA from the Collège des Ingénieurs, and an MBA from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), where he was a Palmer Scholar.

She is also responsible for developing the team’s climate change themed investment programme working closely with F&C’s Governance & Sustainable Investment team. Julia is a General Partner of F&C Climate Opportunity Partners LP, which held its first close in 2011. Prior to joining F&C, Julia was a trainee fund manager at Stewart Ivory Investment Managers, specialising in Japanese equities. She started her career as a financial journalist, working for the weekly trade paper Financial Adviser.

Toby has a strong track record of principal investing in growth companies and strong operational experience.  His background and expertise allow him to provide unique insights regarding the convergence of energy, communications and information technologies.  Prior to VGF, Toby held a number of senior executive roles with Yahoo!, including Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director, Yahoo! Europe & Canada.  While at Yahoo!, Toby was responsible for almost $5 billion of acquisitions and investments.  Toby was also the Executive sponsor for Yahoo’s global sustainability program and led initiatives including the launch of Yahoo! Green and the management of Yahoo’s carbon footprint across its global data centers and facilities.

Prior to Yahoo!, Toby was a Founding Partner of Windsor Media a private investment company that acquires traditional media businesses and re-positions them for the digital future.  Toby also held investment and client advisory positions with Allen & Company and Goldman Sachs. 

Toby is an Industry Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and a Henry Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute, and a Member of both the Israel-Britain and Palestine-Britain Business Councils.
Toby received his MA Philosophy, Politics & Economics (First Class) from Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom and an MBA (with Distinction) from Harvard Business School.

Emerald is one of the largest dedicated cleantech funds and the first with a transatlantic strategy. Gina serves on the boards of Identec Solutions, Inge and Pelamis. Gina has over 20 years of international business experience including banking, M&A, strategic development, and venture capital. Prior to starting Emerald, she was senior vice president at Sulzer, a Swiss multinational, responsible for strategic planning and M&A. During her ten year tenure, she built up a team which completed 45 transactions including acquisitions, divestitures, IPOs and JVs in industrial technology sectors. Gina holds MBA degrees from Thunderbird in Arizona and ESADE in Barcelona and is fluent in English, German and Spanish.

During his sixteen years at Charterhouse Simon was involved in all forms of investment from venture to expansion capital and from small MBO’s to large LBO’s. Prior to that Simon worked as a Senior Engineer with Air Products Inc the US gases group. Simon has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from Cranfield.

Prior to joining Hermes GPE, Magnus was Chief Operating Officer at IP Group plc and the university intellectual property commercialisation specialist and worked in venture capital with Top Technology Ventures. Magnus qualified as a lawyer with Slaughter and May.

Formerly, he was a founding Partner of Pulsar Energy Capital, a boutique investment firm based in London. Prior to founding Pulsar, Shaun advised 3i on a number of renewable energy transaction opportunities in Europe including the €170m acquisition of Gamesa Energy Services (GES) from Gamesa in Spain. Following the deal, Shaun joined the Board of GES. Prior to his time advising 3i, Shaun was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Centrica Plc’s retail power business in Texas where he was responsible for managing a business which grew profitably during his tenure from revenues of $100m to over $1.5bn. Shaun is on the Board of the British Venture Capital Association’s Energy, Environment and Technology Group and has founded the Low Carbon Finance Group in London. Shaun spent the first ten years of his career with Shell International, where he was responsible for the development of Shell’s global gas and power strategy.

Paul has over 12 years' experience as CEO of a private equity fund in growth capital (10 years) and as managing partner in venture capital (6 years).  He has served on the boards of companies in the US, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Italy and has been an active participant in a number of IPO’s in Germany, Norway and US. During his tenure as a private equity investor Paul has been responsible for the investment decisions in over 60 companies in Europe, US and Canada, and Africa. Earlier in his career, Paul held senior management positions in companies with a strong business development focus, and was a co‐founder of three successful enterprises.

He serves on the board of EpiGaN, Punch Powertrain, Capricorn Cleantech Fund and Leuven.Inc (Leuven Innovation Networking Circle).

Prior to joining Capricorn Venture Partners in March 1998 Marc served for six years as Senior Scientific Adviser at IWT, a government agency which promotes and supports industrial research in the Flemish region of Belgium. He combined that role with the responsibility for the agency’s advanced materials programme.

Prior to IWT he worked two years at the European R&D lab of Terumo Europe NV where he was Divisional Head, New Technology Centre.

Marc has a PhD in Electrical Engineering of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven ESAT, Belgium) where he studied microelectronic engineering. He wrote a book “Biosensors: Microelectrochemical Devices” published by the Institute of Physics Publishing.

A Dutch native, he has been a General Partner at Wellington since 2000. He primarily focuses on process technologies, in particular in the Electronics and Cleantech areas. Bart manages an impressive collection of companies located in Europe and the US. Many have already made the successful leap to the US or are successfully opening up new foreign markets. Past investments include Navteq (NASDAQ: NVT; sold to Nokia in 2007) and Q-Layer (sold to Sun Microsystems in 2009).

Tom is responsible for overall investment strategy and sits on HgCapital’s Renewables Investment Committee. Tom joined HgCapital in 2004 and has more than 20 years' experience in providing equity finance to the US and European conventional and renewable power sectors. His investment experience covers most forms of power generation - coal, natural gas, wind, solar, biomass, biogas, hydro and waste-to-energy. He previously worked at EIF Group, establishing their London office, and was co-head of Allianz Private Equity's renewable energy team. Tom is active in the industry, Chairing the Cleantech Committee of the British Venture Capital and Private Equity Association and committees of the Swedish Wind Energy Association and Renewables UK.  He is also  a co-founder of the Low Carbon Finance Group, a group of experienced energy investors who offer advice to UK politicians and civil service on the finance impact of low carbon and renewable energy policy. He has degrees from Northwestern University and Fordham University School of Law.

Prior to founding SUSI, he was a Director at the Foundation for Global Sustainability and worked as a Strategy Consultant for The Boston Consulting Group. He has successfully exited his first company and holds a double degree in business administration and international management (CEMS) from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and the NHH Bergen.

He was previously Head of private equity, infrastructure, commodities and special products at MnServices, the 3rd largest Dutch pension fund, where he managed a €5 billion portfolio of alternative investments. Prior to MnServices, Allard was a Senior Advisor Mergers & Acquisitions at Essent (now RWE) and before that held positions at private equity firm Residex Capital and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Allard has a Master’s of Science degree in Accountancy from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands and is registered as Register Accountant (Chartered Accountant) with the Dutch Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Prior to joining Altius, Michael served as Managing Director with Pacific Corporate Group where he managed all aspects of client relationships, portfolio planning and investment program implementation for a number of large institutional clients in the US, Europe and Asia (Japan). Michael's work with those clients covered the whole range of private equity investments in the US, Europe and Asia. Michael holds MBA and Law degrees from the University of British Columbia, a Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction from the University of Alberta, and a diploma in International Management from HEC Paris (École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris). Michael speaks English and French. Michael joined Altius in 2007.

As chief executive of Almeida Capital, Richard has acted as a senior adviser to a wide range of leading private equity groups, venture capital firms and blue-chip investment institutions around the world. Prior to Almeida, Richard was a fund of funds manager and, before that, a consultant with McKinsey & Company. He has an MBA from IMD.

The most important product developed (from the R&D plus patents to the industrialization and market launch) was a low environmental impact fuel branded Gecam, a diesel-in-water emulsion alternative to traditional diesel fuel for transportation. Gecam reached 20% market share in the Italian Public Transportation market with 8 production facilities and a turnover of more than €50m. Launched operations in France, Czech Republic and China. In 2006 the company, cash positive since 2000, had a turnover of €70m and operates within Pirelli Ambiente. From 2002 to 2007 he worked within the Telecom Italia group, first as CEO of Finsiel, the €1.2bn IT systems integrator and subsequently as General manager of Olivetti, the IT hardware and systems producer. In Finsiel he doubled the EBIT margin and increased ROI from one digit to over 20%. In Olivetti he pioneered the move into inkjet printers and the outsourcing of production.