Speaker 2021

Bio

Nicole Della Vedova is a Senior Manager, whose career has steadily advanced in almost 15 years of activity in financial markets among different industries (Energy, Oil & Gas, Utilities).

After a short experience in a consultancy firm, Nicole began her professional career as Analyst in Capital Markets and Credit Rating at Eni SpA, where she worked for 6 years, dealing with bond issues, market analysis and relations with main international banks and rating agencies. After a prominent experience in Maire Tecnimont SpA as Senior Financial Planning and Advisory Analyst, in 2016 she joined Enel SpA as Head of Group Capital Markets, within Finance & Insurance department. In Enel SpA she is now responsible for Corporate Finance, leading both capital markets activities and public finance. She is recognized as a leading expert in the Sustainable Finance space, and she participated in the drafting of the Sustainability-Linked Bond

Principles released by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA). Born in 1983, she graduated in business and finance at Bocconi University of Milan. Since 2017 she is also a member of the International Capital Market Association.

Bio

Nitin Jain
(Programme Head, Officer Responsible for Commission, GIZ IGEN EE Industry Programme)

Nitin is working as Programme Head for the Indo German Energy Programme of GIZ GmbH, India Office and is responsible for Commission & Implementation of the EE Industry Project. The current phase of the project supports Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Ministry of Power for various EE Initiatives and Schemes. The main focus is on Non PAT Industries, Rules & Regulations & Capacity Development for various Programmes. He has around 20 years of Professional Experience in the field of Project Management, Budget Monitoring including Finance, Program Implementation, Co-financing etc. He is also a Green Finance Specialist awarded by Renewables Academy AG (RENAC), Berlin, Germany.

Prior to joining GIZ, he has worked with South East Asia Regional Office of World Health Organization, United Nations handling budget & finance for the SEAR member countries. In addition, He is the cluster coordinator for Energy Efficiency Financing working group of GIZ (TUEWAS) internal working for South Asia Region Countries. Nitin Jain is a Chartered Accountant by profession & holds a CA degree since July 1999 from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Bio

Dr Parimita Mohanty works for the UN Environment Programme as their Programme Management Officer, Renewable Energy in the UNEP Office for Asia and the Pacific. She has more than 18 years of experience in sustainable energy, women’s economic empowerment and climate change and has worked on evidence-driven, gender inclusive policies and strategies, technology transfer and climate action plans in more than 15 countries. She has worked extensively in project design, development, on the ground implementation and management, particularly in renewable energy for both urban and rural sectors. She also has experience on formulation of various policies and regulations related to sustainable and renewable energy in south and south east Asia as well as market development and industry collaborations. Prior to joining UNEP, Parimita worked with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India where she led the technology unit of the Lighting a Billion Lives campaign and advanced renewable energy and smart micro grid initiatives for the socio-economic benefit of communities. For this work, she received the National Association of Software and Service Companies social innovation award in 2010 . She has been a visiting researcher at universities in the US and Europe and authored or edited 7 books and more than 25 peer reviewed publications on renewable energy, climate change and sustainable development. She holds a M.Tech degree in Energy Science and Technology and a PhD on Micro-Grids and smart grids from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. Aside from her work on climate change, she is also a national-level cricket player from India.

Bio

Pariphan Uawithya leads The Rockefeller Foundation’s Power initiative in Asia aimed at scaling up renewable energy solutions to drive economic and social development. In India, he works with power companies, investors, donors, and Smart Power India to bring clean and reliable electricity to rural communities through the establishment of distributed renewable energy mini grids and improvement of performance of power distribution companies. He also oversees the Foundation’s Program Related Investment (PRI) work in India, which consists of a growing portfolio of investments in power companies that plan to build over 10,000 mini grids. In Myanmar, he leads Smart Power Myanmar, an entity dedicated to support the acceleration of last-mile electrification for 10 million people.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Mr. Uawithya led advocacy and governance initiatives for Oxfam and Save the Children in Asia. Mr. Uawithya holds a master’s degree from Ball State University, Indiana and a bachelor’s degree from University of Melbourne.

Bio

Pascal BERTOLINI started working as researcher at EDF, Paris in 1982 after finalizing his education as engineer (Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité). Since 1999, he has been working at RTE, the French Transmission System Operator. He now works as director at RTE-International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RTE, which promotes and markets throughout the world, the know-how and expertise of RTE.

With ADB, he manages consultant teams lead by RTE International working in technical assistances to increase regional cooperation and cross-border energy trading within Central and South Asia countries, in a context of large-scale renewable energy integration. He also managed the consultant team in charge of drafting the Afghan grid code.

He has an extensive experience in the field of power system planning, access to the grid, ancillary services, grid codes and contractual agreements with grid users. At the department of RTE in charge of the access to the grid in France and abroad with RTE-International, he manages many projects for developing the transmission system, adapting grid codes and regulation on ancillary services, for facilitating the integration of renewable energy sources.

Bio

Peerapat Vithayasrichareon leads the IEA analysis on the challenges and best practices in integrating renewable energy into the power system, covering technical, economic and institutional aspects. He has led grid integration analysis in many regions including China, Indonesia, Thailand and ASEAN. Prior to the IEA, Peerapat was a Senior Consultant at Intelligent Energy Systems in Australia, where he took on advisory projects related to power sector planning and renewable integration in ASEAN. His previous role was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets at UNSW Sydney, leading a project which examined the impact of high renewables in the Australian electricity sector. He also worked for Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) in power system operation and planning. Peerapat holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Bio

Per Christer is currently science and technology counsellor at the Norwegian Embassy in Singapore. In this role he supports Norwegian companies, universities and research institutes for growing cooperation and market opportunities in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Per Christer has held similar roles at Norwegian embassy in Tokyo and Dubai since 2006.

With an PhD in chemical engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Per Christer engagement in the energy and process industries spans over 30 years, including research institute (Institute of Energy Technology in Norway); software company (director for OMX/HandelScandinavia - now Nasdaq OMZ) in Canada; energy market consultancy (Nordpool Consulting) (advisory on global energy markets) and a Japanese nuclear power company (Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation).

Bio

Peter Kaznacheev, PhD is Principal at Roland Berger specializing in Energy, Infrastructure and the Public Sector. He has over 20 years of professional experience in multiple energy-related projects from PPP structuring and gas master plans to pipeline negotiations and energy market modeling, including several projects for ADB. Prior to Roland Berger he worked as a Senior Economist and Consultant with the World Bank providing technical assistance to governments in projects related to energy and natural resources. Before that, he worked as Business Development Advisor with BP. He is an Associate Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London Energy Centre (EUCERS).

Bio

Pradeep Tharakan has over 17 years of experience focused on global energy and environmental issues. His primary expertise is in the origination, financing, and delivery of large-scale clean energy investment programs in the public sector; the fostering of inter-governmental and public-private partnerships for effective development action; and development research. Pradeep has worked for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) since 2010. He currently serves as Unit Head, Sovereign Energy Operations, Greater Mekong subregion; and leads ADB’s sovereign lending and policy support for energy activities across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam. He has a PhD in Environmental Science, a MBA, and a master’s degree in Public Administration.

Bio

Preety M. Bhandari is currently the Chief of Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management thematic group and is also serving as the Director for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Division of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department (SDCC) at ADB. She is responsible for providing policy and strategic direction to ADB’s initiatives on climate change and disaster risk management, including mobilizing concessional financing from multilateral funds such as the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). She also has an oversight on climate financing from ADB’s own resources including through investments in private sector.

Prior to joining ADB, she was heading the Finance, Technology and Capacity Building Program of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She led the support to the international negotiations on climate finance, which culminated in the launch of GCF and the Standing Committee on Finance. She coordinated the establishment of the Technology Mechanism under the Convention, which includes the Climate Technology Centre and Network.

She has also worked as the Director of the Policy Analysis Division at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) in India.

She has over 33 years of experience in environment, climate change and sustainable development, having worked on projects across Asia, and in multicultural and diverse organizations. She is on the editorial board of Climate Policy and has in the past served as a member of the core group on climate change, established by the Government of India to assess India’s strategy for the UN climate change negotiations. She has also helped adjudicate for the Climate CoLab at MIT, which mobilizes and harnesses innovative ideas to address the challenge of climate change. She is currently advising initiatives led by the 2050 Pathways Platform, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the International Science Council. She is contributing as a Lead Author to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She serves on the Board of Gold Standard Foundation.

Bio

Pushkar Manandhar is Senior Project Officer (Energy) in Nepal Resident Mission (NRM) of Asian Development Bank (ADB). His current major task is to implement and process various energy projects and technical assistance programs and promote policy and other measures for better energy sector response. He is also energy sector focal person for Nepal Resident Mission of ADB. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Manandhar served as consultant to the ADB, worked with Practical Action and Government of Nepal-Alternative Energy Promotion Centre for various projects funded The World Bank, UNDP and EU. He has over 15 years of work experience in the energy sector. Mr. Manandhar has Master’s degree in Energy System and Management and Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

Bio

Dr. Qinxian Jin, born in November 1965, is a professor with a Ph.D. in engineering. He is the Deputy Secretary-General of Tsinghua University and Dean of the Beijing-Tsinghua Industrial R&D Institute. In 1995, when Dr. Jin graduated with a Ph.D. in Engineering from the Department of Environmental Engineering at Tsinghua University, he served as a faculty member in the Department. Then he was appointed as the Director of Tsinghua Science & Technology Development Department and Director of International Technology Transfer Center in 2005, Executive Director of Beijing-Tsinghua Industrial R&D Institute in 2010, and Deputy Secretary-General in 2013. Afterwards, he served as the Director of the President's Office of the university from 2013 to 2015, and Dean of the Office of Technology Transfer from 2015 to 2019. Since September 2019, he has served as the Dean of Beijing-Tsinghua Industrial R&D Institute.

During the two decades in his career of technology transfer, Dr. Jin has, through his effort in mechanism design, system construction and path exploration, promoted a number of scientific and technological achievements to be transformed and landed in China, which won him the title of “Pioneer of the Times” on the Beijing Starups Incubation 30th Anniversary Conference. To address the prominent problem that scientific and technological achievements in universities were out of line with the market demand, he has been committed to exploring the docking mode of university research achievements and local industrial resources, by building up a transfer system driven by technology innovation centers. For instance, in medical health, new energy and other fields, he has launched some technology innovation centers which have become globally influential, including the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute(GHDDI), the Beijing Medical Robotics Industry Innovation Center, and the Beijing International Hydrogen Energy Center.

In addition, he is among the first investors in China to make strategic venture capital investments in hard technology companies. Early in 2011, he launched a venture capital fund for the transformation of Tsinghua scientific and technological achievements, in order to invest and incubate a number of industry start-ups. Among them, TINAVI Medical Technologies (688277), Beijing Sinohytec (688339) and Jenkem Technology (688345) have been successfully listed on the STAR Market (or the Science and Technology Innovation Board), realizing the leapfrog development of science and technology innovation enterprises from start-ups to industry leaders.