Speaker 2021

Bio

Yvonne Soh is the Executive Director of the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC), an industry organization founded on a strong public - private partnership to drive the transformation of Singapore’s built environment.

Her work experience spans both the public and private sector. She began her career as an engineer with a multi-disciplinary professional consulting firm and subsequently joined the Building and Construction Authority (BCA). During her time with the BCA, she headed the Centre for Sustainable Buildings and also managed portfolios in policy development, regulatory control, industry promotion, and research & development.

Yvonne is a registered Professional Engineer (Civil) and Green Mark Accredited Professional. She is passionate about driving corporate action on climate change and the development of programmes to motivate and sustain a virtuous cycle of action.

Bio

Dr. Zhang Xiliang is a professor of management science and engineering and director of the Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy at Tsinghua University. His current research interests include low-carbon energy economy transformation, integrated assessment of energy and climate policies, renewable energy and automotive energy. Since 2015, Professor Zhang has been heading the expert group on China’s national carbon market design, which is a taskforce of the Climate Change Department in the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He served as the co-leader of the expert group for drafting the Renewable Energy Law and a member of the expert group for drafting the Circular Economy Promotion Law, which was appointed by the Environmental Protection and Resource Conservation Committee of the National People’s Congress in 2004 and 2007, respectively. He was also a lead author of the fourth and fifth IPCC Climate Change Assessment Report. He received the first prize of humanities and social sciences research of the Ministry of Education and the national leading talents award in ecology and environment protection of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in 2020. Dr. Zhang is the current Chair of the Energy Systems Engineering Committee of the China Energy Research Society and a member of the board of directors of the Chinese Society of Sustainable Development and the China Renewable Energy Society. He holds a PhD in Systems Engineering from Tsinghua University.

Bio

Zixuan is an power system planning & operation optimization engineer in Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute, China. Guo is experienced in the field of energy mix research, energy solution & energy project feasibility study, and also had research experience in ADB’s Technical Assistance. In GEDI, Guo has finished several grid integration study of 400MW LNG generations. Guo also had rich experience participating in the low-carbon energy sustainable solution for City, industrial parks, Financial parks. In 2018-2019, Guo Participated in several ADB’s consultancy items in the field of ‘enhancing power resilience of climate change’ and ‘improving power system reliability in Sri Lanka’. Recently, in the background of fast improvement of renewable energy , Guo is dedicated in the study of energy storage to guarantee the sustainability of future power system.

Bio

Zonibel Woods has dedicated over 30 years to address barriers to gender equality and create opportunities for women and girls to live healthy, productive lives free from discrimination and violence. She has extensive and diverse expertise in gender and development and sustainable development, including in the areas of gender mainstreaming, strategic planning, policy analysis and development, training, technical assistance, and capacity building. Zonibel has worked for civil society organizations such as the International Women’s Health Coalition, leading the organization’s global policy work. As the Program Manager for the Ford Foundation’s Global Initiative on HIV and AIDS, she supported the leadership on HIV and AIDS organizations working all over the world. Ms. Woods has extensive experience on environment and sustainable development issues which has spanned over three decades since her involvement in the 1992 Earth Summit. She has been based in the Philippines since 2012, where she worked as a gender consultant focusing on gender and climate change. In 2020 she joined the Asian Development Bank as Senior Social Development Specialist. In her free time, she works on animal welfare. She holds a Master of Arts in Environmental Practice from Royal Roads University. Zonibel has written and published a number of articles and reports on gender, sexual and reproductive health, and climate change.

Bio

Dr. Zulfikar Yurnaidi is Senior Officer of Sustainable Energy, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency for ACE. He is also Senior Research Analyst of ASEAN Climate Change and Energy Project (ACCEPT). In those roles, Zulfikar conducts research and cooperation activities in the field of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate change. These include development of thematic publications and popular articles, as well as development and management of collaborative activities. He holds Doctoral Degree from Department of Energy Studies, Ajou University. Prior to ACE, he was a researcher in Green Technology Center (GTC) Korea, focusing on green technology cooperation with partner countries, such as on waste-to-energy, climate smart agriculture, water monitoring system, and AI-based disaster response, in Indonesia and Bhutan. Prior to that, he was post-doctoral researcher and lecturer in Ajou University, working in energy modelling focusing on application of energy technologies and policies under the view of comprehensive energy system.