Greentech Festival Speakers 2024

Julia Pallé is a leading expert on sustainability in motorsport and the international elite sport industry. As Sustainability Director at the world’s first all-electric motor racing series, Formula E, Julia certified the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship net zero carbon since inception, the first sport in the world to achieve the standard. Julia is also Sustainability Advisor for Extreme E, the all-electric SUVs series, bringing electric racing to some of the most remote corners of the planet to highlight the climate change challenges faced by different ecosystems. Widely recognised as a leader in sustainability in global sport, Julia is a regular speaker at major events and conferences including COP26, Bloomberg, Sport Positive Summit, and FIA Smart Cities. Her industry roles include President of Sports and Sustainability international (SandSI), an international association of sustainable experts working to broadening and harmonising the international sport and sustainability movement. Before joining Formula E and defining the sustainability strategy, Julia was sustainability executive at Michelin Motorsport. Her primary area of research has focused on Business & Sustainability, Change Management and Project Management especially in Motorsport.

Natasha Elkington is an award-winning, independent multimedia journalist, producer, photographer, trainer and on-air presenter based in Nairobi, Kenya. With over 15 years of professional experience in the international media arena, she has worked and trained with several recognised global organisations including the European Union, United Nations, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Thomson Reuters Corporation & Foundation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), MediaStorm, Facebook, ActionAid and Purpose.com. Human impact and protecting nature fuel her fire while bringing a truthful, creative and global perspective to storytelling.

Phil joined Vodafone, the world’s largest IoT operator, in July 2013. As Head of IoT Business Development, Phil has responsibility for strategy and global business development, covering a range of verticals from automotive through to consumer electronics. He has previously held a range of national and international senior business development leadership roles, in innovative B2B tech companies across the telecoms, energy and utilities, communications and automotive sectors.

Since 2003 Jan has been in project acquisition, development and asset management. Within those almost twenty years he worked for multinational companies, manufacturers, as well as multiple ultra-high net worth individuals on projects in Central and Eastern Europe, USA and Asia-Pacific, participating in transaction of the total value over 300 million EUR. Since 2009 he has oriented towards renewable energy, focusing primarily on photovoltaic power plant projects, equipment and solutions, joining Wattkraft in 2018.
His university background is in International Trade from University of Economics in Prague.

Jake started out his career as a technology strategy associate for a major UK telecoms company before going to work on the data architecture and data system development for a major telecoms infrastructure investment project. Jake always had a passion for fighting climate change, so joined Energy Systems Catapult in 2019 to work on Modernising Energy Data and Prospering From the Energy Revolution with BEIS, Ofgem and IUK. Jake was part of the team that delivered the influential Energy Data Taskforce for BEIS. Jake ran multiple data systems consulting projects for innovative energy companies and UK energy networks, specialising in data management and the promotion of open data. Jake is now the Data Coop manager at Subak where he connects people working in climate with data they need to scale their impact, and is the lead for the Subak fellowship scheme which finds and funds data-centric climate research.

Graduated in Political Science, international address at Cesare Alfieri University in Florence, with a diploma as a conference interpreter for English and French and a Master in International Commerce and Finance organized by ICE of Milan, I started my career at the ITA Agency 30 years ago in 1992. After a four-year activity in Rome where I dealt with the promotion of Italian instrumental mechanics, I carried out my first assignment abroad in Hong Kong from 1996 to 2000 as deputy director, where I was able to attend the historic Hong Kong Handover to China in July 1997. Returning to Italy, following the victory of the competition for executives in August 2000, I was appointed director of the ICE Office in Florence and since 2002 manager of the Consumer Goods Area and of the Special Projects Area of ​​the Rome office. In 2004 I was appointed director of ICE Sofia in Bulgaria and subsequently from 2007 to 2013 I was director of the ICE office in Sao Paulo, responsible for Brazil, in the period of the full economic boom of the South American country. Back in the Head Office from 2013 to 2017 I was director of the Promotion Coordination of Made in Italy, responsible for the planning and organization of over 1000 promotional initiatives annually organized by ICE in over 65 offices around the world. From September 2017 for a four-year period I held the position of director of ICE PARIS, a position that I continued to hold ad interim until May 2, 2022. From 5 September 2021 I assumed the role of director of the ICE Office in London for the four-year period 2021-2025.

Sebastian Copeland is an award-winning photographer, explorer and author. Sebastian has led numerous expeditions across the polar regions, covering over 8,000 kilometers on skis over the ice, opening new routes and earning various records in the process. An international speaker on the climate crisis, Sebastian has addressed audiences at the UN, at universities and museums worldwide, and many fortune 500 companies warning of systemic transformations taking place in the polar regions from anthropogenic activities, and their geopolitical consequences. Sebastian has been noted as a photographer “who has produced works that are of outstanding artistic merit and communicates messages of urgent global significance.” He has produced five monograms and was four times awarded Photographer of the Year (IPA’07&2020 and TIFA’16&2020). In 2017, Men’s Journal named Copeland one of the world’s 25 top adventurers of the last 25 years. A member of the Explorer’s Club, Sebastian has spent 15 years on the board of directors of President Gorbachev’s environmental NGO, Global Green USA.

A proven business leader in the energy and decarbonisation fields, John has spent his career building growth businesses. A passionate net zero advocate, he studied climate change and environmental economics at the University of Cambridge, before pursuing a career in energy and technology development. Prior to Levidian John was Global Director of Product Management for Centrica, with accountability for bringing new, low-carbon technology to their global business customer base. While sitting on the Executive Leadership team for Centrica Business Solutions (CBS), John launched products including EV enablement, demand response and battery storage. Prior to this, John worked in strategy consulting, first at Accenture and then at McKinsey. His work has predominantly focused on the energy industry with commercial strategy and growth planning.

Dina is an industry analyst at PAC, whose areas of expertise are Digital Sustainability & CSR, Enterprise Metaverse, IoT, Digital Innovation, Engineering, and the Manufacturing vertical in France. She covers developments and trends in the IT services and software markets. Previously, Dina was an industry analyst at Crédit Agricole SA covering IT Services and then a consultant at Deloitte.

Mathilde has a background in Economics and specialized in Economic Development. She started her career at the International Labour Organization, focusing on programs to enhance women entrepreneurship. After a short experience at the French Transport Regulatory Authority she decided to dedicate her time to fight climate change and to found the NGO Ma Petite Planète, together with Clément Debosque and Christian Nallatamby.

Micol is Partner and Head of Climate Science at Planet Fund, an early-stage climate tech VC fund. She sits on the technical advisory board of several companies, including Tropic Biosciences – a pioneer in the development of novel high-performing commercial tropical crop varieties. Micol was Head of Impact Investing at Five Seasons Ventures, the largest food-tech impact fund in Europe, and spent several years at Bain and Company helping fast-moving innovators scale with purpose in the private equity and energy and resources industries.

Mark Daly is the senior associate on BloombergNEF’s technology and innovation Industry team in London. Mark supports BloombergNEF’s research on the impacts of emerging technology on the energy and industrial sectors. Mark holds an MSc in Climate Change, Management and Finance from Imperial College and A Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from Trinity College Dublin.

From a young age Matt always wanted to create lasting positive change, constantly doodling futuristic inventions, whether it was in class or at the dinner table. Working in garages as a teenager he became dedicated to the idea of understanding systems from the bottom up to better understand the whole. He completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Integrated Design demonstrating excellent academia, working with industry partners to raise funds and publish his work. Matt has worked across high-speed optical sorting, acoustic metamaterials, 3D printing and human-centric sustainability but it’s here, at Magway, that he says he can make the biggest difference: “Today, I’m a Product Manager, but a product is nothing without people, and it’s the people at Magway, our team and stakeholders, that are the reason we’re going to change the future of logistics.

Luc Berlin, is the Founder and CEO of Miigle+, an AI-driven social impact tech ecosystem with the mission to turn consumerism into “cause-sumerism”, and empower people to consume sustainably by aligning their purchasing power with their social and environmental values. A strategic, creative, and data-driven Tech Marketing leader, Luc is passionate about creating better societies, building, and scaling organizations globally. He brings +15 years of experience in revenue growth, customer acquisition, brand development in Enterprise SaaS and eCommerce for companies in North America and EMEA, including Cutover, Shutterstock, HackerRank, LegalZoom, and Shopzilla. Luc holds a BSc in Management and an MBA in Global Business from Pepperdine University where he’s been recognized as “Best for the World Black Entrepreneur”.

Charlie Martin is a racing driver and LGBTQ+ activist, having realised she was transgender at a young age, her path to professional racer has been a journey into the unknown in an entirely male dominated sport. Che has overcome huge adversity to succeed as her true self, and she now works with charities like Stonewall to increase the visibility and acceptance of trans people in sport and beyond.

JC is a Managing Partner of Global Sustainable Future (GSF). He focuses on financing of clean technologies and large scale projects in Energy, Mobility, Water, Air and Carbon. He also advises Cleantech startups and large corporations with their Net Zero Strategy. He co-founded Tarform, an electric motorcycle start-up set to disrupt the two-wheeled transportation industry through advanced manufacturing and clean technology. Prior to Tarform, JC led the growth of a number of companies in the technology and business consulting industries.

Having always been inquisitive by nature (some would say nosey), a career based around understanding people and how things work was always going to be a good fit. Started out on the agency side before building and running insight teams at LEGO, Dyson, Nokia/Microsoft and Vodafone Business all with a tech focus. A big priority now is understanding how businesses, amongst other things, make themselves more sustainable so they are Fit For The Future and how tech can unlock this.

Andrea is the Group Environment Lead at Vodafone. Her role is to oversee activities within the Planet pillar of Vodafone’s Purpose, which aim to make Vodafone a net zero and circular business that enables more sustainable societies through digital technology. She was previously the Head of Sustainability at OVO Energy, where she drove the decarbonisation of OVO’s operations and its customers’ home energy. She has over a decade of experience advising companies on sustainable business transformation as a sustainability consultant with PwC and ERM specialising in corporate strategy, sustainable value creation, risk and reporting. She has a MSc Environmental Technology from Imperial College London.

Florian currently works as Director Engineering Air Filter Elements & Simulation at MANN+HUMMEL GmbH. Since he joined MANN+HUMMEL in 2013 he has been consistently working on enhancing digital tools and simulation methods for optimal filter element development on all scales. In addition he is responsible for the engineering of engine air filter elements. Since 2018, he has been actively driving the development of clean air solutions as a key factor for clean and sustainable mobility.

I Co-Founded We Don’t Need Roads as a One-Stop-Shop for positive impact, accelerating the climate & ESG plans for corporations, and scaling the solutions and trailblazers to help them become market standards. We use a global community of experts working in hybrid commando teams on any topic that could help building the next economy.

David is currently VP Finance at Bonnet Limited (EV charging app). David is senior corporate finance practitioner with 12+ years of strategic finance and investment banking experience. Before to move to the start-up world, he was a Director in Citi and Bank of America’s Energy investment banking team. He led several high-profile M&A and IPO in the energy sector in Europe but also globally. David has global approach to business having worked in the US, Canada, and Singapore before to relocate to the UK.

From 2013 to 2016 Fabian worked at the German Aerospace Centre, Scientific Staff, R&D of Fibre Reinforced Plastics/Composites. After that from 2016-2018 he was the R&D Engineer, Development of Fibre Reinforced Plastics/Composites at AUDI AG. 2018-2020: AUDI AG, R&D Engineer, Pre-Development of Underbody Components. From 2020 as of today, he is the Project Manager, Pre-Development Hang-On System at AUDI AG.

With a background in biology, Freya started her career in carbon recycling as one of the first employees of LanzaTech, working directly with LanzaTech’s gas fermentation process in the laboratory. She has firsthand experience of scaling and commercializing a new technology, from the R&D stage, through the challenges of fundraising and navigating the legislative environment to deploying new technologies to scale in globally. Today she leads the Government Relations and External Relations teams at LanzaTech and plays a key part in advocacy groups around the world focused on Circular Economy, Carbon Capture and Utilization, the Bioeconomy and Low Carbon Fuels. She interacts across multiple sectors supporting the commercialization of new low carbon technologies, including contributing to reports on scale up and impact and providing insights on what common issues impacting the deployment of new technologies.