SET Tech Festival 2022

Andreas Kuhlmann was appointed dena’s Chief Executive in July 2015. Among others, the graduate physicist has held positions at the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), the German Embassy in Stockholm, the European Parliament, the German Parliament and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. He worked as a consultant and office manager at various political organisations and establishments, including the Environmental Committee of the European Parliament, followed by the SPD party, the SPD parliamentary group and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

Kendra Rauschenberger is General Partner at Siemens Energy Ventures, the venture arm of Siemens Energy, focused on building, piloting with and investing in startups that can provide sustainable, affordable and reliable energy to the world.

Kendra has worked for Siemens companies for more than 20 years and has extensive experience in the areas of sales, business development and strategic projects across innovation and renewable energy. Her previous role was in Additive Manufacturing, one of Siemens’ key innovative technologies, where she was Head of Business Development, Sales and Marketing and responsible for developing new business for this exciting technology with global customers across multiple industries. Prior to this she worked in the UK and Denmark for the company now known as Siemens Gamesa in various management roles including Head of Sales, Bids and Strategic projects.

Kendra also holds an MBA in New Venture Creation from the University of Louisville and is located in Erlangen, Germany.

Chibeze Ezekiel coordinates the Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND), a youth-oriented NGO that promotes youth inclusion in the governance of the Natural Resources & Environmental (NRE) sector. He’s a member of the board of 350.org and the International Experts of the Environment of Peace 2022 (EP2022) project.

He chairs the Youth in Natural Resources and Environmental Governance (Youth-NREG) Platform and the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize Recipient for Africa. As a strong climate activist, he holds the conviction that young people must be at the heart of climate solutions in that young people have a pivotal role to play in winning the fight against climate change. He coordinates the Intergenerational Climate Justice campaign of his organisation targeting children, young people and the older generation.

Anna Christmann is the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action’s representative for the digital economy and start-ups, as well as the coordinator for German aerospace. A member of the Green Party (Alliance 90/The Greens) since 2003 and representing Stuttgart II since 2021, she is also a member of the Bundestag’s Committee for Education, Research and Technology, and a deputy member of the Committee for Digital Affairs. With a background in economics, political engagement, and science policy, Christmann is at the forefront of Germany’s digital transformation.

Danijel Visevic is a recognised climate tech thought leader and expert in public policy, communications and brand building. Before initiating the World Fund, he worked for Project A – one of Europe’s most successful venture capitalists. Before that he was co-responsible for the Angela Merkel’s media image, and a journalist and founder focussing on climate tech, startups and venture capital.

Julia Padberg is Principal at SET Ventures, the Amsterdam-based climate VC fund that has invested since 2007 in European technology companies that impact the future of energy.

Julia joined the team six years ago after six years of working as a corporate finance advisor in the energy & green tech sectors. She serves on the supervisory boards of Energyworx, DEPsys, FlexiDAO, Trunkrs and Green Eagle Solutions.

Dörte is an Entrepreneur and Angel Investor with a strong network in Berlin and background in Consulting.

She led the incubation of Rocket Internet’s portfolio of young companies and scaled more than 50 startups from the idea stage to Series A. In addition she scaled her own SaaS company IdeaFox and was part of the global leadership team of the Unicorn HelloFresh.

She has led the People teams of Rocket and HelloFresh and has interviewed more than 500 future founders and C-Level parties.

She has closed 10 investment deals and is advising the founders on a broad range of operational topics.

From her consulting and advisory roles, she has a strong network with corporations especially in the energy, mobility and telecommunication industry.

Dr Chris Gentle is Senior Advisor, Partnerships and New Ventures at World Energy Council.  He is responsible for the Council’s global partnerships, impact projects and its ambitious Centenary Campaign.  Chris is also an advisor to The Conference Board and teaches at London Business School.

Chris has over 25 years international experience in strategy consulting working at board level in over 35 countries around the world.  He spent 17 years in Big 4 firms KPMG and Deloitte where he was Partner working for F500 clients on strategy and organisational design. He has also held roles at WPP and the European Commission.  He has advised both the World Trade Organisation and United Nations.  He works at the highest levels of influencing including the UK Prime Minister, President European Commission and WEF in Davos.  He is also the author of two books and numerous press and management articles including the Financial Times and the Californian Management Review.

Tech industry veteran Ellen Kugelberg joined Einride in September 2020 as Chief Operations Officer to scale the operations team and strengthen customer and data driven operations and development. In early 2022, Kugelberg moved into the Chief Product Officer role where she oversees the entire product, technology and manufacturing function at Einride, leading teams across all electric, autonomous and digital product offerings and driving continued technical innovation.

With a 20-year career in the energy sector, Hanno Balzer joined the green energy sector in 2019. He initially helped develop Lumenion, a company that pushed the boundaries in the energy storage sector, and then joined HH2E AG as Head of Energy Management in 2021.

HH2E is a new green energy company that has developed a technology-mix capable of producing a steady flow of green heat and green hydrogen with just a few hours a day of renewable power input. It enables us to achieve the goal of 100% renewable energy. HH2E recently announced its first large-scale production facility in Lubmin, Germany, one of the largest bets to date on a technology that is key to energy transition efforts. HH2E’s plans represent a €2.7 billion investment and include the installation of over 4 GW of green hydrogen production capacity in Germany by 2030, helping to reduce dependence on imports.

In addition to her studies in Industrial Design and Data Science at Eindhoven University of Technology, Louise de Laat is the team manager of TU/ecomotive this year. She is passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship and is involved with the innovation and the statistical point of view of the newest car within the TU/ecomotive team.

Dr. Fabian Soesemann is the head of GP JOULE Plus GmbH, the business unit for smart energy products. GP JOULE Plus buys power from wind and PV power plants and sells electricity to customers. With a background in law, Soesemann has worked for the German federal government, the firm BBH, and established the legal department for Grundgruen – one of the first full-scale green energy utilities. At GP JOULE, he has led the development of charging infrastructure for BEVs and hydrogen generation from renewable electricity and heat supply.

Dr. Sebastian Berning is the founder and CEO of instagrid, a young company committed to providing access to clean electricity for everyone through innovative mobile batteries. For more than a decade, Berning has led the development and commercialization of high performance batteries for various applications, including megawatt-scale storage systems in Europe and the US. He holds a PhD in Physics from the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen and has authored several highly-cited articles in the field of Neuroscience.

As an active Business Angel and Partner at Vireo Ventures, Felix helps pre-seed and seed companies to prosper. Furthermore, he supports Start-ups and innovation departments as a coach and mentor in the fields of Business Modell Development, B2B Sales and Financing.
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Before founding Vireo Ventures, Felix worked as an Investment Partner at innogy Ventures, the venture capital arm of one of Europe’s largest utility companies. As their first external employee, he established the Berlin office and built the overall investment theses as well as company communication. At innogy Ventures, he had the end-to-end investment responsibility for early to growth stage investments in North America, Europe and Israel for the investment fields Future Energy, Smart City and Mobility. Additionally, he led the “Future of Cities” investment segment (Mobility, Smart City and PropTech) for the expanded innogy Innovation HUB (60+ investments and €162m under management) and helped the Innovation HUB to evolve from a company builder to a renowned seed investor.
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Overall, he has been part of the startup scene for more than a decade, founding two companies himself, leading the European expansion of a US startup as MD, and supporting founders as consultant, interim manager, trainer and mentor. He holds a MSc in International Business Studies from University of Maastricht.

Cristina leads the European market expansion of Power Ledger’s blockchain platform for decentralized energy, grid flexibility, and renewable energy certificates. With extensive experience in distributed energy systems, grid integration of renewables and electricity markets, Cristina drives Power Ledger’s impact on decentralized, decarbonized, resilient power systems. Over the past decade, Cristina has worked on optimizing and managing renewables and their grid integration at Iberdrola, Fraunhofer Institute, and Selco Foundation. Featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list, Yandiola holds an energy engineering Bachelor’s from Madrid Technical University and an MA in sustainable energy engineering from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Berlin’s Technical University.

Taras has been a deep-tech entrepreneur for the past 20 years with a prime focus on hydrogen fuel cells. His journey evolved from selling miniature-scale didactic systems for schools to enabling full-scale hydrogen-electric ground vehicles, as well as hydrogen-electric power to extend the range of electric flight. In 2015 Taras founded H3 Dynamics with a long-term mission to decarbonize air travel, starting the journey with hydrogen-powered unmanned air vehicles and transitioning towards enabling full-scale aircraft. In 2018, he filed patents on distributed hydrogen electric propulsion. Taras is an active mentor at the Sustainable Aero Lab with years of experience helping founders establish themselves and navigate the market.

Tobias is a tech entrepreneur with a focus on helping companies reach their climate goals. As Co-Founder and CEO of Global Changer, he built a leading decarbonisation platform for SMEs and larger corporations. In his past, he has been involved with sustainable companies, built successful tech ventures and holds a Master degrees in Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Lund University. Besides that, he serves in the advisory board at multiple green tech companies and has been speaking at events such as DENEFF, Futur/io, Berlin Partner and in Davos.

Dr Advenit Makaya is an Advanced Manufacturing Engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA). He supports the development of advanced materials and processes for space applications and provides support to ESA missions. He is coordinating technology development activities for on-orbit and on-planet manufacturing. He is also supporting the SOLARIS preparatory programme proposal preparation.

Andrew Mack is the CEO of Octopus Energy Germany. A British native, he founded an energy startup in 2016 that became part of global EnertTech player Octopus Energy in 2019. Prior to that, he spent several years as chief strategist at British utility OVO Energy and was a director at Boston Consulting Group. He studied engineering, economics and management at Oxford University and holds an MBA from INSEAD. As an energy expert, he advocates for decarbonisation and consumer protection in the field of energy politics.

Taavi Madiberk is the Co-Founder and CEO at Skeleton Technologies, a global technology leader in high power energy storage. Prior to Skeleton Technologies, Madiberk worked in the IT, locomotive and NGO sectors. He previously served as the youngest ever Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Estonian Railways Ltd (AS Eesti Raudtee) from 2012-2014, as well as a member of the Supervisory Board of RKAS, the state-owned Estonian real estate company with over 400M EUR in assets. He currently sits on the board of the European Innovation Council.

Freerk Bisschop is a seasoned investor and advisor in energy-transition innovation. He has a long background in the energy industry, as a scientist, strategist, consultant, manager, entrepreneur, executive, non-executive, investor and advisor. Currently he acts as Venture Partner to Inven Capital and as an independent advisor to startups, scale-ups and investors.

Greg Kushnir is the CEO of Emrod, a start-up commercialising power-beaming technology for terrestrial and space-based use. Emrod’s mission is to radically improve the world’s access to clean energy using long-range wireless energy transfer that is safe, reliable and cost-effective. Greg leads the team of scientists, engineers and commercialisation specialists bringing Emrod’s mission to life.

Prior to joining AENU as its Principal & VP of Impact, Melina was setting up a $5M Fund for the Alfred Landecker Foundation as its Managing Director and helped build the World Economic Forum’s COVID Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs. Before that, Melina worked as an investor in Israel and the U.S. As Director of the Tuck Social Venture Fund, she invested in New/Mode and CNote. At Impact First and Pitango Venture Capital, a $3B Israeli VC fund, she supported the growth fund and developed an IMM tool for startups. Before working in impact VC, Melina worked in diplomacy and built an international non-profit. Melina has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA from Yale University.

ecoligo is one of the leading crowdfunding platforms investing in and managing solar energy solutions in emerging markets. With some seven years experience in the engineering and energy sector, Ezgi leads the creation and management of projects from initiation to completion. Developing a closing relationshop with partners, providers and customers at every step of the way. Prior to ecoligo, Ezgi worked as project manager for Aggreko Microgrid and Storage Solutions. She holds an MA in process, energy, and environment systems engineering from Berlin’s TU, and a BS in chemical engineering from Yildiz Technical University.

Max is Managing Partner of Rockstart’s Energy Fund, offering early stage start-ups access to capital, market, expertise and community through a customized accelerator program and follow-on investments up to series B. Max is Dutch and based in Amsterdam. He has been active in renewable energy since 2003 when he helped Essent (currently RWE) to establish their wind business in Germany. As Director at EWT, the largest Dutch wind turbine manufacturer, he was responsible for corporate finance, business development and strategy. Furthermore, he was co-founder and CEO of e-kite, a Dutch start-up which developed kite power systems. Before entering the renewable energy sector, Max worked several years at McKinsey as Engagement Manager. He holds MSc degrees in Chemical Engineering at Delft University of Technology, Business Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam and an MBA from INSEAD.

Matt O’Donnell is a systems architect within Airbus Defence and Space, working to identify future space concepts and bring them to market and industry maturity. He has been supporting ESA and UK initiatives towards Space-Based Solar Power, to determine its feasibility as a contributor to decarbonisation of the energy sector.

As part of the ‘Future of Energy Supply’ unit, Dr Schmid and her team support the implementation of the German hydrogen strategy: scaling up sustainable hydrogen technologies, value chains and markets, accompanied by suitable regulation and participation processes. Working for more than 10 years in the energy transition context, Dr. Schmid has previously held both civil society and academics positions: firstly as Team Lead for German and European Climate Policy at Germanwatch; and previously as researcher and energy-system modeller at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. She holds a Ph.d. in the Economics of Climate Change from Berlin’s Technical University, an M.Sc. in Econometrics and Operations Research and a B.Sc. in International Business from University Maastricht.

Jessica is an investor at Planet A, an early-stage GreenTech VC, supporting highly scalable companies that have a measurable and significant planetary impact. Jessica studied Politics and International Relations at Cambridge and worked as a Climate Venture Researcher for the United Nations. She got deeper into the world of climate tech when leading the authorship team for the European chapter of the world’s first textbook on lab-grown meat and developed this interest by working at a pre-seed sustainability startup, before joining climate VC.

Fabian, a graduate physicist and lawyer, initially founded and built up a tech Start-Up (3S Antriebe GmbH) together with his brothers. The company manufactures worldwide unique, completely decentralized actuators for valves in (waste) water, gas and district heating pipelines. Subsequently, Fabian worked for five years at KPMG in the field of energy consulting and auditing. After a one-year secondment at the World Economic Forum as part of the “Accelerating Sustainable Energy Innovation” project, Fabian joined InnoEnergy as Investment Director where he is responsible for the management of the investments in the DACH region. InnoEnergy is a European innovation engine and, with over 200 investments, one of the world’s largest investors in the field of sustainable energy innovations.

Pentenrieder is a cofounder of kraftwerk, an innovative company that has developed lightweight fuel cell technology comprised of materials that use a lightweight nanostructure and which is suitable for diverse applications including automotive and aerospace. It can also use a variety of different kinds of fuels, enabling it to be a “bridge technology” to pure hydrogen. Cofounded in 2016, the company expects its automotive powertrains to be on the market within 3-4 years.

Stephan works is an energy innovation specialist with extensive experience in energy market innovation. Currently an advisor for the German Society for International Cooperation, he has worked across the energy market, from consulting on self-supply solar energy projects to conducting market studies on renewable energies, hydrogen and battery storage. He holds and MBa in energy management from Berlin’s Technical University.

With extensive experience in international marketing and project management, Stephanie leads Enerbrain’s marketing efforts from Turin. Enerbrain helps companies achieve energy savings and an increase in air quality by dynamically optimizing existing building management systems via an advanced technology solution in non-residential buildings. Prior to Enerbrain, Stephanie held marketing and project management positions in various energy related companies. She holds an MSc in geographical information management.

As General Manager Europe of sonnen, Sascha Koppe launched both hardware and energy services in Europe and Australia and developed sonnen into the leading provider. At 1KOMMA5° he is responsible for sales and marketing as well as for the rollout of the IOT setup Heartbeat. Last year, he was named by Forbes in its “30 under 30” list in Europe as one of the leading voices in the energy industry.

McIvor specialises in early-stage energy and mobility startup investment at the Ecosia-backed, European climate tech VC, World Fund. With a background in socially responsible entrepreneurship and nuclear decommissioning, prior to joining World Fund, McIvor worked at start-up Trende, an off-shoot of the Japanese utility company, Tepco, before joining the Amsterdam-based, energy-focussed SET Ventures for three years as an analyst and associate. A recipient of the prestigious Daiwa Scholarship, McIvor holds a bachelor’s in physics and maths from the University of Glasgow.

Jorge works as a business analyst for Power Ledger Europe, bridging the gap between clients’ business needs and Power Ledger’s technology. Over the past years, Jorge has worked on utilizing distributed ledger technology like Blockchain, to validate grid flexibility commitments and enable more decentralized energy markets at Vattenfall and Grid Singularity. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in energy engineering from Madrid University and a Double Master’s degree in Smart Electrical Networks and Systems from EIT Innoenergy, specializing in the digitalization and decentralization of the energy sector. Jorge received the academic excellence scholarship from the European Institute of Innovation & Technology and was a 2019 finalist of the world’s biggest Blockchain & AI Hackathon: Odyssey.

As senior manager in the Berlin government’s business partnership agency, Janis has been at the core of assisting energy, clean tech and sustainable companies as they settle in the German capital for over six years. Prior to this, he assisted German and Belgian companies develop investment and trade links in the Flanders region. He holds a MSc in International Business Economics and Management from KU Leuven, and a BSc in European Studies from the University of Twente.

Robert Westermann is in charge of communications and networks in dena’s international cooperation department, with responsibility for presenting dena’s international project portfolio. His tasks include planning, managing and coordinating communication measures as part of the energy partnerships and dialogues conducted by dena on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK). He advises the country teams of the International Cooperation Unit on issues of conceptual and strategic communication. Before dena, Robert led the Berlin Senate’s ‘Berlin needs you!‘ campaign’s communication team for five years. He has working experience in environmental and nature conservation associations, the Baden-Württemberg State Agency for Civic Education, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the German Bundestag. Robert Westermann has a MA in political science and history from Freiburg’s Albert Ludwig University.

Geraldine co-founded Konnektiv in 2013 and co-leads the company as CEO. Geraldine is head of the consultancy department which offers different knowledge services such as expert research and analyses, project design and implementation, and strategic consultation. She is also the founder of the Global Innovation Gathering, a vibrant community of 100 innovators, makers and hackers from almost 30 countries pursuing a new method of international development and collaboration based on equality, openness and sharing. Geraldine’s work over the last 18 years has focused on digital transformation and international cooperation, innovation, and human rights. Geraldine has a background in political sciences and is bilingual (en/de) with an intercultural background. She has experience working with activists, governments, startups, and NGOs across the world.