Trailblazer 02: Alejandro Agag Formula E Pioneer

Knud Erik Andersen is a true industry pioneer and one of the earliest champions of a 100% renewable energy future. Today, he is the CEO of European Energy, a leading Danish renewables firm responsible for building some of the world's largest wind and solar farms.

Erik started drawing plans for wind turbines in school, and with a group of other students began to develop, understand and optimise turbines, creating one of the first home-made turbines on a summer holiday.

In 2004, Erik sold his second company and saw the potential to “define energy production in the future” by leading the transition to 100% renewable energy. He launched European Energy with co-founder Mikael D. Pedersen with a vision to leverage wind capacity as a significant force in the global transition to a fossil free society.

Since then, the company has expanded significantly, with 400% growth between 2021-22. The team is moving into construction, grid infrastructure and access as well as innovative technology. European Energy have completed more than 100 wind and solar power projects in 11 countries across Europe as well as Brazil, Australia and the United States.

At European Energy Erik and the team utilise latest technology to create value for partners and society as a whole. They are focused on scale in order to grow the 2-3% of electricity that comes from wind and solar in the global economy.

Throughout the years, European Energy has developed, constructed and acquired renewable energy projects with a total capacity of approximately 1 GW and with a value of more than one billion euro.

Today, European Energy is building a multimillion-dollar solar power farm in southern Denmark. As the biggest installation of its kind in northern Europe, it will provide enough power to supply more than 75,000 households. Eager to inspire future generations of green energy champions, European Energy has donated a solar panel test site and helped to establish a PhD position with the Technical University of Denmark. 

Useful links:

EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021

Erik Andersen issues Green Bonds

European Energy 

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Elisabeth Brinton is Executive Vice President of Shell’s Renewables & Energy Solutions (formerly New Energies) business, steering the company’s work in power, renewables and lower-carbon technology. This role covers Shell’s work in wind and solar, new mobility options such as electric vehicle charging, Nature Based Solutions and laying the foundation for an integrated lower-carbon power business.

In 2021, Elisabeth joined the Anglo American Board as an ESG focused non-executive director where she is a member of the board's sustainability committee. 

Elisabeth is a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and utility industry veteran that is passionate about the role electricity and technology can play in moving the world towards a lower carbon energy system. Throughout her career Elisabeth has grown energy and technology businesses in some of the world’s largest markets including the USA and Australia.

Elisabeth joined Shell in 2018 from AGL Energy, Australia’s largest integrated energy company, where she was Executive Vice President, New Energy. There she helped to increase adoption of renewable energy, build the world’s first residential virtual power plant and grow and sell a profitable smart metering business.

Previously, Elisabeth was the Corporate Strategy Officer for PG&E Corporation, the US utility company that specialises in renewables, customer solar, energy efficiency and electric mobility. 

From 2008 to 2013, Elisabeth was Chief Customer Officer of Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and held founding and management roles in four successful Silicon Valley start-ups including, Loudcloud, a web infrastructure company that went public in May 2001. 

Useful links:

MORE INFO

​Elisabeth Brinton World Economic Forum​

​Elisabeth Brinton LinkedIn

Elisabeth Brinton Shell

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Francesco Venturini is the highly successful Chief Executive Officer of Enel X, the innovative business unit charged with creating an energy ecosystem through electric mobility, electrification, digitalization and the provision of new energy services at the residential and commercial level to pave a new energy future and at the same time creates value for our shareholders.

Born in New York (USA) in 1968, Francesco graduated cum laude in Economics from the University of Rome La Sapienza, where he also served as assistant professor of Banking Strategies and Techniques during the academic year 1991-1992.

He is a London Business School alumnus and he received an MBA from MIT’s Sloan Business School in 2015. Francesco served as Financial Controller for Elsag Bailey Process Automation, and later became Chief Financial Officer for several companies of the Elsag Bailey Process Automation and Hartmann & Braun groups in both the United States and Brazil.

He joined the Enel Group in 1997 as Head of Administration and Management Control at Enel S.p.A., contributing to the company listing on the New York and Milan Stock Exchanges. Mr. Venturini later became Head of Internal Audit within Enel's Distribution and Market Division, and subsequently Head of Sales Administration within the same division.

Traditional utilities as we knew them are trying to survive in an evolving scenario where margins are squeezing because of increasing competition and disruptive innovation. In 2009, Francesco was appointed Head of Finance in Enel Green Power. Afterwards, he took on the role of Head of Business Development and later, in 2011, as Head of the North America Area. He was named Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Enel Green Power in May 2014.

Enel began shifting it's attention from the “asset” to the “service” dimension of the business, moving from being pure commodity vendors to service providers. To this end, Enel is was keen to harness inspiration from new trends and technologies to develop its own activities through a new Global Division called Enel X (e-Solutions). Francesco was appointed Enel's Head of Global e-Solutions in May 2017 and CEO of Enel X in November 2017. 

Francesco intends to continue leading the business to be a key sector player by coupling profitability with sustainability and by creating value for our customers in each segment in which they operate.

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Chris Voss is the former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. Prior to becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. Christopher was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years.  He was the case agent on such cases as TERRSTOP (the Blind Sheikh Case – Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman), the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe and negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up in the Chase Manhattan bank robbery hostage taking.

Today, Chris Voss is the CEO & Founder of The Black Swan Group Ltd and best-selling author of Never Split the Difference. Voss has revolutionized negotiation tactics and greatly impacted how organizations and individuals globally understand and negotiate with one another. His book aims to provide a comprehensive guide to negotiating theory and strategy, giving you the tools you need to negotiate successfully. Voss’s thesis is that good negotiation happens on the emotional level of the brain, not the rational level. Your job as a negotiator, Voss argues, is to practice and display empathy toward your counterpart by understanding their emotions, learning to see the situation from their point of view—and, ultimately, getting them to feel comfortable enough with you to let their emotional guard down.

During Chris’s 24 year tenure in the Bureau, he worked through approximately 150 kidnappings worldwide. ​He was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Chis takes us through the negotiation skills that can give us the competitive edge in any discussion, especially as we attempt to drive collective buy-in to a clean energy future.

Favourite quotes:

"Negotiation is the art of creating possibilities"

"Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you."

Handy links:

Chris's website

Chris's book

Chris Voss video interview

Chris on Medium

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Dr. Anika Molesworth is a passionate farmer, scientist, and storyteller. She is raising awareness of the environmental effects of climate change and injecting a strong new voice of hope for the farming and agricultural communities. She has been invited to speak at the UN Paris COP21 climate meeting. Anika encourages her audiences to look past the status quo, to have critical and creative perspectives, and hopes to inspire others to seek excellence in environmental and agricultural work.

From her home property in New South Wales, Anika brings real stories, heartfelt warmth, authenticity, and optimism to bear on complex global challenges. In an age of overwhelm, particularly for younger generations, Anika's power lies in shifting the narrative to highlight the immense opportunity we have to work together towards a sustainable energy future. Speaking openly about biodiversity loss, waste and overconsumption, and mental health in rural communities, Anika argues we each play a crucial role in fostering a thriving future food system, agricultural sector, and healthy environment, whether we know it or not. Anika has undertaken a PhD in agricultural and environmental science enabling her a well-founded understanding of science-backed eco-agricultural systems design.

Anika is a founding member of Farmers for Climate Action, connecting land managers to researchers through her platform Climate Wise Agriculture to help build resilience into farming communities. She’s won numerous awards, such as the 2015 NSW Farmer of the Year, and in 2017 was the state’s finalist for Young Australian of the Year. In 2018, Anika was awarded the Green Globe Awards Young Sustainability Champion, the NSW/ACT Regional Achievement and Community Award for Agricultural Innovation, and the 350.org Heroes of a Low-Carbon Economy Youth Champion. In 2019, she was recognised as a Future Shaper by InStyle and Audi, and a Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review. In 2020, she was awarded the Emily Hensley Award for self-discipline, integrity, compassion, and contribution to the wider community.

Anika's book

Anika's website

Anika's Tedtalk

Farmer's for Climate Change

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Dr. Margaret Heffernan is as outspoken as she is considered. She is at once warm and approachable, but sharp-witted and intolerable of fools. A seasoned CEO and celebrated writer, Margaret lives in a small town in the UK with a population of 700 people. Her words, however, resound globally.

​Margaret produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years, leading, writing, collaborating and capturing the zeitgeist somewhere between entertainment and news media. Margaret then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She has been the CEO of multiple companies including InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCast Corporation. She was named one of the 'Top 25' by Streaming Media magazine and one of the 'Top 100 Media Executives' by The Hollywood Reporter.

The author of six books, Margaret's third book, 'Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril' was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. In 2015, she was awarded the Transmission Prize for 'A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn't Everything and How We Do Better'. Her TED talks have been seen by over 13 million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. Her most recent book, 'Uncharted: How to map the future' was published in 2020. It quickly became a bestseller and was nominated for the Financial Times Best Business Book award, the CMI Best Business Book and was chosen as the 'Medium Best of the Best' business book.

Margaret is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute's Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She chairs the boards of DACS and FilmBath and is a Trustee of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution.

Margaret is a passionate advocate of the need for everyone to do what they can, from where they are, to catalyze a better future.

Favourite quotes:

"The truth won't set us free - until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it."

"The biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to."

Links:

Margaret's new book​

Margaret's Website 

Margaret's TEDTalks 

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Craig Knight is the Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Hyzon Motors, a global supplier of zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cell-powered commercial vehicles, including heavy-duty trucks, buses and coaches. Hyzon was established as a new business of Horizon Fuel Cell, a company with an 18-year history commercialising hydrogen technology development for the transport sector.

Born in Australia, Craig has a diverse industrial background, with over 25 years experience in International Sales and Marketing and Business Management. In a visionary move in 2003, Craig joined George Gu and Gary Robb on a mission to build the world’s first profitable fuel cell company. Driven by curiosity, ambition, and innovation, Horizon’s objective was to achieve sustainable decarbonisation targets without relying on government subsidies of billions of dollars of private capital, and to create a profitable fuel cell company, in an industry that had not seen a profit in 30 years. Since then, Horizon has successfully scaled up its fuel cell stack capability alongside stack materials and hydrogen storage, all the way through to heavy vehicle integration expertise.

Hyzon Motors was established in 2020 as a spin-off from Horizon. Craig and the team saw a global opportunity for substantial uptake of heavy-duty fuel cell vehicles. Today they are focused on producing the world’s most powerful and cleanest heavy transport options. The company is empowering the growing hydrogen ecosystem by reducing logistics and cost barriers to ensure decarbonising heavy road transport makes business sense as well as environmental sense. Craig believes the world is truly recognising the need to develop innovative solutions to mitigate climate change and accelerate efforts to move the world economy down the path to net-zero emissions.

Craig is a great believer collaboration. He led the launch of the Hyzon Zero Carbon Alliance in April, bringing together a collective of companies committed to a cleaner transport future.

Born from the need to create global change in heavy-duty mobility, Alliance members are progressive organisations from across the value chain contributing to the growing momentum behind hydrogen and catalysing the adoption of hydrogen heavy vehicles.

Hydrogen is emerging as a crucial component of the future energy landscape. The number of countries cementing and then enhancing their national hydrogen strategies expands almost weekly.  To support further company growth, in February, Hyzon and Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ:DCRB) announced a definitive agreement for a business combination that would result in Hyzon becoming a publicly listed company. 

​Craig believes we all have a personal obligation to make a positive impact, and he has made it his mission to be a facilitator of decarbonisation for the wellbeing of future generations.

Our pick of the quotes:

“It wouldn’t have mattered how beautiful the technology was, sitting in a lab, it only matters that the technology is capable when the external factors line up to support the adoption.”

“The global hydrogen revolution for commercial vehicles is here, and Hyzon Motors is at the vanguard.”

Useful links:

Hyzon Motors

Australian Financial Review​

Zero Carbon Alliance

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This week our trailblazers are two inspirational powerhouses creating a new set of possibilities around nuclear.  Holly joins Kirsty Gogan, cofounder of Energy for Humanity and Managing Partner at LucidCatalyst, and  Dr. Rita Baranwal, former Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, and now VP of nuclear at the Electric Power Research Institute to talk energy access, decarbonisation challenges and gender equality in the nuclear industry.

​In this compelling and utterly optimistic discussion, two formidable nuclear energy experts explain why nuclear is so often left out of the conversation and, more importantly, why we have no choice but to include it in the mix of transition fuels to get us to a net-zero future.

Kirsty Gogan is an internationally sought-after advisor to governments, industry, academic networks, and NGOs and is a globally recognised expert in the fields of science communication, climate change, competitiveness, and innovation. With more than 15 years of experience as a senior advisor to the Government on climate and energy policy, including 10 Downing St, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Kirsty is blazing a trail for the clean energy revolution.

Kirsty is managing partner of LucidCatalyst, a highly specialized international consultancy focused on large-scale, affordable, market-based decarbonization of the global economy, and chairs the UK Government’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board (NIRAB) Cost Reduction Working Group.

Her voluntary work includes having co-founded Energy for Humanity (EFH). She serves on the Board of Nuclear Innovation Alliance, as well as Voices for Nuclear.

Dr. Rita Baranwal leads a team of more than 200 researchers, scientists, engineers, and technical staff who provide objective, science-based nuclear R&D to more than 80% of the world's commercial nuclear fleet.

Rita served as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE); for which role she was nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Dr. Baranwal led the office’s efforts to promote research and development (R&D) on existing and advanced nuclear technologies that sustain the existing U.S. fleet of nuclear reactors, enable the deployment of advanced nuclear energy systems, and enhance the U.S.A.'s global commercial nuclear energy competitiveness.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Baranwal directed the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative at Idaho National Laboratory. She was responsible for providing the nuclear industry and other stakeholders access to DOE's state-of-the-art R&D expertise, capabilities, and infrastructure to achieve faster and cost-effective development, demonstration, and ultimate deployment of innovative nuclear energy technologies. Under her leadership, GAIN positively impacted over 120 companies.

Dr. Baranwal has served on Advisory Boards for MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory and UC Berkeley’s Nuclear Engineering Department, and also was adjunct faculty at University of South Carolina's nuclear engineering graduate program. She is a past Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Nuclear Society's (ANS) Materials Science and Technology Division and has also served on the Boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters-Pittsburgh and North Hills Community Outreach.

Useful links:

Energy for Humanity

Lucid Catalyst

Voices for Nuclear

GAIN

U.S. Department of Energy

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Seth Godin is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, speaker, and, above all else, a teacher who gives people the tools they need to make the impactful changes they want to see in the world.  By focusing on everything from effective marketing and leadership, to the spread of ideas, Seth has been able to motivate and inspire countless people around the world.  He is a global thought-leader on the post-industrial revolution, how ideas disseminate, marketing, quitting, leadership, and most of all, changing everything including the uneven distribution of food, unequal access to medicine, and our energy system.  Seth has famously made the bold statement that climate change is a marketing problem, not a technology problem.  His blog on marketing, tribes, and respect was named by Time among its 25 best blogs.

In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, Seth has written 20 best-selling books addressing various aspects of marketing, advertising, business venturing, and leadership, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn). His books, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world. Free Prize Inside was a Forbes Business Book of the Year in 2004, while Purple Cow sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 print runs in its first two years. The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller; Business Week also named Linchpin among its "20 of the best books by the most influential thinkers in business" on November 13, 2015. 

Seth is also known as "the ultimate entrepreneur for the information age".  Though renowned for his writing and speaking, he also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne.  Yoyodyne, launched in 1995, used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August 1996, Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake.  At Yoyodyne, Godin published Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers which describes and promotes a non-traditional marketing technique that advertises goods and services when advance consent is given. In 1998, Seth sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for about $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing.

In March 2006, Godin launched Squidoo, a revenue-sharing writing site and by July 2008, Squidoo was one of the 500 most visited sites in the world.  Godin raised more than $250,000 from readers with a Kickstarter campaign In June 2013, which in turn secured him a book contract with his publisher for his book "The Icarus Deception."  He was also one of just three professionals inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. In an astonishing turn of events, in May 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame as well. He might be the only person in both.

"This world is changing faster than it has changed in 10,000 years. The real urgency in front of us is to get clear about what the change we seek to make is and who we seek to change, that it might feel good to push people to use grocery bags that can be reused 100 times instead of 30 times. But it feels to me like it's way more urgent to stop mining coal. And we have just got to come up with our priority list. Be really clear about how we're going to tell stories around those things. So that urgently people decide that they were right all along, in wanting this problem to go away. They were right all along and choosing to act a certain way. And people like us, we do things like this. What are those things? And we're missing that component right now of passionate, generous, dignified storytelling."

Useful links:

Seth's Blog

Seth's Website

Seth's TEDTalks 

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Dr. Christina Lampe-Önnerud is a corporate strategist, entrepreneur, inventor, and a global authority in the battery industry. From her childhood days of playing with electrical kits and making fireworks in a bathtub, to pioneering the use of lithium-ion to create more powerful, longer lasting, safer, and cost-effective batteries, Christina has forged a career in ground-breaking technological innovation.

Having considered the vocation of opera singing and turned down a scholarship for an 8-year program for a medical doctorate degree, Christina accepted a scholarship to attend Elmira College in New York, where she studied English literature, business, and the sciences.  With encouragement from her father to pursue a career in a STEM field, Christina returned to Sweden and obtained a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Calculus and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Uppsala University in Sweden. In her Masters program at Uppsala, she studied copper deposition on semiconductor wafers and for her Ph.D. she focused on analyzing cathode materials for lithium-polymer batteries while working with a Denmark battery producer, Danionics, who later patented some of the materials Christina studied. She then held a postdoctoral appointment at MIT in Cambridge, MA working for Quantum Energy Technologies.

Christina was one of the youngest partners ever appointed at Arthur D. Little/TIAX, where she ran the company's globally-renowned battery labs, defined strategies for the world's top chemical and battery organizations, and directed high-profile market evaluations. In 2005, Christina founded the lithium-ion battery company Boston-Power Inc, working as the CEO, executive chairman, and international chairman. The company focused on lithium-ion batteries for small personal computing devices. In 2012, she and her husband Per Önnerud started the company Cadenza Innovation where their work aims to develop efficient, safe, lasting, and inexpensive batteries. The lithium ion battery Christina invented is the first to be considered environmentally friendly while capable of providing long lasting energy safely to various types of technology. The battery is intended to be a power source for electric vehicles such as Tesla's cars and electrical grids. 

Christina has served as a passionate voice for power and energy issues at government and industrial conferences for over 15 years. She holds 17 patents and has received a range of industry awards including 100 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation; Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year for Clean Tech, New England region; a Stevie Award for Women in Business as Best Entrepreneur; Mass High Tech Women to Watch; and Top Innovators of 2008 by EDN Magazine. Christina is renowned as a highly analytical leader and a globally sought-after speaker who enthusiastically and eloquently shares her insights about battery technology, climate change and environmental sustainability at industry and government events around the world.

Favorite quotes:

"To me, the sadness is we know where this is heading. And when we look at what we have taken from the pandemic learnings, it is still a lot of big talk in policy and in handing out money... But the joy is we have more awareness that small things can be done that can have a big impact."

"Rarely is there an acknowledgment that none of this is static. And we are in a supercharged transformational time. The transition through the pandemic of going from an old economic paradigm to what we will see in the future – that speed has increased tremendously."

Useful links:

https://cadenzainnovation.com/about/

https://www.ey.com/en_gl/weoy/speakers-and-contributors/christina-lampe-onnerud

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