Contributers

Dr. Friedbert Pflüger is a shareholder and managing director of the Clean Energy Forum (CEF) and has worked for four decades in leadership positions in politics, business, management, and science. Pflüger is a founding partner of Strategic Minds Company (SMC), initially Pflüger International, which he created with his wife in 2009. Pflüger is the author of several books, including A Planet is Saved: A Chance for Man, Nature, Technology (Econ 1992). From 1981-89 he was a close associate of German President Richard von Weizsäcker, and from 1990-2006 a member of the Bundestag (Chairman of the Europe Committee, CDU/CSU Foreign Policy Spokesman, and Parliamentary State Secretary). From 2009-2020, he was a visiting professor at King's College London and currently teaches climate and energy policy at CASSIS, University of Bonn. Pflüger is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Zukunft Gas, The Voice of the Gas and Hydrogen Economy. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Mobility (IKEM) and a Senior Fellow at the Global Energy Centre of the Atlantic Council, Washington D.C.

Sibylle Pflüger, born in 1977, is a shareholder and deputy managing director of the Clean Energy Forum. She has been a shareholder and partner at the management consultancy Strategic Minds Company since 2011. After studying communications in Dresden, Hanover and Magdeburg, Sibylle began her professional career first as an advisor and office manager in the German Bundestag and then worked as an advisor to the management of the German Foundation for World Population (DSW). For the past 18 years, Sibylle has worked primarily in the energy industry. During this time period, she initially worked for the energy company EnBW, in the areas of protocol and board events - as well as CR, sustainability, and corporate positioning, including at the WEF in Davos. From 2011 to 2017, she headed the Berlin representative office of Central Europe Energy Partners (CEEP).

Barbara Lempp, born in 1975, studied law in Marburg, Constance, and Heidelberg. After starting her career as an insolvency lawyer at the commercial law firm Roth, Klein und Partner in Mannheim, she moved to Brussels as office manager of MEP Herbert Reul (ITRE Committee Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU Group in the European Parliament).

From 2006 to 2009, she was deputy head of RWE's representative office in Brussels. She then took over Political Communications at RWE Supply and Trading in Berlin, focusing on EU financial market regulation. From April 2013 to June 2023, she was the Managing Director of EFET Germany and, since July 2021, Chief Operating Officer of EFET in personal union. Since June 2023, she has served as COO at the North Rhine-Westphalian consultancy Ecotec, which specializes in accompanying energy-intensive SMEs into a climate-neutral future. Since 2014, she has also been the organizer of Germany's largest women's energy network, FNE, with currently 430 members.

Mrs. Lempp is married and has three children.

Wolfram Axthelm, born in 1967, grew up in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The agricultural engineer and graduate in business administration was responsible for the public relations of the CDU parliamentary group in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania until 2013. He is a managing director in the German Wind Energy Association and BWE Service GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of the association, which organizes conferences, seminars, and advanced training courses for the wind industry. He represents the industry on the board of the Fachagentur Windenergie an Land (FA Wind) and as a full member of the advisory board of the Kompetenzzentrum Naturschutz und Energiewende (KNE). Since February 2019, he has also been one of two managing directors in the German Renewable Energy Federation.

Jorgo Chatzimarkakis has been working at Hydrogen Europe since 2016. He is currently CEO of the association. Previously, he worked in the planning staff of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, at Infineon Technologies, and as a Member of the European Parliament (2004-2014), where he was on the ITRE Committee (Industry, Technology, Research and Energy) and laid the foundation for the first joint undertaking on hydrogen and fuel cells. He was awarded Hydrogen Person of the Year at the 2022 World Hydrogen Awards, "as a key player promoting hydrogen in Europe and worldwide and accelerating collaboration and industry development."

Jorgo was born in Duisburg, Germany. He holds German and Greek citizenship and a degree in Political Science from the University of Bonn.

Martine Dornier-Tiefenthaler, born August 21, 1954 in Munich, has Austrian citizenship and is the mother of four children. She graduated in law from the Ludwigs-Maximilians-University in Munich.

Dornier-Tiefenthaler has held various supervisory board mandates. These include Mercedes Benz, Austria Airlines, Dornier GmbH and Dornier Seawings Company Ltd.

Dornier-Tiefenthaler's family office is DPV GmbH Asset Management. She is also involved in GSN, the Global Sustainability Network. There she is a member of the supervisory board. GSN fights against modern slavery, human trafficking and child labor.

Vince Ebert, born in 1968, has a degree in physics, worked as a management consultant and started his career as a cabaret artist in 1998. The 'FAZ' calls him as "sharp as he is subtle". Known from the ARD program ‘Knowledge before eight - Workshop,’ he has been delighting audiences with his scientific stage programs for over 20 years. His motto, "Make Science Great Again," is more relevant than ever in an era of scientifically based debates. Ebert is one of the most sought-after lecture speakers in the country. His books are all 'SPIEGEL' bestsellers with a total circulation of over one million. His most recent book, " Lichtblick statt Blackout - how we need to rethink when it comes to improving the world," was published by dtv in the fall of 2022, and it has since sold 100,000 copies and stayed in the top 10 bestsellers. Ebert gets to the heart of our age provocatively and unconventionally, with intelligent and dry wit. "Think for yourself, or others will do it for you" has become his motto.

Vince Ebert lives in Vienna. https://www.vince-ebert.de/

Dr. Monika Griefahn was a founding member of Greenpeace Germany and co-director (1980-1983). She organized campaigns against chemical pollution of rivers and oceans. Even then, her mission was to find solutions for renewable energies and to develop innovative products against climate change.

From 1984-1990, she was the first female board member of Greenpeace International, where she was responsible for training and establishing new offices around the world.

From 1990-1998, she was Minister of the Environment for the state of Lower Saxony. She was especially committed to renewable energy and the phase-out of nuclear power. She also pushed for the designation of the Harz and Wadden Sea National Parks.

From 1998-2009, she was a member of the German Bundestag. Her main responsibilities were in the areas of culture and media, digitization, and foreign policy.

In 2012, she founded the Institute Media, Environment, Culture (IMUK) - a company with consulting services and educational activities in the field of sustainability. Griefahn has been managing director of the institute since then.

From 2012-2018, she was Chief Sustainability Officer at the cruise company AIDA (then at Costa until 2021). In this position, she accompanied the company's reorientation towards the use of LNG as an alternative fuel in preparation for the future use of renewable fuels (power-to-X).

Monika Griefahn is involved in a wide range of volunteer activities. Of particular note is a long-standing commitment to the Right Livelihood Award Foundation ("Alternative Nobel Prize"). She also initiated the Cradle to Cradle NGO as a founding member. In the energy sector, Monika Griefahn serves as chairperson/spokesperson of the eFuel Alliance.

Christian Held was born in 1961 in Meisenheim am Glan. He has been working as a lawyer at the law firm Becker Büttner Held since 1992 (partner since 1993). Christian Held is Chairman of AEEC, Vice President of GEODE, Vice Chairman of IKEM, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of BBH AG Auditing Company, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of BBH Consulting AG, Arbitrator at EACS, Chairman of the Board of the European Cartel Damage Alliance e. V. (ECDA) and lecturer at the Technical University of Bingen for energy law, energy environmental law and energy policy.

Christian Held is also a long-standing managing partner of the Disibodenberg winery.

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Hüttl has been Managing Partner and Scientific Director of Eco Environment Innovation GmbH (EEI) in Berlin, which deals with issues of ecological sustainability, climate protection and the energy transition, since the beginning of 2021. For many years, he was a member of the board of the Forum für Zukunftsenergien e. V. as well as co-initiator of the German Academy of Science and Engineering acatech. He was its president from 2008 to 2017. As vice president, he was involved in the establishment of the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus and headed the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam from 2007 to 2020. He has an international network and is a member of numerous science academies.

Dr. Joachim Lang is Managing Partner of Strategic Minds Company and Partner of Berlin Advisors Group. He advises companies on energy and industrial policy. From 2017 to 2022, Lang was Chief Executive Officer of BDI, Europe's largest industry association. Prior to that, he headed the Group Representative Office of the DAX-listed company E.ON in Berlin since 2007. Prior to that, he held various management positions in politics and administration, including coordination of European policy in the Federal Chancellery, federal-state and European coordination in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, and staff duties in the secretariat of the Bundesrat and in the area of responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Defense. Lang is the editor and author of numerous publications on economic policy and legal issues.

Günther H. Oettinger was born in Stuttgart on October 15, 1953. He grew up in Ditzingen, where he attended elementary school. After high school and Abitur in Korntal, he studied law and economics in Tübingen. There he took his First State Examination in Law, was a research assistant at a law chair and passed the Second State Examination in Law at the beginning of 1982.

Oettinger was a member of the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg from April 1984 to February 2010, from January 1991 to April 2005 he was chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament, and from April 2005 to February 2010 he was Minister President of Baden-Württemberg.

He was a member of the European Commission from February 2010 to the end of November 2019, and also Vice President in 2014. His responsibilities were first energy, then digital economy and society, and most recently budget and personnel.

Today, Oettinger is managing director of a management consulting company based in Hamburg and a member of various supervisory boards and advisory councils. In an honorary capacity, he is President of United Europe e. V. and of EBS University in Wiesbaden and Oestrich-Winkel.

Dipl.-Phys. Alexander Voigt was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1965 and went to school in Darmstadt. He studied physics, math and meteorology, and he earned a degree in physics from the Free University of Berlin. Alexander Voigt is one of the best known "serial entrepreneurs" in the field of renewable energies in Germany. The goal of his companies is to increase the share of renewable energy and to develop a competitive CO2-free energy supply. In the course of his entrepreneurial career, he has held a number of supervisory board and executive board positions in listed and unlisted companies such as SOLON AG, Global Solar, GILDEMEISTER energy solutions, Blue Chip Energy AG and Younicos AG.

Since 2021, Alexander Voigt has been the founder and CEO of HH2E AG.

Nargis Wieck has worked at the Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) in Berlin since 2009 and has been Head of the International Cooperations Staff Unit (since 2021). As such, she is responsible for target markets in the EU, Eastern/Central & Southeastern Europe, Asia, Central Asia, MENA, and LATAM among others. From 2005 to 2009, she was division manager of Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Caucasus at Commit Project Partners GmbH. Previously, she worked at the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, BDI e. V. (2000 to 2005), ZAO Business Center WD in Moscow (1999-2000), and Linde AG in Cologne (1998-1999).

After graduating from high school in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) in 1993, she studied international business administration from 1994 to 1995 at the State University of Vienna and from 1995 to 1998 at the European Management Academy in Bonn.

Nargis Wieck speaks Russian, German, English, Farsi (Persian), and Spanish.