Programme

Eric is experienced in AI/ML in financial applications. Prior to this, he has diverse experiences in the financial services in risk, quantitative analysis and energy economics with banks and an oil major. He is an alumni from Columbia University MS Financial Engineering and also has a Phd in Finance from EDHEC.
He has published in the Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Behavioral Finance, among others
He is presently researching into climate finance and behavioural finance.

As an update, I am formally pursuing my passion in education through my own firm Craft My Career. Craft My Career is an education and career consulting firm with a focus on bridging industry, education and skill gaps. As a philosophy we believe in crafting careers, building lives. This is my way to extend my industry knowledge and experience to the generations to come, so we can contribute to build a healthier society. To further this cause, I am also currently pursuing a Phd in Education. 

I am independently consulting for companies to establish and/or strengthen their strategy in treasury, risk, commodity, trading business.

Nick is the Executive Director, Growth and Low Carbon Division within the Department for Energy and Mining in South Australia.

Nick leads the teams responsible for capturing the growth and economic value associated with South Australia’s world leading renewable, mineral and energy resources. The Growth and Low Carbon Division delivers projects of major importance to the Government, provides strategic policy and communications advice to the Minister and has a focus on developing future industries and decarbonising existing markets that align with the energy and mining sectors.

Nick is the Vice President of the International Association for Hydrogen Safety (HySafe) and a member of the Future Fuels Cooperative Research Centre’s Research Advisory Committee.

Prior to joining Government in 2014, Nick held a range of senior commercial and operational roles predominantly across the LPG and construction materials industries.

In addition to Nick’s energy and industry future planning roles, he is a non-executive director and Deputy Chair of Cara Inc, a large disability service provider; holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Energy. 

Randi Kristiansen is an Economic Affairs Officer with United Nations ESCAP Energy Division. With UN ESCAP she works on a broad range of connectivity issues across the Asia-Pacific Region, but has a special focus on cross-border connectivity for the power sector. Before joining UN ESCAP Randi worked for the IEA in the Renewable Integration and Secure Electricity Unit, where she advised governments in Southeast Asia, China and India on matters related to renewables integration, cross-border power trade and power system flexibility. Earlier in her career she worked for the Danish Transmission System Operator on implementation of European Network codes as well as a power trader, trading in various European markets. She holds a masters in Economics from Aalborg University.

Nima Safaian has extensive experience in the energy industry. He started as a nuclear engineer and later transitioned into commercial roles, where he built and scaled teams and capabilities in commercial optimization, asset strategy, market analytics, and risk management. Currently, he is a Partner at Quantim Intelligence, a commercial strategy consultancy. Nima has held senior positions at BP supply & trading, Scotiabank, and most recently served as the Vice President of Value Chain Optimization at Cenovus Energy. He holds degrees in nuclear engineering and an MBA, and he is passionate about learning new advanced analytics methods to enhance complex commercial decision-making.

Maryam is Qamar Energy’s Senior Consultant for Middle East energy markets. She leads Qamar’s commercial and economic consulting portfolio in the oil and gas, renewables, and new energies sectors, and is a professional in strategy development and regulatory design for the sustainability and energy transformation segments. She is the co-author of Powering Iraq: Challenges Facing the Electricity Sector in Iraq for the Al Bayan Center for Planning & Studies, Renewable Energy Market Analysis: GCC 2019 for IRENA, Renewable Energy Markets: GCC 2023 for IRENA, and was a supporting author for the flagship report, The UAE’s Role in the Global Hydrogen Economy, prepared on behalf of ADNOC, Mubadala, ADQ, and the UAE Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure.

Maryam has led the development of proprietary gas, renewables, and hydrogen cost evolution models to 2050 with a focus on cross-sectoral decarbonisation solutions, and has been at the forefront of developing large-scale strategic projects to meet the region’s energy needs, including assessing LNG and gas imports, future hydrogen trade, and acquisitions of oil and gas assets in the region and surrounding countries. She has worked with the region’s energy leadership to advise on future energy policy and direction, and achieve action on the development of cross-border gas pipeline projects (Iraq, Turkey, Kurdistan), exploration, and major renewables and carbon capture, storage, and use developments.

Prior to joining Qamar, she was a journalist with the Times of Oman and the Al Rawahy Group of Companies in Oman, covering clientele including the Oman Chamber of Industry & Commerce, the Ministry of Tourism, the Oman India Fertiliser Company, the Oman Airports Management Company, and Jindal Shadeed. She initiated and spearhead efforts to widen industry coverage of energy capital markets, national and regional environmental legislation, and company-specific issues, and routinely competed with other local and national outlets to produce high-impact, authoritative information.

Maryam writes for international media outlets and has been a speaker for the Energy Industries Council, the Derasat Foundation, EnergyRisk, Rudaw, Enuit, and others. She is a Gold Medallist in Mass Media & Mass Communication from the University of Delhi, and a summa cum laude graduate from the University of Wollongong as a Master of International Studies, with specialisation in Middle East energy security and foreign policy.

She knows 5 languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, and French.

Christophe Malet is the founder and CEO of Astrava, a company focusing on the development of small-scale LNG supply and distribution into downstream markets in Asia and Africa, including LNG-to-Diesel switch strategies and the promotion of LNG as a fuel for heavy duty trucking, building on the successful Chinese business model.

In 2015, Christophe joined Hanas, a Chinese independent energy company operating renewables, gas, LNG and power, as Senior Vice President Upstream LNG, to support the development of Hanas’ LNG receiving terminal project in China and lead its LNG procurement and business development activities.

Christophe’s experience in the LNG Industry over the last 19 years with Hanas, Yamal LNG, Excelerate Energy and Shell covers short-term trading, long-term LNG marketing and LNG business and project development. Prior to his LNG experience, Christophe held various commercial and logistics roles in Shell’s Aviation and Bitumen businesses in Europe.

With an engineering degree and a MBA as academic background, he has over 25 years of commercial experience.

Chikako Ishiguro is Senior Researcher and Analyst at Osaka Gas.  As a member of the Energy Resources and International Business Unit of the company, Chikako heads up energy market research and analysis activities of the company where she has worked for over 10 years. Throughout her career, Ishiguro has pursued in-depth global market analysis in key energy sectors, particularly in LNG.  Previously, she was Head of Market Research Division of Osaka Gas International Transport, a subsidiary of Osaka Gas.  She is a co-author of OIES papers; Pricing and Demand for LNG in China (2006), A New Paradigm for Natural Gas Pricing in Asia: A Perspective on Market (2009), A Realistic Perspective on Japan’s LNG Demand after Fukushima (2012) and The Outlook for Natural Gas and LNG in China in the War against Air Pollution (2018).