Max Correa Achurra leads the Division for Fuels and New Energy Carriers at the Ministry of Energy, tasked with drafting and implementing a National Green Hydrogen Strategy. Its current focuses are the development of standards for hydrogen supply chains and applications, the mobilization of offtakers both at national and international levels, and the structuring of finance and incentive mechanisms for green hydrogen projects in Chile. His Division represents Chile at international hydrogen platforms, such as the IPHE, the WEF, Mission Innovation, and others.

Before joining the Ministry of Energy, Max served as the Executive Director of the Solar and Energy Innovation Committee at the Chilean Economic Development Agency, Corfo. During his tenure, the Committee’s work has been largely focused on increasing international collaboration and on the promotion of green hydrogen and other energy innovations as critical elements of Chile’s energy transition.

Max previously worked at Corfo as Deputy Director of Strategy and Sustainability, supporting the Executive Vice President (CEO) in defining and implementing the institutional strategy, and providing prospective and exploratory information to identify upcoming trends. During this period, Max led a team to draft and promote the creation of the largest Technological Institute ever created in Chile – the Clean Technologies Institute – which will have a strong industrial focus on development, scaling and adoption of technological solutions in solar energy, low emissions mining and advanced materials derived from lithium and other minerals. The Institute will receive a public subsidy of up to US$190 million with an additional 30% of the total budget to be financed by the private sector.

Prior to Corfo, Max worked as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Andes Iron, an iron ore mining company that owns two world-class IOCG Ore Deposits along the Andes Coastal Range.

His experience also includes working as an associate to the Energy and Corporate Group of Chile’s largest full-service law firm, Carey & Co.

Max is on the Board of Directors of the Chilean Natural Resources Information Centre, CIREN (part of the Ministry of Agriculture) and as City Councilor for the Municipality of Zapallar; a well preserved seaside area in central Chile. He also contributes to several conservation initiatives, most notably to Corporación Bosques de Zapallar (http://bosquesdezapallar.cl/), Chile’s first Land Trust devoted to preserve a unique Mediterranean forest located in the country’s central coast.

Max graduated from Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Law and holds an MPhil in Environmental Policy, Department of Land Economy, from Cambridge University in the UK and undertook a Certificate Program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He was awarded with a joint full scholarship by the UK Government’s Chevening scheme, the Cambridge Overseas Trust and British Gas Group.

Ita is the Deputy-Director of the ETC. She is responsible for managing the delivery of the ETC’s analytical workstreams, coordinating the international programmes, and supporting the ETC’s Commissioners and Representatives.

Prior to this, Ita was a Manager at Bain & Company working with business executives to address strategic challenges at international organisations in the UK, Europe, and the USA. Ita worked across industrial, consumer products and heavy transport sectors, in addition to advising central government and not-for-profit clients.

Ita worked as a policy advisor at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. As a core member of the team delivering the 2017 Industrial Strategy White Paper, Ita developed the UK’s ‘Grand Challenges,’ including the Clean Growth Challenge. This included brokering consensus across critical government, civil service and industry stakeholders.

Ita holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies from Harvard University.

Jorgo Chatzimarkakis is Secretary General of Hydrogen Europe since 2016. Before he was Representative of Infineon Technologies in Brussels and Member of the European Parliament (2004 – 2014) inter alia in the ITRE Committee (Industry, Technology, Research and Energy) where he could contribute to lay the cornerstone for the first and the second Joint Undertaking on hydrogen and fuel cells. In 2007 he was elected “MEP of the year” by his colleagues of the European Parliament in the category “Research and Innovation”. In 2015 he was appointed ambassador at large for Greece.

Christian Pho Duc is heading the hydrogen activities of Smartenergy and is also in charge of solar projects in Germany. His many years of international management experience, his marked technical background and, last but not least, his multicultural roots make him ideally suited for this task. After over 5 years of expanding E-Mobility on the water as SVP Sales at market leader Torqeedo he is now eager to provide clean energy to the installations worldwide. Christian spent already 5 years in the Solar Industry at Smartenergy Renewables, Nanosolar and Solyndra developing solar projects as managing director and VP Sales in EMEA and India. Prior to his engagement in the renewable energy space, Christian worked for 15 years in the semiconductor industry, always at the leading edge of technical innovations launching what were then the most highly integrated memory chips. He marketed high-end products for Infineon, Giesecke & Devrient and Siemens on the international stage, holding a number of management positions. Christian holds a master’s degree in semiconductor physics and microelectronics engineering from Cambridge University and master’s degree in physics from the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich and showed an early interest in the market potential of new technologies. He undertook research at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics into high resolution detectors that today orbit the earth in satellites.

Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the IEA since September 2015. Under his leadership, the IEA has undertaken its first comprehensive modernisation programme since its creation in 1974. This effort focuses on three pillars: opening the doors of the IEA to include major emerging countries, broadening the IEA’s security mandate to natural gas and electricity as well as oil, and making the IEA the global hub for clean energy technologies and energy efficiency.

Prior to his nomination as Executive Director, Dr Birol spent over 20 years at the IEA, rising through the ranks to the position of Chief Economist. Dr Birol has been named by Forbes Magazine as among the most influential people on the world’s energy scene and was recognized by the Financial Times as Energy Personality of the Year. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and serves on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on ‘Sustainable Energy for All’.