The speakers of the energy conference: "energy 2050"

Ass. iur. Oliver Antoni, LL.M. has been with the Foundation for Environmental Energy Law (Stiftung Umweltenergierecht) since 2012 and took on the position of project manager in the research project “Law of Renewable Energies and Energy Economics” in 2014. He primarily works in the fields of energy efficiency law, law of sector coupling, and heat transition. Oliver Antoni is involved in a range of projects, particularly those dealing with various aspects of energy law and constitutional law. Other projects he is currently working on are concerned with sector coupling, flexibility and heating. He is head of the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht project “Energy Transition in North Germany 4.0 (NEW 4.0)” as part of the SINTEG programme. Previously, he had worked as an in-house counsel and project manager at ABGnova GmbH since 2010. His tasks included giving legal advice in the field of energy law with a focus on energy reduction law and renewable energy law. Before that, he worked as a lawyer in Frankfurt and Hanover focusing on public and private construction law as well as environmental law. He also participated in several research projects in the environmental, energy and efficiency sector as a research assistant at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Oliver Antoni studied law at the Universities of Erlangen and Hannover. He graduated in 2000 and completed his legal traineeship at the Higher Regional Court Celle. Subsequently, he got his master’s degree in Environmental and Energy Law at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg.

Katharina is Senior Vice President at Siemens AG and the global head of Strategy of the Siemens Operating Company Gas & Power. 
Katharina joined Siemens in 2005. During her Siemens career she held different positions in Siemens Management Consulting, the internal Consulting Company of Siemens, including Vice President and has built up a new internal consulting company for Process- and Expert Consulting as CEO. She was the global head of Siemens Business excellence being responsible for Quality, operational excellence, the company improvement program top+ and the expert consulting company. In October 2015 Katharina was appointed to CEO of the Business Segment “Hydrogen Solutions” within Siemens before she got into her current role. 
Before her Siemens career Katharina worked for the “Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation” in Stuttgart, focusing on robotics and the optimization of assembly systems. 
Katharina is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. 

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Fischedick has been a member of the executive board of the Wuppertal Institute since March 2010 and vice president since 2006. Until 2010, he headed the research group “Future Energy and Mobility Structures” (with more than 50 scientists from various disciplines, including PhD students). From February 2008 to February 2010, he was the acting scientific head of the institute. In November 2008, he was appointed professor for economics at the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics at the University of Wuppertal.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Fischedick studied process engineering, focussing on energy and environmental technologies at the University of Dortmund. He earned his doctorate at the University of Stuttgart in the field of energy technology.

Manfred Fischedick has 20 years of experience in energy system analysis. He is an advisor to the European Union, the German government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as companies in various industries. He is the author of numerous books and peer reviewed articles. He is coordinating lead author for the 5th IPCC Assessment Report, member of several scientific boards and gives lectures in the field of energy and environmental science at the universities of Wuppertal and Kassel.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Gröner is one of Germany’s leading strategy consultants, future researchers and speakers. He started his career in publishing and management positions at Germany’s biggest media companies. For many years, he has supported companies in setting their strategic direction for the future. In addition, he teaches as Dean of Studies for Digital Management and Corporate Communications at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on “digital disruption” and “artificial intelligence and future technologies”.

Elisabeth Köstinger (ÖVP) was born in 1978 in Wolfsberg. She has been the Federal Minister for Sustainability and Tourism since December. Her areas of responsibility include agriculture and forestry, environment and climate protection, waste and water management, energy and mining as well as tourism and cohesion policy. Elisabeth Köstinger was a Member of the European Parliament and a member of the grouping of the European People’s Party from 2009 to 2017. She was also active as spokeswoman for agriculture, the environment and women in the ÖVP delegation to the European Parliament (EP). In 2017, she was appointed Secretary General of the Austrian People’s Party and after the successful election in autumn 2017 she was appointed President of the National Council. A short time later, Köstinger moved to the Federal Government, where she took on responsibility for the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism. Before starting her political career, Elisabeth Köstinger worked in the Carinthian regional health insurance fund and freelanced in the communications sector while studying journalism. She was also active in the Rural Youth as a federal manager, amongst other posts.

Prof. Nießen is in charge of the technology field Energy Systems at Siemens Corporate Technology. This technology field comprises seven research groups in Germany, Russia, China and Austria. The research groups strive for a holistic modelling and optimisation of energy systems. Thematically, the technology field brings together research and development in the fields of energy conversion components, circuit breakers, network topologies, gas combustion, sustainability and life cycle analysis. Since 1994, Stefan Nießen has been working in energy technology and energy economics. Before he joined Siemens, he headed AREVA GmbH’s research and development and their international marketing. During six-year start-up phase, Stefan Nießen was part of the core team that set up what is Europe’s largest energy exchange today, the European Energy Exchange. He holds a PhD from the faculty for electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen and an MBA from Duke University.

After completing her studies in mechanical engineering in the field of energy technology (Dipl.-Ing.), Dr. Maren Petersen worked on various projects in the field of integrated urban ecology for the use of decentralised cogeneration plants and the use of renewable energies (“Photovoltaic Megawatt Project Berlin”). As a research assistant at the Bremen Energy Institute, she prepared studies and expert opinions on energy technology-related issues and later mainly on energy efficiency issues and earned her PhD in this field (Dr.rer.pol.).

Since mid-2008, Dr. Petersen has been heading the generation division and systems integration at the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), where she is responsible for the entire value chain of electricity generation from conventional plants (nuclear, coal and gas power plants) and from plants for the use of renewable energies, for coupled electricity and heat generation, as well as for all issues relating to the systemic integration of innovative technologies into the energy supply. In addition, she was appointed head of BDEW's newly established renewable energies staff position at the end of 2012. The organisational link implemented this way between conventional and renewable energy generation was to ensure that all considerations concerning the implementation of the energy transition and the expansion of renewables always took into account aspects of security of supply and economic viability. In May 2018, the staff position was transferred to a sector coupling staff position in order to reflect the requirements resulting from the implementation of the energy transition for a greater interconnection of industries and value creation stages in BDEW.

Dr. Christoph Riechmann heads the Cologne office of Frontier Economics and is responsible for projects in German-speaking countries. He is the director of the energy sector and consults with clients in Northwestern Europe on competition, regulatory and strategic issues.

In various current projects he dealt with the impact of the energy and climate revolution on the heat and mobility sector and the need for greater integration between the electricity, gas and fuel sectors ("sector coupling"). For example, he led a study for the European Commission on regulatory obstacles to sector coupling.

In the Austrian energy industry, he is regularly involved in regulatory and commercial issues, including issues of sector coupling.

Before his time at Frontier Economics, Christoph Riechmann was engaged in consulting and research on the reform and restructuring of network industries at the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne until 1999. His work has made significant contributions to the reform of the electricity and gas markets in Germany. Christoph Riechmann has also published numerous works on these topics.

Michael Sattler (38) has worked at OMV Refining & Marketing GmbH for more than 15 years. 
As part of his internship at a university of applied sciences, he started out in the Strategy department in 2003, and after completing his studies in information and knowledge management at FH Burgenland (Eisenstadt), he moved to the supply sector.
Having successfully implemented the EU’s Transport Biofuels Directive, he took over management of the Aviation division, then moved to B2B Business Development and in 2014 to the operational Supply & Logistics division of OMV Petrom in Bucharest. In April 2017, Sattler took over management of the OMV Future Energy division in Vienna, since when he has been responsible for OMV’s strategic positioning and commitment in this area.

Since 1979 ELIN-Union resp. VA-TECH
Since 1996 Senior Vice President
2006 Acquired by the Andritz Group
Director Market Management, Business Development & Corporate Communication 
Press spokesperson for ANDRITZ HYDRO GmbH
Managing Director of ANDRITZ HYDRO Vienna

National/international positions:
CEO of ÖGE
Member of the Foreign Trade Advisory Board of the Federal Economic Chambers
Member of the Advisory Board of Austrian Technology Corporation
President of the Austrian/Turkish Business Cooperation Council 
Representative of Andritz in the International Hydropower Association
Representative of Andritz in RESPACT
Representative of Andritz in World Business Council for Sustainable Development GmbH

Andreas joined Eurogas in June 2019 as Policy Director, where he is responsible for the coordination and implementation of the association’s advocacy work. He brings over a decade of experience in EU affairs in Brussels, and has spent the past six years working for the biofuels industry. In this role he successfully defended the interests of the European ethanol industry on various high-profile cases, including on binding targets for biofuels in transport under the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive II.
Andreas is fluent in English, German, French and Dutch. He holds an MA in political science from the University of Maastricht.

Rudolf Zauner studied process engineering at Graz University of Technology and University College London. He then went on to work in technical process development at BASF AG in Ludwigshafen, Germany, followed by a stint at the Center for Innovative Sintered Products in Pennsylvania, United States.

Rudolf Zauner has been employed at VERBUND since 2008 and was responsible for operating 420 MW wind and solar parks in Europe before he was appointed head of hydrogen activities at VERBUND.