Speakers
Panel
Sustainability
Penny Laurenson
Global Head of Sustainability, Lightsource bp
Penny has been part of Lightsource bp since its founding in 2010. She Initially established the company’s environmental planning function and transitioned to lead the corporate sustainably function in 2023. In her role as Global Head of Sustainability, she oversees the company's sustainability strategy and ambitions.
Over the past decade, Penny has focused on ensuring that Lightsource bp's solar farms deliver multiple benefits beyond carbon reductions, including enhancing biodiversity and identifying opportunities for co-use with agriculture. Penny has also been an advocate for proactive community engagement in renewables development.
Penny served as Vice Chair of Solar Power Europe's Land Use and Permitting workstream from 2022-2024 and is currently a member of the World Economic Forum’s Responsible Renewables Taskforce.
Prior to joining Lightsource bp, Penny held several positions as a planner and consultant in her native New Zealand. These include five years with the global engineering firm Stantec (formerly MWH) and roles within various government departments.
She studied at the University of Otago achieving a BA in Geography and Psychology and a Masters, with Distinction, in Planning.
Baysa Naran
Senior Manager, Climate Policy Initiative
Baysa Naran is a Senior Manager in Climate Policy Initiative’s London office, where she leads the Global Climate Finance Tracking Program overseeing its strategy and implementation. The program provides the most comprehensive data and insights into finance flows and funding needs supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes at global, regional, national and sectoral levels. Baysa developed many research workstreams and sectoral and thematic analyses at CPI, including the first assessment of global methane abatement finance, climate finance in small scale agriculture, and tracking energy efficiency finance among others.
Baysa is a contributing author to the IPCC 6th AR and UNFCCC Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance reports. She also coordinates the Climate-aligned Finance Tracking Group, a network of experts that aims to achieve greater impact and scale in climate finance by improving and aligning tracking efforts.
Prior to CPI, Baysa worked as a fiscal policy consultant at PwC, where she managed international and EU projects and advised clients on fiscal and tax policy issues in developing and developed countries. She also has an extensive experience of working with multinational companies on corporate compliance, restructuring and advisory services in energy, mining, infrastructure and financial services industries. Baysa became a qualified accountant in 2015 while at PwC.
Baysa holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge, with a focus on energy and environment and B.A. in Business Administration majoring in Accounting and Finance from Marmara University.
David Lone
Manager, Global Electricity Transition Team, RMI
David is a Manager on RMI’s Global Electricity Transition team, where he leads a team focused on mobilizing capital to accelerate power-sector transitions in emerging markets and developing economies. His work spans both technical and financial interventions to enable the early retirement of fossil fuel assets and the deployment of clean energy alternatives.
Prior to joining RMI, David worked as a consultant for the Stockholm Environment Institute, analyzing the efficacy of various financial and policy de-risking mechanisms for renewable energy development in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to this, David worked at a vertically integrated energy company in the United States, where he helped design the strategy and analytics behind residential and commercial energy efficiency programs.
David has an MBA from the University of Cambridge, specializing in Energy and Environment, and a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Emory University.
Ellen Furgis
Investment Manager, Gresham House
Ellen is an Investment Manager at Gresham House where she supports the execution of energy storage investment opportunities in the UK and internationally. Prior to Gresham House, Ellen worked in advisory at Marathon capital, closing c.$500M of deals across C&I and utility scale solar, co-located and standalone storage, and wind. Notable transactions include the sale of agrisolar developer SUNFarming to Cube Green Energy (I Squared), €150m credit raise on behalf of Pan-European independent power producer Econergy, sale of 600MW of California Battery Storage assets from Upstream to GridStor (Goldman Sachs), and the sale of community solar technology platform Solstice to MyPower (Mitsui).
Ellen holds a Bachelor of Science in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University, with dual majors in Environmental Science and Human Development. Ellen was also a recipient of a Fulbright research grant to study stakeholder engagement with renewable energy systems on the islands of Tilos and Sifnos in Greece.
Moderator
Prof. Simon Taylor
Management Practice Professor in Finance and Director of the Global Executive MBA Programme, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
After degrees in economics from Cambridge, Oxford and the LSE, Simon Taylor began 15 years of experience in the City. He joined Judge Business School as a Lecturer in Finance in April 2007. He was the Director of the Master of Finance programme from its start in 2008 till the summer of 2018. He is a Research Associate of the Electricity Policy Research Group at Cambridge University. In 2009, he was awarded a Pilkington University Teaching Prize. He is a Fellow of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. His work on nuclear power, including two books, was awarded the Judge Business School prize for research impact in 2017. He was awarded a Judge Business School teaching prize in 2019. In 2021 Simon became the Director of the new Global EMBA.
Panel
Affordability
Alicia Eastman
Managing Director at APC Investors, Co-Founder & Board Director at InterContinental Energy, and Co-Host at Everything About Hydrogen
With nearly three decades of experience spanning international investment, private equity, project finance, and corporate strategy, Alicia Eastman stands at the forefront of global sustainability and energy transition efforts.
Alicia co-founded InterContinental Energy in 2014 and was President until 2024, remaining active on the Board. She was instrumental in developing some of the world’s largest green hydrogen and ammonia projects across Australia and the GCC, driving decarbonisation in hard-to-abate sectors like shipping, heavy industry, chemicals, and power.
Alicia founded APC Investors to provide much needed Agile, Purposeful Capital to the energy efficiency and alternative fuels supply chain sectors. Alicia sits on the Board of multiple CleanTech companies, including CHIPX with patented nanotechnology and AI supported highly efficient and zero emissions semiconductors and microchips.
Alicia is a co-host of the cult favorite podcast ‘Everything About Hydrogen’ and she sits on the McKinsey & Company Sustainability Advisory Council, the Global Hydrogen Advisory Board of Sustainable Energy Council, the Monaco Hydrogen Alliance Board of Trustees and the Women in Renewables Association Board of Counselors. Alicia is also the UN ECE hydrogen expert driving the zero emissions ammonia workstream and frequent speaker and contributor to prestigious platforms including FT, Bloomberg, UNIDO, COP, WEF, the Economist, IEA, ASDW, ADIPEC, FII and IEA.
Aleks Jaunkalns
Associate Director, Infrastructure Advisory, Deloitte
Aleks is an Associate Director in Deloitte’s Infrastructure Advisory practice, focusing on raising debt financing for infrastructure projects across the UK, Europe, and Middle East. Aleks focuses on energy, energy transition, and infrastructure M&A and is currently working on BESS, CCUS, and Synchronous Condenser projects in the UK.
Aleks has 10 years of experience in infrastructure advisory working in both North America and Europe, focusing on the financing of infrastructure projects. Prior to Deloitte, Aleks earned his Master of Real Estate and Infrastructure from York University and worked at EY Canada focusing on North American PPPs.
Lucas Barros
Chemicals Manager, Argus Media – Consulting Services
Lucas joined Argus Consulting in 2023, as a chemicals consultant in the London office. His bespoke consulting work includes modelling, forecasting, and desk research across a range of projects including market studies, feasibility studies, market entry analysis, due diligence and client support.
Before Argus, Lucas spent 8 years in upstream oil and gas working for multinational and independent oil and gas companies and acquisition and development consulting in the United States and Brazil. Lucas completed a Masters in Business Administration at the University of Cambridge where he collaborated on several strategy and market entry consulting projects and was co-president of the Cambridge Consulting Network. He has an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin where he wrote his thesis on the optimisation of penetration rates in the Eagle Ford.
Rodrigo Quintero
Energy Economist, BloombergNEF
Rodrigo Quintero is an energy economist at BloombergNEF. He is one of the authors of the New Energy Outlook and he covers long-term trends in industry and power sectors.
Moderator
Kamiar Mohaddes
Associate Professor in Economics & Policy at the University of Cambridge
Co-founder and Director of the King’s Entrepreneurship Lab
Kamiar is an expert in the macroeconomics of climate change and sustainability at University of Cambridge, where he is the Director of the climaTRACES Lab. He is also the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Executive MBA programme and Fellow in Economics at King’s College, where he co-founded and directs the King’s Entrepreneurship Lab.
Kamiar is among the top 1% authors globally in IDEAS/RePEc. His research has been published in a number of edited volumes as well as in leading journals, covered in major international news outlets, and cited extensively by policymakers. In 2025, Kamiar received the Financial Times Award for Academic Research with Impact.
Kamiar has worked extensively with both the public (including the United Nations and World Bank) and the private sector (BCG, BNP Paribas, KPMG and others). He is a regular visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, served as Special Advisor at the Bank of Canada, and is currently an Advisor at the World Bank.
You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
Panel
Security
Paul Stein CBE
Chief Executive Officer, Floral Energy Limited
Paul is the Chief Executive Officer of Floral Energy Limited, a clean energy company which was founded in 2024 to serve the energy needs of large data centres and other high reliability energy requirements. Paul has had a broadly based career in telecommunications, defence, aerospace and energy. He was Managing Director of Roke Manor Research until 2006, then Director General of Science and Technology at the Ministry of Defence, Chief Technology Officer of Rolls-Royce plc until 2022, then chaired its spin-out business Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactors. Paul is a Board member of iRocket LLC, a space launch business, an advisor to Zap Energy LLC, a Seattle based fusion company, and mentors several start-ups. He has been appointed to the National Cyber Advisory Board and served on the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology from 2020 to 2024.
James Macnaghten
Chief Executive Officer, Caldera Heat Batteries Ltd.
James Macnaghten founded Caldera with Guy Winstanley in 2017. James is an experienced CEO, entrepreneur, and Cambridge University trained engineer with 15 years’ experience in energy research and development and over 25 years’ experience in business. He built, and still owns, Cambridge’s largest tourist business (Scudamore’s Punting Company) and for 10 years was CEO of Isentropic, which developed a large-scale thermo-mechanical electricity storage system. He has been either co-inventor or sole inventor on a wide number of thermal energy storage patents and has 20+ patent families to his name. James is passionate about finding the right technological solutions for problems. He is also deeply committed to helping decarbonise our society and believes that many of the answers are already available. When time allows, James can be happily found cycling in the South Downs.
Moderator
Prof. David Reiner
Professor of Technology Policy at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge & Assistant Director of the Energy Policy Research Group
David Reiner is Professor of Technology Policy and Assistant Director of the Energy Policy Research Group at Judge Business School. His research focuses on energy and climate change politics, policy, economics, regulation, and public attitudes, with a particular focus on the political and economic challenges of reaching net zero. He has served on various international expert panels including the CCUS Council, which is chaired by the UK Energy Minister, the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Fuels Task Group and the International Energy Agency’s Technology and Innovation Advisory Board. He was on the advisory board of the £210m UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge and was Co-Chair of the BEIS CCUS Public Perceptions, Planning and Oversight Group.
Max Krefting
Co-President, Cambridge University Energy Technology Society
Max is a third-year engineering undergraduate at Queens’ College and the Co-President of the Cambridge University Energy Technology Society. He is motivated by the pursuit of a clean, circular and efficient world. He enjoys rowing for Queens’, travelling, and hiking.
