APPEC 2023

John Baptist assumed his position as Global Director of VLCC/Product Chemical Shipping (PCS) in AET in March 2021.

He began his corporate career with AET in 2003 as Vice President of Insurance and Risk Management, having previously sailed with AET for more than 15 years. He has since served as Vice President of Commercial Operations of Europe, Global Director of Asset Management and Commercial Projects, Global Director of Shipmanagement, Chief Operating Officer of Eaglestar, and Global Director of VLCC and DPST before assuming his current position. John has contributed to AET by breaking into new territories, including DPST and marine well containment operations.

Feng Chang is a Managing Director, head of APAC Sustainable Finance Advisory at Bank of America. She is based in Hong Kong.

In this role, she primarily focuses on providing customized client decarbonization solutions by leveraging bank’s Net-Zero framework. She brings the bank’s holistic sustainable financing capabilities to help clients in their low carbon transition. She drives and expands opportunities across social sectors as part of bank’s inclusive Development efforts by partnering closely with multilateral development bank and other international alliances. The team in the region also leads Asset financing in renewable energy sectors and innovates to develop new capital solutions in other low carbon emerging technologies including Carbon Capture, Hydrogen, Sustainable Aviation Fuels, Wasteto-Energy, Water Infrastructure and Sustainable Agriculture etc.

Joonas Rauramo is CEO of the transformational technology company Coolbrook, which is on a mission to de-carbonise major industrial sectors such as petrochemicals and chemicals, iron and steel, and cement.

He is driving the transition of Coolbrook from an R&D focused organisation to a significant industrial actor building on its technology leadership and ecosystem of partnerships across technology companies, globally leading industrial producers, research institutions and public sector actors. In his previous role as Executive Vice President for strategy and industrial partnerships, Rauramo was responsible for corporate strategy, finance, and building up industrial and public sector relationships.

Prior to joining Coolbrook, Rauramo spent 15 years working on low carbon electricity production in one of Europe’s largest utility companies, Fortum. He held various managerial and executive positions in strategy, M&A and business line roles, including Head of Business Area in Wind Power.

Felipe Bayón is CEO of Ecopetrol Group, Colombia's leading energy company, and one of the most important in the Americas. He has over 30 years of experience in the energy industry both internationally and in Colombia.

In his over six years at Ecopetrol, the last four and a half as CEO, he has led the company's transformation and energy transition processes, with a robust plan to diversify the business and decarbonize the operation through, among others, renewables, electrification, natural climate solutions, and hydrogen. All these underpinned by innovation and technology as catalyzers for sustainability, what Ecopetrol has called T-ESG (Technology, Environmental, Social and Governance). The transformation process led by Mr. Bayón, has allowed Ecopetrol to successfully address and overcome the complex global context resulting from the pandemic and the volatility in oil prices, achieving solid operational and financial performance, key to strengthen Ecopetrol as the company faces the challenges and opportunities of the energy transition.

Dr. Fereidun Fesharaki is the Founder and Chairman of FGE. His work is well recognized worldwide for pioneering oil and gas market analysis and studies of the Asia Pacific/Middle East energy markets since the early 1980s.

In 2002, appointed a Senior Associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He received the Outstanding Contributions to the IAEE Award in 2012. He was a member of the Advisory Board of VOPAK LNG from 2013 to 2015. In 2014, appointed as Honorary Advisor by CNPC Research Institute of Economics and Technologies in Beijing. Dr. Fesharaki is the recipient of the 2016 Adelman-Frankel Award from the US Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) for his unique and innovative contribution to the field of energy economics. In March 2017, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) appointed him as a Director of the Dubai Mercantile Exchange Limited (DME). Since 2009, he has been a member of the DME Board of Directors. Dr. Fesharaki has been appointed to the National Petroleum Council beginning in 2008 and re-appointed by the subsequent US Secretaries of Energy ever since.

Mathew George is General Manager (Corporate Planning & Economic Studies) at Indian Oil Corporation in New Delhi. An Indian Oil veteran of 35 years, Mathew has held a number of key assignments at Indian Oil, including heading the polymer marketing group, petrochemical exports group besides heading the lubricants group at subsidiary company Lanka IOC in Colombo, and assignments spread across many locations in the lubricants and aviation departments. In the field of petrochemicals he has handled polymers, PX, PTA, benzene, LAB, glycols and butadiene business. A well-known supply chain and ERP/CRM expert and analyst, he also has core experience in ship chartering for chemicals and petroleum. Mathew has been a regular speaker at international conferences in the areas of petrochemical feedstocks, polymers, ERP, CRM, detergents and benzene. He has also been a guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, taking the course Business in a World Without Borders –Bridging the Cultural and Linguistic Divide.

Charlotte Wolff-Bye took up the role of Chief Sustainability Officer at Malaysia’s national oil company Petronas in June 2021, where she is charged with turning the company’s Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050 aspiration into strategy and workable implementation plans delivering both decarbonization and social progress.

Previously Charlotte worked for the Norwegian energy company Equinor in the role of Vice President Sustainability. At Equinor she delivered the company’s first sustainability strategy that laid the foundation for the company’s low carbon focus. She was also the company’s representative on the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) and the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction Initiative (GGFR).

She is the recipient of a leadership award by Devex for her contribution to international development. Currently, she serves on the bord of trustees of the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Triharyo Soesilo is Special Advisor to the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of acceleration of Infrastructure and Investment for the Republic of Indonesia, providing advice to Minister of Energy and Mineral resources for the acceleration and implementation for an estimated US$160 billion investment at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

Expertise in building industrial plants in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Experienced in Project development and implementation of Fertilizer plants, Petrochemical plants, Power plants, Oil & Gas facilities, and Refineries.

Ms Low Yen Ling was elected as a Member of Parliament for Chua Chu Kang GRC in the 2011, 2015 and 2020 General Elections. She is presently the Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY). Prior to that, she was the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Education (MOE) from 2015 till July 2020 and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) from 2018 till July 2020. She had also previously held office in the Ministry of Social and Family Development (2013-2015), MCCY (2014-2015) and MTI (2015-2018).

She also serves on the multi-agency national SG Clean taskforce to uphold high standards of public and personal hygiene beyond Covid-19.

With a heart for the underprivileged, Ms Low continues to serve as a board member of the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) where she steers its Student and Parent Education Committee to expand the organization’s reach and support to low-income students and families.

As President of Aviation for Shell, Jan is responsible for Shell's global aviation business, including operations, network, joint ventures and sales of fuels, lubricants and sustainable solutions. With one of the most extensive refueling networks in the world, Shell Aviation serves customers in more than 60 countries, while customers range from the world’s largest airlines, the military of defense to the private pilots.

Connecting the world and at the same time leading the decarbonization of the aviation industry and supporting customers to help achieve their sustainability ambitions is what excites him most. Pre-COVID Shell Aviation fueled a plane every 14 seconds and anticipate we will return to this frequency in line with market recovery.

During his time at Shell, he had been leading Wholesale, Retail, Trading, Marine and Aviation businesses across the globe. As a leader, I believe in empowering individuals to create trust and joint ownership of business’ purpose and goals.

Ganesh Gopalakrishnan is the Global Head for Petrochemicals Trading for TotalEnergies and oversees teams in Singapore, Shanghai, Geneva and Houston. He started as a Technical service Engineer in Singapore and after multiple roles, moved to the USA to manage Styrene and Aromatics businesses for the Americas. He later moved to Hong Kong to start up the Petrochemical marketing and trading activity for Asia in 2012. He has been with the company for 25 years and is now based in Singapore, managing the global trading activities and price risk management for Petrochemicals.

Mr Erwin Widiarta appointed as COO of TPPI since 2020. In absence of CEO, since beginning of 2021 up to now he also acting as CEO. He graduated from civil engineer from University of Indonesia on 1989 and Magister Management from University of Sriwijaya Palembang on 2014. Before joining the company he was Strategic Planning Manager on 2017-2020 and Project Engineering Manager on 2020 in Pertamina.

Vandana Hari is Founder & CEO of Vanda Insights, a Singapore-based provider of global oil markets macro-analysis. She has 25 years of experience providing intelligence on the global energy markets to stakeholders in the petroleum industry, policy-makers, and wealth managers.

Before launching Vanda Insights in 2016, Vandana served in leadership positions at S&P Global Platts, a leading information agency for global energy, petrochemicals, metals and agricultural markets.

Russel Hardy is CEO of Vitol, a global energy company with revenues of $279 billion and an asset portfolio spanning power, oil and gas production, energy retail and distribution and renewables.

Russel has over 30 years’ experience within the energy industry, joining Vitol in 1993 from BP. He has held a number of trading and management roles in Singapore and London.

He has a MEng in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London.