Archives: Speakers

Tom Strombotne is a Product Applications Specialist for the Minerals Group. In his nearly 4 decades of experience in the mineral processing industry Tom has led the development and introduction of various elemental and particle size analyzers for slurry applications in Grinding and Flotation operations. This includes assisting end-users in maximizing their return on investment by application of real-time assay data for process control.

Professor Lucy Chappell FMedSci is the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), with overall responsibility for the department’s research and development, including the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research.

Reporting to the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Scientific Adviser provides science advice and analysis to ministers across the range of health topics and is involved in cross-government science policy.

Professor Chappell is Professor of Obstetrics at King’s College London, Honorary Consultant Obstetrician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and an NIHR Senior Investigator. She will undertake the Chief Scientific Adviser role on secondment into government, while continuing some of her clinical and academic work.

DHSC Chief Scientific Adviser

Franz has been working at the intersection of policy, climate change, environmental and social issues for more than a decade. Prior to graduating from Yale School of the Environment with a focus on sustainable finance, clean energy and business in 2018, Franz served eight years in the Obama Administration as Senior Advisor to the Special Envoy for Climate Change at the Department of State, working on the team that successfully negotiated the Paris Agreement. Prior to that, he was Deputy Associate Director at the White House Council of Environmental Quality working on energy, environment and climate policy and public engagement; and a Confidential Assistant and Legislative Analyst at the U.S. Department of Agriculture working on conservation, energy, food security, science policy and open data. He also worked on both of Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. Franz holds a Masters of Environmental Management from Yale University; Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz

Steve Gilsenan has been part of the Guinness Global Brand Team for the past two years, working as Global Head of Quality for Guinness, having previously spent 20 years in Supply. Steve has worked on innovation projects such as MicroDraught and NitroSurge over the past two years, and as a qualified Master Brewer and Beer Sommelier, he had spent the previous five years as Master Brewer of St James’s Gate. Throughout his tenure, he has worked in operations and technical quality across most of Guinness’s key markets, which took him to Trinidad, Ghana and Singapore before returning home to St. James’s Gate in Dublin, Ireland.

Dave Keating is the senior writer for Energy Monitor, covering the energy transition with a particular focus on European policy. Originally from the New York City area, Dave has lived in Europe since 2006. He is ranked as the number one EU politics social media influencer by ZN Consulting and the second most influential EU observer in 2022, coming third in 2020 and 2021. Before arriving in Brussels in 2010, Dave covered the boardrooms of London, the halls of the US Congress in Washington, the cafes of Paris, the politics of Prague, the courtrooms of Chicago and the streets of New York City. He has also covered climate policy in Berlin. Dave previously covered US politics in Washington. Dave holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University in film/television and European history. He also holds a Masters of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Chicago.

Harminder specializes in research in the Power, Renewable Energy and Smart Grid sectors. He has more than 20 years of experience, most of which has been in energy sector research.

At GlobalData, Harminder manages research and analysis in the Power sector and is responsible for the company’s Power Intelligence Center.

He has led a large number of studies in the power and renewable energy sectors covering various aspects, including generation, transmission, distribution, smart grids, equipment, power trading, tariffs, policy and regulatory aspects, etc.

Christopher was a co-founder of what became the Emerging Markets unit of the macro research firm TS Lombard, which in 2022 was acquired by GlobalData. His EM experience was forged in Russia, where, from the 1990s onwards, he was a British diplomat and then an analyst working in Moscow-based investment banks. His banking experience combined work both for financial investors – earning him top rankings in broker surveys – and strategic investors, including advisory work on the acquisition of Russian beer brands by international strategic investors. At TS Lombard, Christopher has integrated broad geopolitical risk analysis into the firm’s macroeconomic and market strategy research.

He is a regular commentator on political drivers for economies and financial markets in broadcast media and leading op-ed columns. He graduated from Oxford University, where he was also a Fellow of All Souls College.