Maria van der Hoeven
Executive Director
International Energy Agency

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Maria van der Hoeven took over as IEA Executive Director on 1 September 2011. She served as Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands from 2007 to 2010. She contributed to international dialogue on both energy security and sustainability. As the responsible minister of a gas-exporting country that is regarded as Europe’s hub for trade in crude oil and oil products, she gained valuable insights on a broad range of energy-related issues in both OECD and non-OECD countries. Prior to becoming Minister of Economic Affairs, she was Minister of Education, Culture and Science until 2007. She was an elected member of the Netherlands House of Representatives of the States-General from 1991 to 2002. Until 1987 she headed the Adult Commercial Vocational Training Centre in Maastricht, after which she served as head of the Limburg Technology Centre until 1991.

Fereidun Fesharaki
Chairman
FACTS Global Energy

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Fereidun Fesharaki is Chairman of FACTS Global Energy, a leading consulting group focusing on oil and gas in the East of the Suez, European, and US markets. Mr Fesharaki’s work is well-recognised worldwide for pioneering oil and gas market analysis and studies of the Asia Pacific/Middle East energy markets since the early 1980s. Born in Iran, he received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Surrey and completed a Visiting Fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. In the late 1970s, he attended the OPEC Ministerial Conferences in his capacity as Energy Adviser to the Prime Minister of Iran.

Nobuo Tanaka
Global Associate for Energy Security & Sustainability
The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ)

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Nobuo Tanaka is currently the Global Associate for Energy Security and Sustainability at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. He was formerly Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) from 2007 to August 2011. He has a long career especially in trade negotiation at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan.

Daniel Yergin
Chairman
IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA)

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Daniel Yergin is a highly respected authority on energy, international politics and economics. He is Co-founder and Chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA), which is one of the world’s leading consulting and research firms in its field. He received the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power’ (in a new edition in 2009), and is author of the highly acclaimed book ‘Commanding Heights: the Battle for the World Economy’. His new book on energy, geopolitics, and climate change will be released in the autumn of 2011. Mr Yergin plays a leadership role in the global energy industry. He is a “Wise Man” of the International Gas Union. He chaired the US Department of Energy’s task force on strategic energy research and development. He is a Member of the Board of the United States Energy Association, and a member of the US Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and the US National Petroleum Council. He served as Vice Chair of the National Petroleum Council study, ‘Facing the Hard Truths about Energy’. He is the only foreign member of the Russian Academy of Oil and Gas. He is on the Advisory Boards of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Energy Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yergin received his BA from Yale University, and his PhD from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.