Accelerating the Energy Transition Through Financial Innovations

Philip Berntsen is the founder and chief executive officer of Frigg, as well as a PhD Candidate in Quantitative Finance with a focus on sustainable finance at the University of Zurich. Mr. Berntsen has worked more than 10 years with renewable energy developers to create robust and scalable models that reduce development and financing costs. He spent 6 years with UBS, and more than 3 years in research at ETH Zurich focusing on developing technology methods to promote sustainable projects. Mr. Berntsen has an MSc  in Statistics from ETH Zurich and a Bachelor in Mathematics and Optimization from the University of Oslo.

Carla Della Maggiora is an international consultant, focusing on climate change mitigation and adaptation, climate finance and circular economy. As Deputy Director of BASE, she advises the design and development of innovative business models to accelerate the flow of resources towards climate solutions.

Jean-Pierre Danthine is Managing Director of the Enterprise for Society Center (E4S), Professor at EPFL, and President of the Paris School of Economics.

Mr. Danthine was a member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and, then, vice chairman. Before joining the SNB, he was Professor at the University of Lausanne and Managing Director of the Swiss Finance Institute.

Mr. Danthine holds a master’s degree in economics from the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and a PhD in economics from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Florence Hugard is a scientific collaborator at the E4S Center, specializing in sustainable finance strategies, sustainability-related regulatory developments and the energy transition. Prior to joining the E4S Center, Ms. Hugard worked as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne, and completed an internship focusing on distributed ledger technology research at Swiss Re.

Alexander von Allmen is the Head of Portfolio Management at Retraites Populaires, a Lausanne based public institution managing CHF 30 billion in assets and offering life insurance and retirement solutions for individuals, companies and pension funds. He leads a team of eight investment professionals. He is a member of the allocation and investment committee. Before, Alexander was in charge of alternative investments, a portfolio manager and an analyst since joining Retraites Populaires in 2008.

Christoph Baumann is Deputy Head Strategy Division & Envoy for Sustainable Finance at the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF). In this role, he leads the Swiss government's sustainable finance activities, ranging from negotiations in multilateral bodies (such as the G20) to domestic initiatives. He is a Fellow at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a WEF Young Global Leader.

Mr. Baumann holds an LLM in international law from the University of London, a master's degree in economics from the University of Zurich, and is a CFA charterholder.

Inderpreet Wadhwa is an Indian-American renewable energy entrepreneur. He is the former Chair & Chief Executive Officer of Azure Power Global Limited. In 2008, he founded Azure Power, which launched an Initial Public Offering in October 2016, enabling the first listing of Indian energy assets on the New York Stock Exchange. He retired from his positions in July 2019 and since, launched Vert-One and Clime Finance to invest in cleantech companies. Prior to that, Mr. Wadhwa served as a vice president of Loyalty Lab and as a senior director of Oracle Corporation. Additionally, he has been a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Mr. Wadhwa received his bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Guru Nanak Dev University (Punjab, India) and completed an MBA from Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley.

Salvatore Cantale is Professor of Finance at IMD. His major research and consulting interests are in value creation, valuation, and the way in which corporations structure liabilities and choose financing options. Additionally, he is interested in the relation between finance and leadership, and in the leadership role of the finance function.

Jann Ewerhart is the Group Sustainability Programme Lead at Pictet, responsible for driving the Pictet Group’s strategic Responsible Vision Programme. He has led key initiatives such as the establishment of Energy Transition Convictions and setting SBTi approved science-based targets.