The future of road freight transport

Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the IEA since 2015, taking up his current position after rising through the ranks of the IEA over two decades. He has been named in TIME’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people and by Forbes as one of the most influential people in the world of energy. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and is the recipient of numerous state decorations, including the French Legion of Honour and the Japanese Emperor’s Order of the Rising Sun.

John Cooper has extensive experience of the private energy sector. He worked for 27 years at BP, where he held several commercial, technical and policy leadership roles, most recently leading BP’s strategy for compliance with renewables and GHG regulation in European transport fuels. In April 2015, he was appointed Director General of FuelsEurope and Concawe, representing the interest of 40 companies operating refineries in the EU.

Sophie Punte founded the Smart Freight Center in 2013 as a mission driven organization to catalyze more efficient and environmentally sustainable freight at a global scale. Previously, as Executive Director of Clean Air Asia, Punte played a lead role in bringing green freight on the agenda of Asian governments and establishing the China Green Freight Initiative and Green Freight Asia. She also worked at the United Nations, KPMG and an engineering firm on environmental management and corporate sustainability.

Maroš Šefčovič is a Slovak diplomat and politician, currently serving as a Vice-President in the von der Leyen Commission. He also coordinates the EU Battery Alliance, a cooperative platform seeking to drive the clean energy transition, and was the Vice-President for Energy Union until 2019. Prior to that, he was Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth. Before joining the European Commission, Šefčovič served as Slovakia’s Permanent Representative to the EU, Director General in the European Affairs Department of Slovakia’s Foreign Ministry and as Slovakia’s Ambassador to Israel.