Advisory Council Members
Emanuele Banfi
Emanuele has been Eni’s Head of Carbon Offsets Portfolio Management since November 2019. Emanuele is also Senior Advisor for Eni’s Community and Territory Initiatives. Emanuele is accountable for finding carbon offset related opportunities within Eni and supporting Eni functions in determining the standards to be applied to carbon offset.
Prior to this, Emanuele spent ten years in the field of international cooperation, covering water and sanitation, financial inclusion, agriculture, and food security.
Gordon Bennett
Gordon has been the Managing Director of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Inc. since February 2015. Gordon has led the sales and business development of ICE’s global environmental portfolio, the world’s largest environmental marketplace. He is a member of the Board of ICE Endex, ICE Futures Abu Dhabi, Spark Commodities, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of BeZero Carbon.
Gordon has been recognized as Environmental Finance’s sustainable business leader for 2022. He contributes as an advisor to initiatives including the UNDP, Advisory Group for Paris Agreement Investments, the Advisory Group for BSI Flex 701 – Nature Markets, the City of London VCM Steering Committee, the VCMI Stakeholder Forum, and the Advisory Board of the University of Cambridge Energy Policy Research Group. He has served on the Nature Based Solutions Taskforce of the Sustainable Markets Initiative and the Transition to Net Zero Working Group of the FCA and Bank of England’s Climate Financial Risk Forum.
James Cooper
James has been the Head of Origination for Environmental Products at Mercuria since July 2021. James covers carbon pricing systems from the EU ETS through to biofuel mandates and voluntary carbon markets.
Prior to this, James held positions in origination and market analysis at BP and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Feisal Hussain
Feisal Hussain is the Senior Director of Innovative Finance for the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA). He leads CCA’s efforts related to unlocking finance and investment for clean cooking, including from the emerging carbon and social impact markets.
Feisal Hussain is an institutional economist with over 30 years of international development experience, primarily on financial sector development. Prior to joining CCA, Feisal led a boutique consulting firm helping donors, philanthropic foundations and large management consultancies develop private sector development strategies and design innovation and blended finance structures. Earlier, he held key senior executive roles in UN agencies, international management consultancies and not-for-profit organizations, including as head of UKAid’s largest financial sector reform programme in Bangladesh, head of the UN Capital Development Fund in Asia and the Pacific, and head of ActionAid International’s global external affairs and partnerships division.
Feisal holds a Master’s degree from the University of Leeds. He now lives with his family and two cats in London.
Kato Kibuka
Kato has been the CEO and Founder of PowerUP since August 2021, where he develops household appliances that reduce carbon emissions in low and middle-income countries.
Prior to this, Kato was Director for Products at ENGIE Energy Access and Co-Founder of Power On Limited. Kato has also previously worked for Clinton Health Access Initiative, Pan African Capital Group, and Investment Technology Group in New York.
Jules Kortenhorst
Jules is the CEO of C-Quest Capital. Prior to this, Jules was a partner at Vision Ridge Partners, CEO of RMI, founding CEO of the European Climate Foundation, and CEO for International Operations of ClientLogic Corporation. Jules has also previously worked for Royal Dutch/Shell, Shell Bulgaria, and McKinsey & Co.
Jules has served as chair of the WEF Global Future Councils for Energy and for Net Zero. He is a founding member of the global Energy Transitions Commission and is also a member of the New Energy advisory board of Shell, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Esdec Solar Group, and member of the Board of Circle Economy.
Sarah Leugers
Sarah has been the Chief Growth Officer at Gold Standard since January 2023. Prior to this, Sarah held positions of Chief Strategy Officer and Director of Communications.
Sarah has also previously worked for Climate Neutral, Intrinzic Inc., and Convergys.
Hanaan Marwah
Hanaan has been Chief Strategy & Investment Officer at KOKO Networks since November 2022. Prior to this, Hanaan was CFO at Circle Gas, Managing Director at Africa Infrastructure Advisors, and Founder of Gridworks Development Partners. Hanaan has also previously worked for Blue Ridge Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Actis.
Hanaan has served on company and non-profit boards including Eneo, the national electricity utility of Cameroon, and Virunga Energies, the power company of the Virunga National Park in the DRC. She has several publications on African energy access.
Marcel Raats
Marcel Raats has been the lead for the Energy and Climate Team of the Department for International Development at the Netherlands Enterprise and Development Agency (RVO.nl) since July 2020. The team cooperates with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs on its agenda for renewable energy and climate change.
Prior to this, Marcel managed several bilateral programs in support of Dutch ambitions to facilitate inclusive and sustainable energy access, including for clean cooking. He started his career as a consultant and project advisor for renewable energy solutions in the Netherlands, and on international cooperation on the reuse of waste materials.
Peter Scott
Peter has been the CEO and Founder of BURN since 2011, taking the company to a product portfolio covering biomass, LPG, and electric cooking solutions across more than 20 African countries. Peter is also the Founder of BURN Design Lab.
Peter has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine, and is one of the top 100 recipients of the 2023 Meaningful Business Award.
Ash Sharma
Ash has been the Vice President, Head of Special Funds at the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (Nefco) since December 2021. Ash is the Fund Manager for the Modern Cooking Facility for Africa and the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa. Prior to this, Ash established Nefco’s carbon fund management business and was a fund manager for three regional and global climate finance instruments.
Ash is currently the Chair of the Nordic Council of Minister’s working group on Article 6 of the Paris Agreements, the Nordic Initiative for Cooperative Approaches. He has served on various international climate change steering and working groups for Nordic Council of Ministers, UNEP, World Bank, G8 and G20.
Dymphna van der Lans
Dymphna van der Lans is the Chief Executive Officer of the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA). Dymphna brings more than 25 years of experience managing and leading global development, energy, and climate initiatives in the nonprofit and private sectors. Most recently, she led international corporate engagement with the World Wildlife Fund’s Climate & Energy team. Previously, she worked with the Clinton Foundation as CEO of the Clinton Climate Initiative and has served as the senior director for public policy programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Dymphna has also served as the director of global renewables, infrastructure, and energy efficiency at a specialist investment banking firm in London, and for seven years at BP, where her last appointment was as BP Alternative Energy’s director of distributed energy markets.
Dymphna has worked and lived in China, India, and Kenya and engaged with island nations in the Caribbean and the Indian and Pacific Oceans to support their transition away from polluting diesel fuels to renewable sources of energy. Her native language is Dutch, and in addition, she speaks English and Chinese fluently and has conversation ability in both French and German. She holds advanced degrees from both Leiden University and the University of Beijing, and has earned a Master’s in Business Administration from Rice University. She lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she enjoys long walks in Rock Creek Park.
Justin Wheler
Justin has been the Senior Director of VCS Program Development at Verra since August 2022, where he coordinates VCS program and methodology developments.
Prior to this, Justin worked for the Government of Alberta and Emissions Reduction Alberta. With the Government of Alberta, Justin’s team was responsible for implementing Alberta’s industrial carbon pricing, emissions trading regulations, and led Alberta’s federal and inter-jurisdictional climate policy engagement.
Kandeh Yumkella
Dr. Kandeh Yumkella is a distinguished development economist and an expert in agricultural economics with over 30 years of experience. He is founder and CEO of The Energy Nexus Network (TENN), a regional ecosystem hub for sustainable energy solutions and serves as a Member of Parliament in Sierra Leone. He is a member of the High-Level Group of the Africa-Europe Foundation and co-chair of the Africa Europe Foundation Strategy Group on Energy. He is also a member of various international advisory bodies, boards, and commissions.
Previously Dr. Yumkella served for almost two decades in the United Nations system including as Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and founding chief executive officer for the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) Initiative (2013–2015). He also served two four-year terms as Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO, 2005–2013).
In both capacities, among other accomplishments, Dr. Yumkella mobilized global consensus for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 9. These deal with ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all, and building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation, respectively. He also served as a member of the Pan-African Parliament.
Working Group Members
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Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
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