Speakers & responsible persons

Dr. Monika Griefahn is chairwoman of the board of the eFuel Alliance and a founding member of Greenpeace Germany. From 1984 to 1990, Monika Griefahn was the first woman to serve on the International Board of Greenpeace. From 1990 to 1998, she served as Environment Minister in Lower Saxony. Then as now, she advocated for a new energy policy: for renewable energies and the phase-out of nuclear energy. From 2012 to 2018, Monika Griefahn was also Director of Environment and Society at the cruise line AIDA Cruises. She played a key role in the company's realignment toward the use of liquefied natural gas as a ship fuel. Monika Griefahn is involved in many voluntary commitments and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2018.

Andreas Henke is vice chairman of the board at eFuel Alliance. The former co-CEO of the automotive start-up Piëch, based in Zurich and Munich, spent before 18 years in the management of Porsche in the areas of strategy, marketing and sales, most recently as Marketing Director. Between his automotive positions at Porsche and Piëch, the graduate economist and political scientist was CEO of the high-end audio company Burmester in Berlin.

Karsten Schulze, an automobile technician, was born in Berlin, managed a medium-sized bus and travel company for almost 30 years and has been a member of ADAC since 1982, with a brief interruption. Among other things, he was an honorary member of the presidium and the plenary assembly of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the German Chamber of Commerce (DIHK), was a member of the SME advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Economics, was active in the Federal Association of German Bus and Coach Operators e.V. and is currently a member of the advisory board of the Berlin Public Transport Company BVG AöR, board member for technology of ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. and board member of the eFuel Alliance. Karsten Schulze has been Technology President of ADAC e.V. since 2019. In his presidential honorary office, he is particularly concerned about affordable and safe mobility for all, the fair handling of our data, and a climate-friendly solution for internal combustion engines.

Photo: ©ADAC/Peter Neusser

Michele Viglianisi is currently Head of Circular Economy & Green Refinery in Eni. He joined Eni in 1994 and since then he has been active in engineering and technical activities in the field of refinery. He held different roles always increasing his responsibilities, till managing several Eni refineries (Venice, Taranto e Sannazzaro). During his experience as Head of Venice biorefinery, he had the opportunity take part in the first conversion of the world from traditional refinery assets to biorefinery, leading people to face an important professional and cultural transformation. In the current role he supervises Eni biorefineries (Gela and Venice) and identifies new initiatives for feedstock diversification, for bio-fuels and sustainable mobility development. Moreover, in conjunction with other teams involved, he outlines the Eni GTR&M circular economy positioning, based on the Eni strategy. Michele Viglianisi is member of the board of the eFuel Alliance.

Jens-Christian Senger is Managing Director of ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH and Chairman of the Board of ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH. He holds a Master of Engineering in Petroleum Engineering and has many years of professional experience in upstream operations and technical engineering. Before joining ExxonMobil in 2002, he held positions at Petroleum Development Oman and BEB Erdöl & Erdgas GmbH. Among other positions, he is Chairman of the Board of Bundesverband Erdgas, Erdöl und Geoenergie e.V. (BVEG) as well as a board member of the German Petroleum Industry Association (Mineralölwirtschaftsverband e.V.) and the eFuel Alliance.

Liana Gouta is the Director of Energy Policy & International Affairs at HELLENIC PETROLEUM Group of Companies (HELPE). She holds a Chemical Engineering Degree, MSc, with Honors and she started her career as a process engineer at Thessaloniki Industrial Complex of HELPE. She has many years of experience in several managerial positions, such as energy policy, change management, operations, process design, product development, safety&health, environment management. She also worked as a parliamentary advisor to the European Parliament, on Industry, Energy and Environment. She is a Board member at HELPE Kyparissiakos Gulf SA and alternate Board member of the European Petroleum Refiners Association. She is also the Chairwoman of Downstream Committee at IENE-Institute of Energy for South-East Europe. She was active in associations and socially engaged on environmental topics, entrepreneurship, leadership and women’s empowerment for many years. Liana is a member of the board of the eFuel Alliance.

Dr. Volkmar Pflug is Vice President Energy Economics at Siemens Energy and Field-of-Action Lead for Power-to-X. In his capacity, he is striving to make hydrogen and Power-to-X solutions and services a vital element of Siemens Energy’s business portfolio. One of the first project initiatives now under implementation, had been about eFuels. Before, he held various management positions in the power industry and IT industry.
Volkmar holds a Master degree in Physics, a Master degree in Business Economics and a PhD in Computer Science. He is a board member of the eFuel Alliance and of VDMA Power-to-X-for-Applications.

Dr. Peter Seifried is member of the board of the eFuel Alliance. Dr. Seifried, who holds a doctorate in chemical engineering, began his industrial career in process development at Bayer AG before moving to the petroleum industry at UK Wesseling. He then headed the lubricants business at DEA Mineraloel AG and later the refineries, supply and logistics and crude oil purchasing divisions. After DEA was taken over by Shell, he worked in portfolio management in London. In addition, he took over the chairmanship of the management of Shell Deutschland Oil GmbH in Hamburg in 2008 until his retirement. He was active in associations and on supervisory boards of various companies over many years.

Toni, Ferdinand Porsche’s great grandson, attended Princeton University. He spent 12 years working in China, mainly in branded content, for leading automotive companies. He founded the PAE Group, an incubator for creative businesses in Beijing, and returned to Europe in 2015 to co-found Piëch Automotive.

Carl Nyberg is member of the board at eFuel Alliance. He is Executive Vice President at Neste and responsible for the Renewable Road Transportation business unit. He has a M. Sc. in Economics and Business Administration. Carl Nyberg joined Neste in 2005 and served in various positions at Neste, most recently as Vice President of Sales Scandinavia of the Renewable Products business area 2016–2019. He was Member of the Board of SPBI (Swedish Petroleum and Biofuels Institute) 2018–2019.

Jürgen Roth is a board member of the eFuel Alliance and head of the newly founded eFuel Alliance Austria. He is Federal Chairman of the Austrian Energy Trade, Vice President of EuroCommerce, member of the Board of Verbund and member of the European Economic and Social Committee.. Jürgen Roth studied International Economics in the USA and Austria and has been working in the field of energy trading, logistics and gas stations since 1998. Since 2015 he is CEO and owner of Tank Roth GmbH.

Nils is co-founder of Sunfire GmbH, a global leader in electrolysis and fuel cells founded in 2010. As CEO and Managing Director, he is responsible for the strategic positioning and leadership of the company. Since February 2021, he is member of the executive board of the eFuel Alliance. Since 2016, Nils has been a member of the Board of Directors and Energy Chair of Hydrogen Europe. In 2020, Nils was appointed by the European Commission to the CEO group of the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance. Nils studied business administration and business law at the European Business School and Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He is also a founding member of the Desertec Foundation, a non-profit foundation making green Desert- Energy a reality, and a Young Leader of Atlantik Brücke e.V., a non-profit association in service of German- American Friendship.

Dr. Martin Berger, Head of Central Research & Advance Engineering at MAHLE International since the beginning of 2020 , began his studies in telematics with a focus on computer science and electronics at the Technical University in Graz in 1993. He then wrote his doctorate in the field of applied computer science in 2001. Born in Bolzano, he has since held various management positions at an engineering service provider and joined the MAHLE Group in 2014 as Managing Director for MAHLE Powertrain. He is a board member of the eFuel Alliance.

Kirsten Lühmann is a member of the Sounding Board of the eFuel Alliance. She was a police officer for the state of Lower Saxony from 1983 to 2009, where she was, among other things, a member of the Eastern Control Group for the control of heavy goods traffic, focusing on load securing and technical defects on vehicles. From 2007 to 2022, she was elected three times as deputy chairwoman of the civil servants' association and collective bargaining union. From 2009 to 2022 she was a member of the German Bundestag and from 2013 to 2022 she was the transport policy spokeswoman of the SPD parliamentary group. She is one of the vice-presidents of Verkehrswacht Deutschland.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Sterner researches and teaches the fields of hydrogen, energy storage, energy economics and integration of renewable energies at OTH Regensburg. He developed and patented the storage technology Power-to-Gas with Dr. Specht and is the namesake of Power-to-X. He acts in advisory boards on hydrogen for the German government and the European Commission. He initiated the VDI guideline 4635 on Power-to-X, scientifically accompanied the development of H2Global and is active in VDE and IPCC. Together with Prof. Stadler, he has published the standard work 'Handbook of Energy Storage' with Springer-Nature-Editors. In addition to numerous scientific publications, he has given well over 600 lectures on the energy transition and received several awards on PtX.

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralph Mayer graduated in 2001 with a degree in engineering. He then worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Automotive Engineering at the Technical University of Munich from 2001-2007. In 2007-2014, he worked in chassis development at Daimler AG, Sindelfingen. Since 2014 he has held the professorship of vehicle system design at TU Chemnitz and since 2017 he has headed the µ-Club as a long-standing association of experts from industry and academia in the field of brake technology and has been involved in the program committee of several symposia. Prof. Dr. Ralph Mayer is a member of the eFuel Alliance's Sounding board.

Dr. Felix Leach is an Associate Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor in Engineering Science at Keble College. Heis a Chartered Engineer (MIMechE), a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. His research interests are in combustion, and specifically emissions and efficiency in thermal propulsion systems. Felix’s work has focussed on, amongst others, fuel effects on combustion and emissions both in diesel and gasoline applications. He has a substantial ongoing interest in both bio- and e-fuels. He is the author of the book Racing Toward Zero: The Untold Story of Driving Green (SAE, 2021), which advocates for a life-cycle approach to rapid decarbonisation of transportation. Dr. Felix Leach is a member of the eFuel Alliance's Sounding board.

Kurt-Christoph von Knobelsdorff is a graduate economist and, following professional positions at the Association of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) and the German Association of Family Businesses, he held senior positions in the Berlin Senate and the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Schleswig-Holstein. Before joining NOW GmbH as Managing Director, he was Head of Department at the Brandenburg Ministry of Energy.

With its coordination of federal government programmes, political consulting and networking at the interface of politics, industry, municipalities and science, NOW GmbH makes a major contribution to achieving the climate objectives to which Germany has committed itself.

Mr von Knobelsdorff is member of the sounding board of the eFuel Alliance.

David Chiaramonti, PhD, is full professor of Energy Systems and Energy Economics at the Polytechnic of Turin and chairs the Renewable Energy Consortium for Research and Demonstration (RE-CORD). He authored over 180 publications and participated in over 27 research and development projects of the European Union. Mr. Chiaramonti is member of EUBCE (European Biomass Conference & Exhibition), ISAF (International Symposium on Alcohol Fuels), and ICAE International Conferences, he was former member of IEA-Bioenergy, Task 34 and Task 39 (Liquid Biofuel), and today member of UN-ICAO task force Fuel Transport Group on Alternative Fuels for aviation and ETIP-B. He was the scientific coordinator of the DG Energy Alternative and Renewable Transport Fuel Forum. He manages the H2020 projects BIO4A (on Sustainable Aviation fuels) and BIKE (on low ILUC feedstock biofuels), and is member of the Board of the Italian Cluster SPRING on Bioeconomy.

He was awarded the Linneborn Prize for outstanding merits in biomass at EUBCE 2017 in Stockholm, and included in the Stanford University list of 2% most cited scientists.

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Geringer is university professor for powertrain and automotive technology and director of the Institute for Powertrains and Automotive Technology at the Vienna University of Technology.  His research focuses on conventional and alternative powertrains, exhaust gas after-treatment, alternative fuels and forecasts of future vehicle technology considering the challenges confronting society today. Since 2012, he is member of the board of the Austrian Society of Automotive Engineers (ÖVK) and President since 2017.

Dr. Michael Vesper is member of our sounding board since February 2021. He has decades of political experience and an extensive network of contacts from the worlds of politics, sport and economics. He is a founding member of the party “Die Grünen” (The Green Party) and was Chief of the party from 1983 to 1990. From 1990 to 1995 he was Parliamentary Director of the state party, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, in North Rhine Westphalia (NRW). As a member of NRW state government, Dr. Vesper led various departments between 1995 and 2005, until his final position as Minister for Urban Development, Housing, Culture and Sport. At the same time, he held the position of deputy state premier of North Rhine Westphalia under the direction of Johannes Rau, Wolfgang Clement and Peer Steinbrück.

Norbert Haug is a motorsport journalist. He spent more than two decades as motorsport manager and vice president at Mercedes and was responsible for the group's return to Formula 1, signing up motorsport greats such as Michael Schumacher, among others. Norbert Haug is a member of the sounding board of the eFuel Alliance.

Prof. Öivind Andersson is Professor of Combustion Engines at Lund University, Sweden, and a sounding board member of the eFuel Alliance. After his research studies in combustion physics, Öivind Andersson worked for seven years with the development of diesel combustion systems at Volvo Car Corporation. His research is mainly concerned with combustion in diesel engines. In 2012, he published the book "Experiment!: Planning, Implementing and Interpreting" with John Wiley & Sons.

Johannes Remmel is a member of the Sounding Board of the eFuel Alliance. From 1995 to 2010 and from 2017 to 2022, he was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens). Between 2000 and 2010, he was parliamentary manager of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament and from 2010 - 2017 Minister for Climate Protection, Environment, Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Consumer Protection of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. From 2017 to 2022, he held the position of Spokesman for European Policy and Urban Development of the state parliamentary group.

Ole von Beust is a lawyer and founding member of the eFuel Alliance. Until February 2021 he was managing director and changed then in the sounding board. From 1993 to 2001 he was the parliamentary leader in the Hamburg Parliament and from 2001 to 2010 was the First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Furthermore, he was also a member of the Federal Executive of the CDU in Germany. He continues to advise the council, currently helping the Committee on the Future. He has extensive media experience. His detailed knowledge of political decision-making processes and his non-partisan approach to tackling problems provide him with access to the politically relevant camps.

Ralf Diemer is managing director of the eFuel Alliance e.V. based in Berlin and Brussels. During his law degree in Tuebingen, he worked in the Baden-Wuerttemberg state parliament and in the European Parliament. He then started his professional career in Berlin as an office manager in the German parliament. After moving to the German Association of the Automotive Industry, he headed the Brussels branch there for ten years and then the department for Economic, Trade and Climate Protection Policy in Berlin. He was involved in numerous legislative processes on a national and European level, with a focus on climate, environmental and trade policy. Political interest and involvement in politics have always been of central importance to him. Ralf Diemer is Senior Consultant at the consulting company von Beust & Coll. Beratungsgesellschaft.

Georg Ehrmann is a lawyer, vice managing director of the eFuel Alliance and since 2013 Managing Partner of von Beust & Coll. Beratungsgesellschaft. Within the eFuel Alliance he is responsible for finance, press, human resources and legal affairs. For 13 years, Georg Ehrmann headed an international NGO that was based in Berlin and Brussels. Prior to that he was a legal advisor for a physicians' health insurance association. As an expert in UN and EU affairs and official adviser to the Federal Government, with numerous appearances before committees in the EU Parliament, Bundestag, Joint Federal Committee, and Landtag (state parliament), and as an expert in committees of inquiry, he has extensive experience in specific legislative procedures and political lobbying.

Dr. Tobias Block is an industrial engineer and Head of Strategy and Content at the eFuel alliance. He is an all-rounder when it comes to technical, economic and political challenges at the interface between renewable energies and the automotive industry. After studying energy and environmental management at the University of Flensburg he obtained his doctorate on eFuels business models at the University of St. Gallen. Following his studies, he worked for more than five years in the technical development department of AUDI AG. As the success of synthetic fuels depends more on the political framework conditions than on technical solutions, he joined the German Association of the Automotive Industry (Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V.) in the summer of 2018 and coordinated the political activities related to renewable fuels for more than two years – initially in Berlin and later from Brussels.

Algara Castle is head of EU affairs of the eFuel Alliance e.V. based in Brussels and London. With more than seven years of experience as a spokesperson in the European Parliament, she provides expertise on EU policy and regulation, communications and outreach to European decision-makers across a range of sectors. Algara studied at the Otto Suhr Institute of political science in Berlin and started her career in the German parliament before moving to Brussels to work for the social democrats in the European Parliament. In 2015 she won an Alfa Fellowship in Moscow. Algara Castle is an Executive Consultant at von Beust & Coll. Beratungsgesellschaft.

Lars Hummel is policy officer for monitoring, research and internal communication at the eFuel Alliance e.V. in Berlin. Before joining the eFuel Alliance e.V., Lars Hummel worked for Evonik Industries AG and the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) in Brussels. He completed his master's degree at the University of Konstanz (MA Political and Administrative Science) and the University of Utrecht (MSc European Governance).

Kristine Schmidt is Head of Administration and Policy Officer at the Berlin office of the eFuel Alliance. She supports the management board in operational and strategic tasks.  

She completed her master’s degree in Political Science at the Institute for East European Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Before joining the eFuel Alliance, Kristine Schmidt worked for a member of the European Commission in Brussels and for the country office of the GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation) in Ukraine. She has also worked in the diplomatic field. As part of the International Parliamentary Scholarship, she also gained practical experience in the German Bundestag. 

Marlene Hermfisse is Policy Officer for Monitoring, Research and Internal Communication of the eFuel Alliance e.V. at the Berlin office and is responsible for following current policy developments on the topic of eFuels. Marlene graduated in Economics and Slavic Studies in Berlin and is currently studying M.A. Eastern European Studies with a focus on politics at Freie Universität. She previously worked for the German Eastern Business Association (Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft), where she gained experience in association work.

Michaela Korb is head of the administration at the Hamburg office where, in her role as a project manager, she supports the eFuel Alliance. She completed her studies in business management with a specialisation in marketing in Kiel. Ms. Korb has a variety of experience working in different branches, such as the automotive, sports marketing, tourism and education sectors.

Anja Baer is responsible for press affairs at eFuel Alliance. She has been at home in PR and marketing for 20 years. After studying marketing and gaining initial professional experience in marketing, she managed the communications department of a large NGO for many years and was thus responsible for all areas of public relations. As a PR consultant, she advises and accompanies specialist teams in terms of communication, from the initial idea to professional presentation to the public.

Claudia Bender is responsible for press affairs at eFuel Alliance. She is a communicator, media trainer and entrepreneur. For more than 20 years, she has been producing films and videos, talk shows and reports - for linear television and digital moving image. She began her professional career at WDR, journalism led her via ProSieben to SAT.1 and back to ARD.