Keynote Speakers

We are very excited to start introducing to our keynote speakers for NZEC 2025!

Professor Richard Green

Richard Green has been Professor of Sustainable Energy Business at Imperial College Business School since 2011. He was previously Professor of Energy Economics and Director of the Institute for Energy Research and Policy at the University of Birmingham, and Professor of Economics at the University of Hull, and  was the 2016 Chair of the British Institute for Energy . Professor Green started his career at the Department of Applied Economics and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He has spent time on secondment to the Office of Electricity Regulation and has held visiting appointments at the World Bank, the University of California Energy Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been studying the economics and regulation of the electricity industry for over 30 years. He has written extensively on market power in wholesale electricity markets and has also worked on transmission pricing. More recently, the main focus of his work has been on the impact of low-carbon generation (nuclear and renewables) and energy storage on the electricity market, and the business and policy implications of this.

Professor Hicham Idriss

Hicham Idriss received his BSc, MSc, PhD, and Habilitation from the U. of Strasbourg (France). He started his academic career at the Department of Chemistry, U. of Auckland in New Zealand (1995 to 2008), then moved to the U. of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon U. (UK) to hold the Aberdeen Energy Futures Chair and Prof. of Chemistry position. He moved to corporate research at SABIC/KAUST (Saudi Arabia) in 2011. After retiring from SABIC in 2021, Hicham moved to the Institute of Functional Interfaces at KIT (Germany) and is also a visiting scientist at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (Karlsruhe). His main research area is in catalysis and surface reactions of oxides.

Dr. Cristiano Marantes

Dr Cristiano Marantes is a highly experienced energy sector executive with an extensive engineering background and an informed worldview on the potential of technologies and business opportunities that will likely emerge in a low emissions energy future. Personally, he brings to the position a life-long passion for enabling this future, through strong leadership, innovation and knowledge of new low emissions energy solutions.
Cristiano has moved from Vector Limited where he held several positions including GM Technology and Innovation, and Head of Engineering. He focused on the design and
development of new technology and commercial low emissions energy solutions. He was also responsible for the design and integration of new technologies such as battery storage, micro-grids, electric vehicles and solar, into the Vector electricity distribution networks. Cristiano was Vector’s representative as a Global Partner for the Elemental Excelerator, which is one of the largest low emissions energy solution accelerators in the world and there he assisted start-ups with the demonstration and commercialisation of their solutions.
Before moving to New Zealand, Cristiano worked for UK Power Networks in England as the Head of Low Carbon Innovation. He also gained expertise in bid and project management, as well developing investment cases for the adoption of new technologies.
Originally from Portugal, Cristiano holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manchester in the UK.
Cristiano started his position as Chief Executive in mid-August 2020. He and his wife have two young children.

Professor Deo Prasad

Scientia Professor Deo Prasad is among the internationally recognised Australian experts in the field of environment and sustainability with a focus on climate change, clean energy and net zero carbon innovations. His experience covers practice as a consultant, long standing experience as a thought leader and a distinguished academic, significant leadership and governance expertise, all with notable recognition from all levels of government and professions as noted below.  His expertise is very much in science and evidence-based approaches with a very high level of understanding of the innovation processes, the energy and carbon ecosystem with a high level of understanding of the human behaviour and social change considerations.   .  He currently is the CEO of the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub with ambitions to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, whilst creating jobs and economic growth in NSW on a massive scale. Previously as the CEO and chief investigator of the National Research and Innovation Hub for the Built Environment: CRC for Low Carbon Living [Home | Low Carbon Living CRC (unsw.edu.au) ] Deo led projects with industry and innovation within the low carbon and energy areas.  This CRC delivered on knowledge, new technologies, evidence for policies and once in a generation capacity build in this field.