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Pilar holds an Executive MBA from ESADE Business School (Spain) and a double-degree in Economics from the Public University of Navarra (Spain) and University of Abertay Dundee (UK) in European Economics and Management. She complemented her education and working experince in the US and India.
Pilar has been working at shecco for over five years, during which time she has contributed to the market development of natural refrigerants based technologies through the ATMOsphere conferences and has strenghted shecco's relations with customers and other stakeholders globally, with a special focus on Europe and America.
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With a background in global sales and marketing for home appliances Koichiro Arakawa joined Panasonic in 2016.
In Panasonic, he is working on overseas business development of condensing units in Cold Chain Business Division.
Currently, he has focused on promoting their CO2 condensing unit for small format stores in Europe.
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Paul Arrowsmith is an experienced refrigeration design engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, Paul is responsible for the design specification and cost models for Sainsburys refrigeration systems, and for the evaluation of new and evolving technologies. He is responsible for delivering the refrigeration operational carbon emission reductions in line with Sainsburys Sustainability Plan.
Paul has extensive experience in the application, design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of refrigeration installations in commercial retail, food and distribution refrigeration sector.
Prior to joining Sainsburys he was the Engineering Director of a UK refrigeration contractor with responsibilities for engineering, their natural refrigerant training academy and a plant production facility.
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Javier Atencia Escudero has a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, specialising in the research of solutions and specific control systems for refrigeration applications, air conditioning and energy recovery. He currently coordinates and directs the Tewis engineers’ team, developing projects both nationally and internationally, and creating strategic plans for energy efficiency. During his professional career he has attended and presented at different conferences and training sessions on air conditioning and refrigeration, with a focus on eco-efficient solutions in commercial and industrial buildings.
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Laurent Bataille joined Gecina as Technical Director in 2018 and is responsible for office and residential assets. He also provides support and expertise for the Group’s development projects and investments.
A Polytech Lille graduate, Laurent Bataille, has nearly 25 years of experience in the mass retail sector, after starting out in his career with Bouygues. He notably worked for Auchan, where he held various roles in the group's technical and real estate departments, before moving to the Carrefour group in 2011 as VP Group Assets, then Technical Director France.
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Marie Battesti is in charge of shecco's worldwide policy and regulatory analysis relevant for wider adoption of natural refrigerants-based technology in the HVAC&R sector. She is part of shecco’s Market Development department, which provides services such as market research, public affairs, and international project management.
Marie Battesti holds a Masters degree (cum laude) in Political Science from Sciences Po Bordeaux (France) and is a graduate from the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands).
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Mirko graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Padua with a Master’s degree in Refrigeration. Mirko joined SCM FRIGO at the end of 2001 as a Project Engineer. Since 2004 he has been engaged in the design and development of CO2 systems and since 2009 of NH3 systems. He currently holds the position of Technical Director and R&D Manager of the SCM Group.
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Ing. Marco Buoni, a European expert in refrigeration and air conditioning, has been the Vice President of AREA (Air conditioning and Refrigeration European Association) since 2010. AREA voices the interests of 20 national associations from 17 European countries, representing more than 13,000 companies, which employ some 110,000 people. Buoni is also an expert in capacity building in refrigeration and air conditioning, leading the training activities related to certification and best practices. He is highly active as the Technical Director of Centro Studi Galileo in the organisation of training and conferences in refrigeration technologies worldwide. Every year he leads over 300 training courses for up to 3000 participants.
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Guillaume is responsible for driving all marketing activities, including product roadmap and communications plans.
Guillaume is based in France, with a background in Engineering, Sales and Project management. He joined Carrier in 1996 and possesses a Master of Science degree from the INSA Lyon and an MBA from the ESC Reims.
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Marc Chasserot is a specialist in natural refrigeration with over 15 years of experience in the HVAC&R sector, starting as the Marketing Manager for the Norsk Hydro business unit specialised in CO2 transcritical refrigeration and heating. He worked closely with several Japanese manufacturers selling the market innovative "CO2 Ecocute heatpumps".
In 2006 Marc founded the industry leading website for CO2 cooling and heating experts worldwide, called www.R744.com. This was followed by three additional industry resources for hydrocarbons, water and ammonia (namely: www.hydrocarbons21.com, www.R718.com and www.ammonia21.com).
Marc is co-founder and CEO of shecco, an independent market development company specialised in bringing Natural Refrigerants 'faster to market', working with numerous companies worldwide. Marc has chaired and organised several international workshops bringing together leading policy and industry experts to discuss 'how to bring natural refrigerants' faster to market, known as 'ATMOsphere'. He is also an active member of ASHRAE.
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Henrik Christensen joined Reftronix early 2017 and is heading sales, marketing, and business development.Reftronix’mission is to develop electronic solutions for the global HVAC/R industry in order to assist the industry in complying with regulatory mandated use of natural refrigerants and energy efficiency requirements.
Prior to joining Reftronix, Henrik was Global Platform Manager, Food Retail, for Parker Hannifin. In this role Henrik was responsible for the Global Food Retail Electronic Solution business and managed the CO2 solution rollout in North America. Before this, he held the position of Senior Director at Danfoss North America responsible for marketing, development, and operations, of the electronic solution business.
Henrik holds a Masters Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, and an MBA from Loyola University, Baltimore USA.
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Ingrid Camilla Claussen is working as a Research Manager leading 14 researchers focusing on energy efficiency in industrial processes, e.g. developing innovative heat pumping solution using natural refrigerants.
Her background is mechanical engineering and she holds a PhD within heat and mass transfer in porous materials. She is the coordinator of the H2020 funded EU project SuperSmart, aiming for a faster implementation of energy efficient heating and cooling systems in the supermarket sector in Europe, through dissemination, training and supporting the introduction of a new EU Ecolabel for food retail stores.
She has extensive experience at a national and international level. Ingrid is currently Project Manager of HighEffLab (Norwegian National Laboratory for an energy efficient industry) and is a member of the EERA JP EEIP group.
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After obtaining his Master degree in Energy Engineering (Padua University, 2015), Matteo Dal Corso joined CAREL working as an Application Specialist for food retail refrigeration application.
He is currently in charge of the development and deployment of electronic controllers dedicated to centralized supermarket and condensing units by defining marketing strategies, proposing new solutions and supporting the sales network with technical and application consulting.
During the last period he has been focused mainly on the use of DC compressors in CO2 transcritical application.
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Alvaro is a shareholder and co-founder of shecco as an independent entity. He was instrumental in the early success of shecco’s communication platforms (R744.com, hydrocarbons21.com, ammonia21.com) and market research services. With a background in social sciences and international relations, he has spent the last six years working at the European Commission as an Human Resources expert, overseeing several change projects and helping to set up two new Agencies of the EU from scratch. As of March 2016, Alvaro is back at shecco to help its further international development and lead the media team in its efforts to share relevant stories, news and updates on the global transition towards natural refrigerants.
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Laurent has an engineering degree in Agriculture and a postgraduate degree in Business Administration. His first job was as a shrimp farmer in Senegal. This is where he realized how a good refrigeration system is critical for food preservation!
After his 3 years consulting experience in the field of seafood processing and trading, he joined GENEGLACE, a GEA company manufacturing industrial ice machines. Since then, Laurent has pursued his career in industry and he has been working for 6 years at Fives in Nantes.
Fives manufactures filling machines for the automotive assembly lines. Laurent is in charge of the business development in the HVAC industries, with a specific focus on leak detection and charging processes.
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Alessandro Di Maio is a global Industrial Product Technical Advisor for compressor oils at Mobil Industrial Lubricants. In his current role, he provides practical and technical lubrication support to customers and resellers for a range of applications that use refrigeration, circulating and rolling oils. Alessandro boasts more than 23 years of experience across various engineering roles. In the 21 years in which he has worked with Mobil, Alessandro has held various positions, from managing relationships with leading equipment builders, to sales and field engineering services.
Prior to joining Mobil in 1998, he began his career in the Navy in 1996 with responsibility on propulsion systems, after graduating as Mechanical Engineer with full marks and honour in 1995.
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Simone Dugaria is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Padova. He is a member of the Research Group on Sustainable Thermal Energy Technology (STET) supervised by Professor Davide Del Col. Simone Dugaria received his Master and PhD on Energy Engineering at the University of Padova. His actual research activity is mainly focused on commercial carbon dioxide refrigeration systems. He is currently collaborating with the compressor manufacturer Frascold SpA for the development of environmental friendly refrigerant applications.
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Giulia graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree in 2014 with an experimental thesis on modeling the thermal exchange of closed-circuit evaporative towers. After two years of working experience in areas other than refrigeration, she started working at Euroklimat in 2017 as product developer in the R&D department, focusing on Propane and natural refrigerants.
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Sergio Girotto graduated from Padova University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In 2004 he founded Enex srl, a company specialising in refrigeration and heat pump systems based on natural refrigerants. Before this, he worked in the field of commercial refrigeration for almost 20 years, covering various technical roles including design, research and development as well as manufacturing.
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Giovanni Gonzato, graduated at Padua University, is a Mechanical Engineer specialized in heat transfer solutions, air conditioning and refrigeration systems. He started working for Climaveneta SpA (now Mitsubishi Company) as project leader for Chillers and Heat pumps.
He continued his experience working for Alfa Laval supporting the development of heat transfer solutions for two-phase applications in air conditioning, heat pumps and refrigeration.
Today he is a Sales and Application Engineer in Frascold, continuously in contact with customers, supporting the compressors development based on the applications demand.
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Vincent Grass is Refrigeration Team Leader in the Corporate Operations – Engineering Services department at Nestlé. He is responsible for expanding Nestlé‘s use of natural refrigerants worldwide.
He is involved in implementing natural refrigerant projects in Nestlé facilities across the globe, as well as risk mitigation related to using natural refrigerants. Prior to joining Nestlé seven years ago, he spent two years at Johnson Controls (JCI) and 10 years at Cofely Axima (formerly QUIRI). During that time he was primarily involved in projects using natural refrigerants ammonia and CO2.
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Vicente Guilabert is currently the Vice General Manager leading R&D and Quality at Huayi Compressor Barcelona, S.L. He has an Industrial Engineer degree from the “Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya” and a PDD from the IESE Business School. He has made an extensive professional career within the HVAC&R sector. Mr. Guilabert is currently the head of the R&D team at Huayi Compressor Group for light commercial refrigeration compressors. He has an outstanding knowledge of the hermetic compressor technologies, combined with great expertise in light commercial refrigeration market trends. He has also participated as a speaker in international conferences.
Before joining Huayi Compressor Barcelona 15 years ago, he worked for Hitachi Air Conditioning for 5 years as the Technical Customer Service Centre Manager. His responsibilities were linked to the technical assistance of customers worldwide.
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Professor Dr.-Ing. Armin Hafner has recently started at NTNU Department of Energy and Process Engineering in Trondheim, Norway, as a professor in refrigeration technology. During the past two decades Armin has been working at SINTEF with research topics related to CO2 refrigeration technology applied in various applications.
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Sascha Hellmann grew up in the refrigeration business in his father’s company. He joined “Linde Kältetechnik” in 1999 as a trainee for refrigeration plant mechanic. He worked for several years as a service technician for commercial refrigeration (HFC refrigerants), then spent years in the industrial department on ammonia systems. In 2006 he graduated as a “Master Craftsman for Refrigeration Systems” - the highest skill level of a professional technician in Germany, and in 2010 obtained a diploma in Mechanical Engineering in Refrigeration System Technology.
In 2010 he began working in the Carrier Research & Design Center for commercial refrigeration as a Development Engineer for mechanical systems. Since 2013, he has held a position as a Project Leader for mechanical systems, mainly responsible for natural refrigerants such as CO2 or hydrocarbons, and increasing energy efficiency of transcritical CO2 systems.
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Kenneth Hoffmann received a Master's Degree in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark in 2000 followed by four years of working as a refrigeration consultant for the food and dairy industry in Denmark. In the last 13 years he has been working in the UK for industrial refrigeration companies. Since March 2013, he has been working as a Product Manager for Heat Pumps for GEA. This role involves development of industrial heat pumps application and training of GEA’s global sales team. Over the years he has published many articles and technical papers on high efficiency industrial ammonia heat pump applications.
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Mads is experienced within trans critical CO2 systems where he has been involved in the design and development of systems especially within electronic controls.
October 2017 Mads joined Danfoss as segment manager Food Retail with the task to focus on the Danfoss portfolio within natural refrigeration systems.
Mads holds a Bachelor in Technology Management and Marine Engineering. He brings experience from his previous positions as R&D and electrical engineering manager at Advansor, a leading OEM within trans critical CO2 systems.
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Michael R. Ingvardsen has more than 29 years of experience in the Mobile Air Conditioning sector and currently is the Global Technical Training Manager at NISSENS. His responsibilities include technical training classes, technical investigation in claims and warrenty cases as well as new projects.
Prior to his current role, Michael's past experience and positions include: customer service at Virginia KMP (based in Texas, USA); Owner of CHRISTONIK (Denmark); Product Manager at MECA Car Parts (Sweden); Product Manager/GTTM at NISSENS (Denmark); and MACPartners President.
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Anders is experienced within CO2 business and product development and has worked in various positions over the last 10+ years, tasked with growing the CO2 business. Anders holds a MBA and bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
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Isroil received an MBA in US, followed by 2 years experience in investment at the Bank of America.
Since 2010 he has been involved in development and project management at UNDP Uzbekistan.
Starting from 2016, he has been coordinating implementation of demonstration projects on application of alternative and energy efficient technologies using ozone-friendly and low GWP natural refrigerants.
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Alex Kuzma has a BSc in Metallurgical Engineering and heads up the Engineering Services Department at Woolworths (Pty) Ltd, a South African based retailer with Head Offices in Cape Town.
Woolworths embarked on their “Good Business Journey” over 10 years ago in order to strategically position themselves at the forefront of sustainability and transformation in the global marketplace.
Refrigeration design and performance play a key role in delivering on the challenging targets related to energy efficiency and carbon emissions. Investment in natural refrigerants and energy savings technologies are a huge part of the Good Business Journey strategy.
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Kenneth Madsen is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering of IHÅ in Denmark. Between 2001-2008, he worked at the Danish Technological Institute at the heat pump and refrigeration section, with a focus on Food Retail. He has held held various positions at Danfoss before joining Advansor as business development manager in 2018.
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After graduating with a degree in Engineering from Padua University, Diego Malimpensa joined CAREL in 2006 working as a Product Manager for food retail refrigeration field controllers. He is now in charge of the business management of the “CAREL retail sistema” portfolio, coordinating the deployment of CAREL's solution for food retail systems. As a marketer, he is directly involved in product design and the development of emerging technologies. During the last few years, he has been focusing on CO2 solutions and BLDC compressors applied in commercial refrigeration.
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Manfred Mahnert is an experienced refrigeration engineer with many years experiences in CO2 technology. Manfred is responsible for sales and technical cases in the countries Germany, Austria and Switzerland for Advansor. Supporting our customer and helping them find the right solution and install high quality CO2 Booster is one of his main tasks and pleasure. Prior to joining Advansor he was product manager for natural refrigerants at a german rack manufacturer.
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After graduating in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering in 1993 in Padua, Italy, Francesco Mastrapasqua started his career as a Commercial and Marketing Manager in the area of robotic and handling factory automation. Since 2003, he has gained a wide experience in business development, international sales, key account and marketing in several HVAC&R multinational companies. Since 2009 at Epta, he has focused on natural refrigeration and environmentally sustainable systems applied to the commercial retail business.
Epta has a leading position as a turnkey system provider and offers to its clients fully comprehensive assistance and training. from the choice of the ideal solution to its implementation and maintenance, including a permanent training center in the CO2 Excellence Center in the UK.
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Lydia has a strong background in hospitality management, including events planning, sales, customer service and reception. Having had an active interest in sustainable business already for several years, Lydia joined shecco in 2016 to strengthen the expansion of the ATMOsphere community globally. With the globally growing demand in natural technology solutions, Lydia is responsible for shecco’s event management around the world, including all ATMOsphere conferences and events.
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Mr. Michael Matthias is heading the technical centre Europe in Bad Nauheim, Germany since 2012.
Prior to his current assignment, Mr. Matthias was leading the advanced product management department for the development and commercialization of new environmentally friendly product lines.
Mr. Matthias holds an engineering degree for car engineering from HAW Hamburg, University for applied Sciences and an MBA from Henley Management College.
Former to his career at Sanden of Europe, Mr. Matthias hold several positions in Sales, Project Management and Engineering at Visteon and Ford Motor company.
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Charlotte’s background is in Politics and Economics at University College Dublin but she has had a long interest in journalism - having worked previously for the BBC and Irish radio stations. As a reporter in shecco, Charlotte is covering breaking news in the natural refrigerants industry. She currently writes for online industry platforms and contributes regularly to Accelerate Magazines
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Andreas Meier has several years of experience in management functions within the refrigeration sector. He has been a member of TEKO's management since August 2015. He was previously President of Sales D / A / CH at GEA Refrigeration Technologies, based in Berlin - Germany, and before that he was the Head of Marketing and Product Management at GEA Küba GmbH.
He also worked in Zug - Switzerland, as Sales & Marketing Manager at a Japanese manufacturer for industrial refrigeration.
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Franziska has 10 years of professional experience in the field of climate-friendly technologies in HVAC&R, working with the private and public sector.
At the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), she is working on the cross-sectoral development and implementation of projects related to the Montreal Protocol and the phase down of HFCs. One of the key objectives of current projects is the establishment of partnerships between national and international technology suppliers and linking them with financing institutions and mechanisms to facilitate investments for supporting the introduction of best available NatRef, energy-efficient technologies and practices in developing countries.
Franziska holds a Master’s degree in Business and Economics from Humboldt University in Berlin and a degree in International Management from Bordeaux Business School.
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Silvia Minetto is a researcher at the Construction Technologies Instituteof the Italian National Research Council (CNR), in Padova (Italy). She has a PhD in Refrigeration Technology from the University of Padova. Her research mainly deals with thermodynamics of the inverse cycles, refrigerating equipment and heat pumps, components and systems optimisation with reference to energy saving and with the use of natural refrigerants. She has been working with CO2as a refrigerant during all her career. She is currently involved in the H2020 projects SuperSmart and MultiPACK.
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Federica works as environmental engineer at the National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA). She deals with emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases: preparation of the National Inventory of emissions into the atmosphere of GHG according to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol, with particular reference to F-gas emissions; long-term emission scenarios of F-gas, impact studies of mitigation measures, following the ratification of the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.
Federica has been involved in a project with the Ministry of the Environment on the study of alternatives to hydrofluorocarbons in Italy in different sectors (refrigeration, air conditioning, fire prevention, foam and aerosol).
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Mr. Munkoe and PURIX are committed to take lead of the global Green cooling market with cooling systems based on natural refrigerants and energy input from renewable energy sources.
Merging Sustainability with core business, Mr. Munkoe has years of experience with Climate Change and corporate social responsibility in global industries.
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Nadine studied business administration focussed on marketing and controlling. She is part of the TEKO Team for almost 10 years and among duties like corporate communication and design, event management and improvement of company processes. She’s also responsible for market research which gives her an excellent knowledge of the refrigeration market development. She is working closely together with the TEKO product management and therefore has a great insight into the development of all TEKO solutions with natural refrigerants.
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Andy Pearson graduated from Strathclyde University with bachelors degrees in Engineering and Manufacturing Science in 1986, and returned there to complete a PhD thesis on the use of carbon dioxide as a refrigerant in 2005.
Dr Pearson is the President of the Institute of Refrigeration (IoR) for the period 2010 - 2013. He served a six-year term as a Director of the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR) and recently edited the guide book “Ammonia as a refrigerant” and the soon-to-be-published "Carbon Dioxide as a refrigerant" on behalf of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR). He currently serves as a member of the refrigeration safety committees of the British Standards Institute, the European Standards Commission and the International Standards Organisation. He is a lead author for the United Nations Environment Program’s Refrigerant Technical Options Committee.
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Graduated in 2006 in Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, he joined LU-VE Group in 2009, starting as an application engineer in the Sales Department.
In 2013 he became Area Sales Manager for Southeastern Europe in parallel with the activity of Product Manager for ventilated heat exchangers.
Since 2017 he has been in charge of the Marketing Department including product management.
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Clare Perry has worked with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) since 1998. As a climate campaign leader, she currently leads EIA’s climate campaign, which aims to reduce emissions of fluorinated gases and improve enforcement of multilateral environmental agreements designed to curb trade in harmful chemicals. She has attended meetings of the Montreal Protocol since 2007, was closely involved in the revision of the EU F-Gas Regulation, and advocates the use of climate-friendly alternatives to HFCs in multiple fora. Clare graduated from the University of Southampton in 1993 with a BSc in biology and subsequently gained a Masters degree in coastal zone management.
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After obtaining his Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2002, Giacomo Pisano worked for one year as a Project Manager for General Electric's Oil & Gas division, where the core business is turbomachinery applied to the oil & gas industry. He joined DORIN in 2003 in the R&D department, taking responsibility of the CO2 compressor development and being in charge of the product's technical qualification. Giacomo Pisano then took over several application engineering roles and is currently responsible for the CO2 compressors' business development. In the meantime he joined several ASERCOM working groups and was the Chairman for the association's CO2 working group for many years.
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Based in Aubagne, France, Nicolas Pondicq-Cassou is leading both engineering and marketing teams for Carrier Commercial Refrigeration Mechanical Systems.
He joined the company in 2000 in the Technology group and led in the early 00’s the first product development efforts on CO2 solutions for heat pump applications. He then held different engineering positions in product development as well as field engineering in both HVAC and Refrigeration businesses. Nicolas possesses a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from both ENSICA Toulouse and Syracuse University, NY, US.
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Peter Rindler has extensive experience in industrial refrigeration and air conditioning sectors, a technical high school degree and a master's degree in economics.
Mr. Rindler's company develops innovative solutions for applications in cooling equipment and high temperature heat pumps with natural refrigerants ammonia and CO2, as well as software solutions with intelligence in control of the plant, energy management and visualization.
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Born in in Italy, Luca obtained a specialist degree in energy engineering (ingegneria energetica) at Politecnico of Milan in 2011. He's been working in E. Biaggini SA in Switzerland since 2013 and is project manager in the field of commercial and industrial refrigeration systems with transcritical CO2 technology. Luca speaks Italian, English and German and closely collaborates with many Swiss, European and Chinese companies.
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Davide Sabbadin holds a master degree in Political Sciences from the University of Padua.
He is advocating on behalf of Legambiente in Italy and Brussels, in the fields of refrigerant gases, energy efficiency, GPP and circular economy.
He coordinates a group of Italian experts within the AccESS project to promote environmentalist participation in the standardization process at European and national level. Davide boasts specific skills and a long experience in managing and promoting projects that combine public and private subjects into joint actions as he promoted around 60 solar-technology purchasing groups across Italy. More in general he promotes community procurement as a concrete action taken by the public body to foster citizen action in the field of green economy and beyond.
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Riccardo holds a PHD in Plant Pathology and Pest Management, with a specific focus on horticulture. He graduated from the University of Torino, Italy, as Agricultural Engineer with a focus on Agro-Environmental Protection. Before joining UNIDO in 2008, he served the Italian Ministry of Environment Land and Sea, dealing with implementation of the Montreal Protocol at national and international level.
At UNIDO Riccardo is responsible for a number of projects in various countries and industrial sectors, including refrigeration and air conditioning. This includes actions to improve and expand the food cold chain in developing countries in order to reduce food losses and GHG emissions. Projects are designed to stimulate the application of innovative refrigeration technologies with the involvement of governments, end-users, technology supplier and financial investors.
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Jürgen joined Efficient Energy in December 2013 and is currently the CEO of the company. From early 2011, he served as Managing Director and CEO at Cofely Refrigeration in Lindau, Germany. This company is part of the GDF Suez Group and manufactures products and solutions for the industrial refrigeration segment. Previously, Jürgen had a 13-year assignment at Danfoss A/S in Denmark, where his last role was Vice President R&D of controls and line components for all kinds of refrigeration equipment. Before this, he held various management positions within technology and business development at Danfoss. Jürgen has a Ph.D. in Refrigeration from Hannover University and is active in the IIR, ASHRAE, and other scientific committees and associations.
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Olaf Schulze is the Director Energy Management at Metro AG. From 2005 to 2013, he was the Managing Director of Metro Proper-ties Energy Management GmbH. Previously, Schulze has worked at Europower Energy GmbH as the Head of Legal and Human Resources and at Geberit Mapress GmbH as the Head of Legal and Insurance.
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Francesco Scuderi holds a master’s degree in electrical energy engineering from the University of Catania. Before starting at Eurovent in 2015, Scuderi worked for the EPTA Group, gradually progressing to being in charge of the Group Regulatory Affairs and IP. Later on, he became the Convenor of the ISO/TC86/SC7/WG2 and CEN/TC44/WG6 ‘Commercial beverage coolers and ice-cream freezers’. Having specialised in European legislation, Scuderi, one of the European leading experts in the commercial refrigeration field, joined Eurovent as Technical and Regulatory Affairs Manager for the heating and cooling department, as well as horizontal issues such as energy labelling, the f-gas regulation, and market surveillance. In May 2017, he was appointed Eurovent Deputy Secretary General.
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With 20 years of experience, Yoram Shabtay is a Heat Exchanger Designer veteran with a Master’s degree in Heat and Mass Transfer. Shabtay is the head of consulting firm Heat Transfer Technologies LLC (HTT) and as a licensed HVAC engineer, provides designs for current and new condenser and evaporator coils. HTT is also the official Technical Advisor to the International Copper Association, providing guidance and designs for all types of HVAC and refrigeration systems. He regularly speaks at conferences about new upcoming heat-exchanger technologies and related development work. HTT also works with industry leaders providing prototype heat-exchanger service for evaluation.
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Andrea Skory has an electrical engineering degree from engineer from the professional University of Bienne in Switzerland. He worked at Schindler Ebikon as a development engineer for two years and at Swisscom as a design engineer for six years and facility managerment engineer for four years. He's been the facility manager engineer and technical manager of Migros Ticino since 2000.
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Dipl.-Ing. Volker Stamer has a long history in the HVAC&R industry. Upon receiving his degree in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on thermodynamics, automation systems and production/operational management, he began his career at TRANE Germany in 1994. Since then, he has enjoyed a number of successful positions working within both European and international teams. In 2012 Volker began working at BITZER, first as the Division Manager of Global Customer Support, and later as the Director of International Sales. Since 2015, he has been the Director of SCHAUFLER Academy training centre in Rottenburg-Ergenzingen, Germany.
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Patrick Stern is graduate engineer in electrical engineering.
With 18 years experience in fan technology he is looking after trends in the refrigeration market with the intention to offer the best fan solutions with the highest efficiency to the market.
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Stanislav has a Master´s degree in Thermal Power engineering (Tallinn University of Technology, 2016). He joined the Estonian Environmental Research Center in 2015, currently working as the Energy expert (incuding Transportation) compiling greenhouse gas inventories and projections. He is also managing the first F-gas alternative project in Estonia.
The aim of the project is to ensure Estonia´s smooth transition from ozone depleting substances and F-gases to alternative refrigerants and technologies (carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrocarbons) and low GWP F-gases, taking into account the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 517/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council on fluorinated greenhouse gases.
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Rita Tedesco is Programme Manager at the Environmental Citizens’ Organisation for Standardisation (ECOS) where she is responsible for standardisation work on natural refrigerants, but also on smart energy grids and electro-mobility. Rita joined ECOS in April 2018 and has been working on a number of environmental standardisation issues in CEN/CENELEC and ISO/IEC. Prior to that, Rita worked in the NGO Transport & Environment where she undertook policy and technical research on biofuels and renewable energy alternatives. She holds a MA degree in International Relations and Environmental Studies from the Free University of Brussels.
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Since 2010 Bente Tranholm Schwarz is deputy Head of Unit in DG Climate Action in the European Commission responsible for, inter alia, protecting the ozone layer and the climate system against adverse effects of ozone depleting substances and fluorinated gases.
From 1996-1999 and from 2004 to 2009 she was dealing with state aid policy in DG Competition. Before she joined the European Commission she was working in the Danish Permanent Representation to the European Union and the Danish Ministry of Economics and Business Affairs.
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René is a well-known expert with more than 30 years of experience in the global refrigeration and heat pump business. In 2016, he founded his own Engineering & Consultancy company Entropycs. Prior to that, he was global Lead Engineer for Refrigeration and HVAC in Unilever, one of the largest end-users of refrigeration in the world. He dedicated his whole professional life to removing barriers for wider application of sustainable refrigeration and heat pump technologies, focusing on energy efficiency, natural refrigerants like ammonia, hydrocarbons, CO2 and air, as well as alternative technologies like Stirling, magneto-caloric and thermoacoustic refrigeration. He has taken major positions in professional organisations like IIR, IIAR, CEN, NEN, STEK and KNVvK. In 1983, Rene received his MSc degree in Refrigeration & Climate Control at Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.
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Graduated in Padua in 1984 in Mechanical Engineering, he worked in the family business, of which he became technical director in 1986. Since 1989, he holds the same position at an important office in Padua and since 1992 he has been a technical consultant for manufacturers of components for air conditioning, in particular for refrigeration units. Author of over 150 articles and reports of Italian and international conferences, he has published seven complete texts and some chapters of technical books on the subject of air conditioning. In 1996 and in 2002 he won the Sanguineti journalistic award.
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Giuseppe Vitri graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Università Politecnica delle Marche. He has been working in Rivacold since 2003.
For over 10 years Giuseppe has been involved in the development of refrigeration and air conditioning systems with natural refrigerant such as CO2 and propane. He personally supervised design, start-up and monitoring of innovative systems throughout Europe. The acquired skills and the experience accumulated in this time have allowed him to develop successfully and implement increasingly efficient, reliable and eco-sustainable solutions, for Rivacold, for its clients and for our environment.
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Andrea Voigt was appointed Director General of EPEE, the voice of the refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump industry in Europe, in 2009. Headquartered in Brussels, EPEE currently represents 48 companies as well as national and international associations from Europe, Asia and North America.
Under Voigt’s leadership, EPEE has become one of the leading associations of the HVACR sector on a global level. EPEE is a member / supporter of major European and international initiatives such as the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), ICARHMA (International Council of Air-conditioning, Refrigeration, Heating Manufacturers Associations) and the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR). It is also partnering with UN Environment on several projects.
Voigt’s experience in the refrigeration and air conditioning industry spans over two decades. She is a member of ASHRAE, the German engineers’ society DKV and a Board member of the EU Coalition for Energy Savings, a leading cross-sectoral association advocating for a stronger focus on energy efficiency in the EU. A German national, she is fluent in English and French, holding degrees in public administration (MPA), applied linguistic science (MA) and marketing.
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As editor and senior reporter in Brussels, Belgium, Andrew oversees publication of natural refrigerant news on shecco’s B2B websites R744.com, hydrocarbons21.com, and ammonia21.com. He is also editor of Accelerate Europe and Accelerate Australia & NZ magazines, shecco’s quarterly magazines showcasing how leading organisations are turning to climate-friendly natural refrigerants like carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrocarbons to improve and future-proof refrigeration, heating and air conditioning systems in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
He joined shecco in December 2015 from COGEN Europe, the European Association for the Promotion of Cogeneration, where as communications manager he helped to represent the interests of the combined heat and power sector towards the EU institutions. He particularly focused on the heating and cooling sector and its contribution to delivering climate and energy policy objectives.
Andrew's previous roles include communications manager at the European Policy Centre, an EU affairs think-tank, and sub-editor and journalist at EU affairs news website EurActiv.com. He studied French, German and European Union Studies at the University of Edinburgh.
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Enrico graduated as a thermotecnical engineer from the Padua University. He is experienced in HVAC, compressed air treatment and commercial refrigeration.
Since 2002, Enrico has been the Refrigeration Systems Director at Arneg Italia, headquarter of the Arneg Group, international leader in the design, manufacture and installation of complete equipment for the retail sector. With his expertise on CO2 systems, he is responsible for supporting the business in its high sustainability projects, evolving hand in hand with intelligent technologies, interacting with the environment, society and customers.
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With a background in public affairs and economics Klára joined shecco in 2011. She leads the company’s market development team focusing on market research, policy analysis, funding projects and specialised campaigns with the objective of accelerating the adoption of climate friendly technologies across different world regions. She has co-authored several extensive market and policy publications focusing on the current use and future potential of natural refrigerants. Prior to joining shecco she worked at the European Commission and a European association for small and medium-sized businesses.