Speakers
Confirmed Speakers
H.E. Suhail Al Mazrouei
Minister of Energy and Industry, United Arab Emirates
H.E. Suhail Al Mazrouei
Minister of Energy and Industry, United Arab Emirates
H.E. Suhail Al Mazrouei was appointed as United Arab Emirates (UAE) minister of energy on 12 March 2013. Minister Al Mazrouei has experience in corporate administration in different sectors including ship building, defense systems, oil and gas services sector, and real estate development. His career at the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company spanned ten years before he moved to Mubadala Development Company (now Mubadala Investment Company) in 2007. During his career at Mubadala, he expanded the company into Bahrain, Oman, and Kazakhstan. He was responsible for the development of new projects as well as investments in exploration and production in Middle Eastern countries and Africa. Minister Al Mazrouei graduated from the University of Tulsa in the United States with a BS in petroleum engineering.
Randolph Bell
Managing Director, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council
Randolph Bell
Managing Director, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council
Randolph Bell is the managing director of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center (GEC), where he has oversight of the budget and revenue of the Global Energy Center, including GEC research and programs in Washington and elsewhere and its affiliated conferences, the Atlantic Council Istanbul Summit, and the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum. From 2014–2016, Randy was director of business development and new ventures at the Atlantic Council, where he led the Council’s Global Energy Center launch campaign and oversaw the Council’s corporate and individual giving. From 2011–2014, Randy was managing director at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)–US, where he had overall responsibility for the operations of the IISS’s Washington, DC office, including coordination of finance, administration, programming, and fundraising. From 2010–2011, Randy was manager of national security at the Markle Foundation, where he worked on cyber security, intelligence community information sharing, and technology policy issues. He has published on African, South Asian, and cyber security issues. He has an MPP from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a Public Service and Belfer International and Global Affairs Fellow, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College.
Dr. Fatih Birol
International Energy Agency
Dr. Fatih Birol
International Energy Agency
Dr. Fatih Birol became executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2015, twenty years after first joining as a junior analyst. Prior to assuming his current duties, he held the positions of chief economist and director of Global Energy Economics. Dr. Birol has made a significant contribution to the international policy debate on energy and climate change. Dr. Birol has been named by Forbes Magazine among the most powerful people in terms of influence on the world’s energy scene. He is the chairman of the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and serves as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on “Sustainable Energy for All.” Prior to joining the IEA in 1995, Dr. Birol worked as an oil market analyst at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna. He earned a BS in power engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul. He received his MS and PhD in energy economics from the Technical University of Vienna. In 2013, Dr. Birol was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science by the Imperial College of London.
Dr. Helima Croft
RBC Capital Markets
Dr. Helima Croft
RBC Capital Markets
Dr. Helima Croft is a managing director and global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. She specializes in geopolitics and energy, leading a team of commodity strategists that cover energy, metals, and cross-commodity investor activity. Dr. Croft is a member of the National Petroleum Council, a select group of individuals who advise, inform, and make recommendations to the secretary of energy with respect to any matter relating to oil and natural gas. She also is a CNBC contributor, a member of the channel’s exclusive family of experts, and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Croft joined RBC Capital Markets from Barclays, where she was a managing director and head of North American commodities research. Prior to that, she worked in Lehman’s Business Intelligence group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Central Intelligence Agency, where she focused on geopolitics and commodities. Dr. Croft has received many industry accolades throughout her career, including Breaking Energy’s Top Ten New York Women in Energy and received her PhD in economic history from Princeton in 2001.
Bina Hussein
Atlantic Council
Bina Hussein
Atlantic Council
Ms. Bina Hussein is an associate director with the Energy Diplomacy Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and joined the Council in 2013. In this capacity, she focuses on energy security in Europe, oil and gas developments in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and diversity and inclusion in the energy sector, and assists in managing the agenda for two of the Council’s annual flagship initiatives, the Istanbul Summit and Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi. Previously, Ms. Hussein worked for the United Nations Development Programme as a junior consultant in the Private Sector Development Programme in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (2012). From 2009 to 2011, she worked as a social worker for documented refugees and as a paralegal for undocumented immigrants at the Dutch Refugee Organization in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She received an LLB from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in 2011 and holds a master’s degree in international studies with a focus on human rights, energy security, and the Middle East from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver (2014). Ms. Hussein was a 2016-2017 Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy.
Robert Johnston
Eurasia Group and Atlantic Council
Robert Johnston
Eurasia Group and Atlantic Council
Mr. Robert Johnston is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. He became chief executive officer of the Eurasia Group in 2013 after seven years as head of the firm's Global Energy and Natural Resources Strategy Group. Mr. Johnston is responsible for directing firm strategy and leads oversight of research, sales, and operations teams across five offices. Prior to joining Eurasia Group, Mr. Johnston served as managing director of equity research at Medley Global Advisors. He was previously a research director at UBS Warburg Energy, working directly in support of energy trading. Mr. Johnston has also directed internal research teams supporting oil, LNG, metals, and FX trading at Enron Global Markets. Prior to holding these positions, Mr. Johnston worked at ArmorGroup and directed political risk research for corporate clients in a variety of markets including China, Russia, Colombia, and Indonesia. He also has published several contributions, including to the World Economic Forum, the World Energy Council, the National Petroleum Council, the International Gas Union, and more. Mr. Johnston holds a doctorate in international relations from American University.
Frederick Kempe
Atlantic Council
Frederick Kempe
Atlantic Council
Mr. Frederick Kempe has held the position of president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council since December 1, 2006. He comes to the Council from a long and prominent career at the Wall Street Journal, where he won national and international recognition while serving in numerous senior editorial and reportorial capacities. His latest book, BERLIN 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth (foreword by Gen. Brent Scowcroft) was published by Putnam in 2012 and is a New York Times bestseller. Mr. Kempe was for seven years the longest serving editor and associate publisher ever of the Wall Street Journal Europe, simultaneously functioning as European editor for the Global Wall Street Journal from 2002 to 2005. In 2002, the European Voice, a leading publication following EU affairs, selected Mr. Kempe as one of the fifty most influential Europeans, although he is American, and one of the four leading journalists in Europe. Mr. Kempe is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a Master’s Degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a member of the International Fellows program in the School of International Affairs. Mr. Kempe speaks German and is the son of German immigrants who came to the United States before World War II.
Amb. Richard Morningstar (Ret.)
Atlantic Council
Amb. Richard Morningstar (Ret.)
Atlantic Council
Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar (Ret.) is the founding director and chairman of the Global Energy Center at the Atlantic Council. He served as the US ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan from July 2012 to August 2014. Prior to his appointment, since April 2009, he was the secretary of state's special envoy for Eurasian energy. Prior to that, Amb. Morningstar lectured at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and Stanford Law School. From June 1999 to September 2001, he served as US ambassador to the European Union. Prior to this, Amb. Morningstar served as special adviser to the president and secretary of state for Caspian Basin energy diplomacy, where he was responsible for assuring maximum coordination within the executive branch and with other governments and international organizations to promote United States policies on Caspian Basin energy development and transportation. From April 1995 to July 1998, he served as ambassador and special adviser to the president and secretary of state on assistance for the new independent states (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, where he oversaw all US bilateral assistance and trade investment activities in the NIS. From 1993 to 1995, he served as senior vice president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).
Ellen Scholl
Atlantic Council
Ellen Scholl
Atlantic Council
Ms. Ellen Scholl is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. Ms. Scholl has worked on a range of energy issues throughout her career, most recently as a Robert Bosch fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI). She also has over five years of energy-related legislative experience, having handled an energy portfolio as committee staff for the US Congress and Texas Senate. Her work on energy and geopolitics and energy governance has been published by SWP, and other work has appeared in the Berlin Policy Journal, Foreign Policy, and Lawfare, among others. Ms. Scholl also worked on energy issues as a student fellow with the Robert S. Strauss Center on International Security and Law, and as a member of the inaugural cohort of the US Foreign Service Internship Program, during which she worked in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and at US Embassy Ankara. Ms. Scholl received her master’s degree in global policy studies, with a certificate in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she was a Powers fellow. She earned a BA in humanities and government from the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated with highest honors.
Dr. Jean-Francois Seznec
Atlantic Council
Dr. Jean-Francois Seznec
Atlantic Council
Dr. Jean-Francois Seznec is a nonresident senior fellow with the Global Energy Center at the Atlantic Council. He is also an adjunct professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies. He teaches classes on finance, energy, and politics in the Persian Gulf. He holds an MIA from Columbia University (1973), a MA and PhD from Yale University (1994). He has published and lectured extensively on chemical and energy-based industries in the Gulf, and their importance in world trade. He is interviewed regularly on national and international television, radio, and newspapers. Dr. Seznec has twenty-five years of experience in international banking and finance, of which ten years were spent in the Middle East. Dr. Seznec is managing partner of the Lafayette Group, a US-based consulting and investment company. His research centers on the influence of the Arab-Persian Gulf, as well as political and social variables on the financial and oil markets in the region.