Péter Szijjártó was born on 30 October 1978 in Komárom. In 1997, he graduated from the Czuczor Gergely Benedictine Gymnasium in Győr, after which in 2002 he received a degree in Foreign Affairs from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration.

He has been a Member of Parliament for Fidesz since 2002, and in 2018 began his fifth term in Parliament. From 2006 to 2010 he was Fidesz Communications Director, the Prime Minister’s Spokesperson from 2010 to 2012, and was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations at the Prime Minister’s Office from 2012 to 2014. In June 2014 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and since 23 September 2014 has served as Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

HE Yury Sentyurin is the third Secretary General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum and was appointed in this position at the 19th Ministerial Meeting in Moscow, Russia.

Yury Sentyurin is a diplomat with extensive government experience. He graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages, Russian Academy of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, specialty – World Economy, and from Russian Academy of State Service under the President of the Russian Federation on the specialty Lawyer.

He has held various high-level positions in the Russian Government, including Director of the Department of Transport Fund for the Development of Russia, Head of Department for Regulation of Natural Monopolies on Transport of Map, Minister of Industry and Innovations, Government of Nizhny Novgorod Region and 1st Vice-Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region.

He was also Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Standing Committee for Energy, Transport and Communications as well as Deputy Minister of Education and Science, and State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Energy.

He is fluent in English, French and Persian.

Torben Brabo is the President of Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), Chairman of GIE Board and GIE General Assembly.

Torben Brabo is CEO of the Gas TSO in Energinet, the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and gas – which is an independent public enterprise owned by the Danish state under the Ministry of Climate, Utilities and Energy.

He has 25 years of experience in the energy and gas sector in Denmark and abroad.

Prior to joining Energinet, he took part in European power and gas projects as part of the liberalisation of the Danish gas market in 2002-2004. As the current CEO in Energinet Gas TSO, Torben Brabo is highly involved in European renewable and low-carbon gas projects.

Besides of being GIE’s President, he is engaged in ENTSOG (European Network of gas TSOs) and the European gas capacity trading platform PRISMA, and promoting ERGAR. Moreover, he participates in several decarbonisation projects, such as the Green Gas Initiative and Gas for Climate. He has held a position as chairman of the board of the Danish-Swedish gas exchange ‘Gaspoint Nordic’.

Hrvoje Krhen was elected as the Managing Director of LNG Croatia LLC in April 2020. Before he was the Technical Director of the company. He has more than ten years of experience with gas infrastructure project development. Before joining LNG Croatia he was Director of Development and Investment Division at gas transmission system operator, Plinacro Ltd. He received his Master’s degree in Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Zagreb.

Philippe Ducom has been the President of ExxonMobil Europe since August 1, 2018. He is based in Machelen, Belgium.  He is a director of the European Petroleum Refiners Association (FuelsEurope) and of the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic).

Philippe joined Exxon Chemical France in 1989 as an engineer at the Notre-Dame de Gravenchon Chemical plant in Seine-Maritime. Between 1989 and 2003, he held various positions in manufacturing, business analysis, planning, sales and marketing in Europe and the United States. In 2003, Philippe transferred to Exxon Mobil Corporation’s Corporate Planning Department in Dallas, TX, as Chemical Advisor. In 2005, he became Global Supply and Planning Manager for ExxonMobil Chemical’s Oxo and Fluids businesses.

In 2007, he moved to Japan and became President of Tonen Chemical Corporation, Representative Director of ExxonMobil Yugen Kaisha, and Chairman and Representative Director of Nippon Unicar Co., Limited.  In March 2010, he was elected Representative Director and President of TonenGeneral Sekiyu Kabushiki Kaisha and also became responsible for the ExxonMobil Japan Group as Lead Country Manager in September 2010. In June 2012, he became Chairman and Representative Director of TonenGeneral Sekiyu Kabushiki Kaisha.

In May 2013, he became Regional Director Europe Africa Middle-East, Global Operations, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical in Machelen, Belgium. Then in March 2015, he became Chairman, CEO, & President of ExxonMobil Saudi Arabia and Lead Country Manager for the Kingdom.

Dr. Arūnas Molis is Klaipeda LNG Project Executive at “Klaipedos nafta”, company which successfully operates the only LNG large scale terminal in the Baltic States. He is responsible for ensuring the operation of Klaipeda LNG Terminal after 2024, then the current TCP agreement with Hoegh is over. Arūnas also works as a professor at Vytautas Magnus (Kaunas, Lithuania) and Bologna (Italy) universities where he lectures courses on energy security and international relations. Before starting his career at “Klaipedos nafta”, A. Molis worked for 4 years as an advisor to the President of the Republic of Lithuania where he was responsible for energy and communication affairs. A. Molis joined the team of advisers after a successful work at NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence where he managed research projects aimed to raise energy awareness among the military personnel. He completed his international relations and business law studies at Vilnius, Vytautas Magnus (Kaunas) and Bremen universities, has been working on various projects in Estonia, Germany, Czech Republic, France and South Korea.

Gergely Szabó has been leading MET Hungary since December 2014 and was appointed Regional Chairman of MET Central Europe from 1 January 2019. In the newly formed organisation Gergely Szabó is responsible for the overall management and coordination of the regional business operation and local subsidiaries in Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, where MET Central Europe has more than 7000 long term partners in the industrial natural gas and power segment.

Gergely Szabó started his career at the Gas Division of MOL Group in 2007. He was Executive Director of Origination and Structured Trading at MOL Energy Trade Ltd. between 2010 and 2011, then managed the Swiss subsidiary of MET Group as CEO at MET International between 2011 and 2014.

In addition to his role of CEO of MET Hungary Ltd., Gergely Szabó is Chairman of the Board of Directors of E2 Hungary Ltd., the joint venture energy trading company established by Magyar Telekom and MET Holding, as well as Member of the Board of MET Croatia and MET Slovakia.

As of 1 January 2021, Dora Zombori serves as Ambassador-at-Large for Energy and Climate at the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Prior to her recent appointment, Ms Zombori served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Hungary in Washington DC, between April and November 2020 she assumed the role of Chargé d’Affaires ad interim. Ms Zombori has had a variety of assignments in Washington, serving as the First Counselor for Energy and Political-Military Affairs at the Embassy of Hungary. She was also Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellow at the US Department of State from 2015 to 2016.

Prior to her assignment in the United States, she served as head of the Energy Security Unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary where she held a variety of postings, including Energy Policy Expert, Desk Officer for Japan and the Asian Development Bank, Energy Policy Coordinator of the Hungarian EU Presidency. She is a member of the Women in Energy Association.

Szabolcs I. Ferencz is the Chairman-CEO of FGSZ Natural Gas Transmission Ltd. since February 2019.
Between 2011 – 2019 he held the position of SVP MOL Group Corporate Affairs supervising international and domestic governmental relations for Regulatory and Public Affairs, Strategy Development and Corporate Communications. Previously he was CEO and Country Chairman of MOL Romania.

Mr. Ferencz is the member of the Management Board of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG). He is the Chair of the National Committee of the World Petroleum Council, Member of the Advisory Board of the Regional Centre for Energy Policy Research Foundation. He is funding partner of the SEED School for Executive Education and Development based in Budapest.

Attila Ságodi is partner and head of the Energy Advisory practice at Dentons Europe Consulting. He has more than 20 years of experience in the production, network operation and sales activities of the domestic and European electricity and natural gas sectors. His advisory and expert work focuses on strategy, regulatory, operational efficiency and transaction issues.

Mr. Dániel Garai has been appointed as the CEO of CEEGEX, the Central Eastern European Gas Exchange Ltd. in July 2020. Mr Garai attained his Degrees at the Budapest Business School and University of Pécs. He has been working in the energy industry since 2005, fulfilling senior positions at FŐGÁZ Zrt. in Budapest, and RWE Supply & Trading Switzerland SA in Geneva, Switzerland. As of 2012, he was CFO and Member of the Board of Directors at MET Hungary and afterwards Business Development Director. From November 2019 until his appointment as CEO at CEEGEX, he was the advisor to the CEO of MAVIR Ltd., leading the company’s transformation program.

Significantly contributed to the development of competitive gas market of Ukraine by taking the lead in establishment of independent Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, which started operation in accordance with the EU legislation as certified gas TSO on January 1, 2020 after successful unbundling from the vertically integrated company NJSC “Naftogaz of Ukraine”.
Previously responsible for the development of long-term strategy of gas transmission system of Ukraine at JSC “Ukrtransgaz” NJSC “Naftogaz of Ukraine”, he took initiative and managed development and implementation of new Codes of Gas TSO and Gas Storage Facilities, implemented Customs Warehouse Regime to boost attractiveness of Ukrainian Gas Storage Facilities for international companies.
As a General Manager of LLC “Gas TSO of Ukraine”, he proceeds with implementation of best practices and standards of European Gas TSOs for full integration of Ukrainian Gas Transmission System into the European gas networks. In addition, he initiated several important projects with various international institutions, such as World Bank, USAID, EIB.
He was also building his career with such companies as Morgan Stanley, Rochester, NY, USA; Deloitte, Kyiv, Ukraine; Microsoft, Kiev, Ukraine on managing positions.
Sergiy Makogon holds a Master degree of Business Administration of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA, a Master degree of Science in Applied Mathematics of National Technical University of Ukraine, Kiev city, holds Certificate in Corporate Governance of Ukrainian Corporate Governance Academy, awarded with Certificate of Merit for Significant Contribution in Development of Oil and Gas industry of Ukraine by the NJSC “Naftogaz of Ukraine”.

György Domokos Vargha is the Chief Executive Officer of MET International AG based in Zug, Switzerland. Mr Vargha is responsible for the company strategy, business development and high-level commercial relations of the firm. Prior to becoming Chief Executive Officer, Mr Vargha was Head of Asset Origination and Trading at MET International AG for over 2 years followed by Head of Wholesale and Origination. Mr Vargha gained broad experience in the international energy market with 10 years’ experience in Business Development, Origination and Structured Trading within various managerial positions.

Dr. Vitaliy Baylarbayov is the Deputy Vice-President of SOCAR for Investments and Marketing. Dr. Baylarbayov has over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry and holds a PhD in Economics. He is a member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators and has held executive positions in the negotiations and management of a number of major oil and gas projects, including the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oilfields, the Shah Deniz gas/condensate field, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and the Southern Gas Corridor Projects, including the expansion of the Southern Caucasus Pipeline and the establishment of the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). Dr. Baylarbayov heads the Southern Gas Corridor Gas Value Chain Integration Team, is a Chairman of the board of SOCAR-UNIPER LLC, a board member for the Sarmatia Crude Oil Pipeline Project and of the AGRI LNG project.

After graduating his business economic studies at Johannes Kepler University in Linz Christian Hoellinger started his career in Shell in 1993. After several local sales & marketing roles in retail, managing the CSC and then becoming sales manager for CRT Austria/Switzerland, he moved to international marketing and sales management roles in the Global Shell Cards business. In 2014, Christian got the responsibility for the European international key accounts business for Shell Fleet Solution. In this role he was managing the sales team for the indirect international Leasing & Reseller segment as well as big direct international fleets & CRT customers amounting to a total volume of more than 1,5 Bln ltrs and achieved sufficient volume growth in a mature business segment year on year. Christian is well connected as he gathered good relationships to external top card accounts in the fleet & transport industry.
Mid 2018 Christian was appointed to lead the European Road Downstream LNG team and is responsible on accelerating the uptake of LNG in Road Transport across Europe. Together with his team he defines the strategic plans for that segment, drives the development of the required LNG Retail network across Europe and focuses to ensure new customer & shipper opportunities are secured. In this position so far he built a good relationship to all necessary relevant internal stakeholders across different Shell business units (SLMT , Retail, Shell Fleet Solution, Country Chairs, GR, ER) and actively engaged with different external stakeholders such as Truck OEMs, industry platforms, shipping & logistic companies, etc. to jointly exploit the potential for LNG for Transport. Representing Shell as member in NGVA Christian was appointed as Vice President of this European association from October 2020.

Milan Sedláček joined the gas sector in 1994. Currently, he works for the gas transmission system operator Eustream. During his career he worked in various managerial positions in gas transmission, holding managerial positions in business development, regulation and strategy. Currently is the head of EU affairs and strategy at Eustream as well as compliance officer of the company. During his career within the Slovak gas industry he was responsible for a number of key projects, i.a. third party access implementation, energy legislation development, TSO certification and unbundling, network codes development and implementation as well as projects of interconnections with neighboring countries. Milan is representing eustream in various national and international bodies and organizations dealing with strategy, policy and regulation of gas transmission.

Sławomir Sieradzki is Director of the Gas Market Development Division at GAZ-SYSTEM  – the Polish Gas Transmission System Operator. He has been actively involved in the energy sector since 2006, starting his career at the Oil and Gas Department of the Polish Ministry of Economy.

Sławomir Sieradzki joined the GAZ-SYSTEM Group in 2011, first as a chief specialist at Polskie LNG (GAZ-SYSTEM’s SPV). In 2016 he joined GAZ-SYSTEM as Deputy Director of Development Division. He built his expertise working for the construction of the LNG terminal in Swinoujscie as well as in the supervisory boards of various companies of the PGNiG S.A Group.

Since 2018 he has been the Director of the Gas Market Development Division, with the main responsibilities comprising: development of the national and regional gas transmission system including new cross-border interconnections; customer relations; international and institutional cooperation and representation in sector organizations at the European and international level; European gas regulatory framework and LNG infrastructure development.

From 2016 to 2019 Slawomir Sieradzki was a member of GLE Executive Committee and the chair of the GLE Advocacy Group within the Gas Infrastructure Europe. Since 2019 he has been chairing a Study Group under International Gas Union (IGU) Strategy Committee on “Long term strategy in environment-conscious markets” .

A graduate of economy of the Corvinus University in Budapest, Attila Steiner was appointed State Secretary for the Development of Circular Economy, Energy and Climate Policy of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology on 16 January 2021. Prior to his appointment, he was State Secretary for EU Affairs of the Ministry of Justice. Previously, he worked as Deputy State Secretary for EU Relations within the Prime Minister’s Office. Earlier stations of his career include the position of a political advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office where his work focused on energy policy. Previously, he served as a political advisor in the European Parliament, also in the field of energy policy. Apart from his native Hungarian, he speaks English and German, and has an intermediate language skill in French.

Mr Laszlo Fritsch started his professional career in the oil and gas industry at Shell Gas Hungary where he worked in various positions. He joined E.ON Gas Storage as Financial Director in 2006. After the takeover of the company by the Hungarian state in 2013 he has been appointed the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Hungarian Gas Storage. From 1 July 2020, he been the CEO and Member of the Board of former Hungarian Gas Trade Ltd., which changed its name to MVM CEEnergy Zrt.

During more than 20 years spent in the oil and gas industry Laszlo Fritsch has gained extensive professional knowledge and is also keen on sharing his expertise as a member of the Board of GIE, member of the Advisory Board of the Fund for Hungarian Oil and Gas Museum as well as a member of the Hungarian Mining Association.

Pál Ságvári was appointed Vice President of the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (HEA) in November 2020. He also serves as the Vice-Chairman of the Energy Regulators Regional Association (ERRA).

Before he was Ambassador-at-large for Energy Security of Hungary since 2016 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was director for energy policy in the Ministry of National Development between 2011-14 where he was responsible for working out Hungarian energy strategy. He was also coordinating regional energy market development projects such as North-South Energy Corridor, Hungarian-Slovak gas interconnector, Nabucco, South Stream, CEEGEX, CEEE Forum, V4 Gas Forum, Electricity Market Coupling.

He started his career in the private sector. He also held different key expert positions in GDF SUEZ Hungary in the field of natural gas and electricity supply.

Fred H. Hutchison is President & CEO of LNG Allies, The US LNG Association. Based in Washington, DC, LNG Allies is helping to bring the climate, environmental, geostrategic, and economic benefits of U.S. natural gas to the world. An advocate, communicator, and entrepreneur, Fred has been a government and public relations generalist for more than four decades and is a trusted adviser to private and public sector leaders worldwide. He was formerly a legislative assistant for energy and natural resources for U.S. Sen. Frank Church and earned a B.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Kriston has become CEO since 1 July 2020. He has been deputy CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of Hungarian Gas Storage since 1 Oct 2013. Previously, he worked for MVM Hungarian Electicity Plc. among others as Head of Business Development. Before joining MVM Group Mr. Kriston worked in financial advisory and audit for almost 10 years at Deloitte and KPMG both in Hungary and in Germany. Mr. Kriston holds an MSc. degree in Business Administration and graduated from Corvinus University, Budapest.

Vaclav Bartuška assumed the position of Ambassador-at-Large for Energy Security of the Czech Republic in 2006. He works on a wide range of issues from oil and gas supplies to energy strategy. During the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine in January 2009, when the Czech Republic held the EU Presidency, he was involved in negotiations with Russian, Ukrainian, and EU leadership. In 2010, he was appointed by the Czech Government to the Commissioner for expansion at the Temelin nuclear power plant. Since 2003, he has taught modern history and security studies at New York University, Prague campus, and in 2017, he joined Czech Technical University.

Claudia Patricolo is the Editor-in-chief of CEENERGYNEWS, the only English-speaking news portal entirely dedicated to the energy industry in Central and Eastern Europe.

Trained as a journalist in Italy, she worked for different media outlets covering foreign policy, business, investments and macro-economy. After starting her career in Rome she moved to Paris, where she worked at Le Monde. Now she lives in Budapest from where she covered the CEE region as Deputy Editor of Emerging Europe, UK-based news, intelligence and community platform.
Her areas of expertise include energy, climate change and business in CEE.

András Jenei is the President of KBA Central European Safety Training and Research Center, a Budapest based Security Foundation, dealing with security policies (national-, energy- information- and climate security), crime prevention, business intelligence, analysis, and training. He is also member of Centre for Fair Political Analysis, a Budapest based political think tank since 2009, in various positions. He started his career in oil and gas upstream and in the past decade he has been doing advisory in different fields of energy and security policy for various government bodies and authorities, as well for the private sector.
He studied engineering management at Budapest University of Technology and Economics and political science at Milton Friedman University.

Mr Henrik Domanovszky is an engineer of transport, his professional activity stands for gas-powered fuelling, supporting the LNG & CNG technology implementations. Based on numerous small & mid-scale project development at the LNG field, his experiences span from the needs through the construction to the operation.

Mr Tansu DESTANOGLU is a mechanical engineer, graduated from Istanbul Technical University and has been working in oil & gas industry, ever since. After long years of experience in SHV Group Turkey, he established UESTCO 15 years ago with his former colleague Mr Hakan Açıkel from the same group. The company has now become a world-wide known engineering company, while leading the Turkish market for LNG technologies. From production of ex-proof LNG products to providing solutions for all kinds of LNG applications on turn-key basis including automation/remote monitoring & telemetry solutions, it has a very wide business scope that fulfils the needs of LNG sector. Finally, the company is also an R&D centre approved from the government.

Owner and CEO of ZAG Consulting Ltd., a management and business development advisory firm.

In the years between 2016 and 2021 he was shareholder and manager of a Hungarian private group of companies with business in battery energy storage, sewage treatment, power plant development, manufacturing and trade of specialised equipment.

From 2013 he was deputy CEO for Strategy and Director for International Relations at MVM Hungarian Electricity Holding.

Prior to that for over 19 years he held management roles in Sales, Marketing, Business Development and Supply in gas businesses of the Shell Group.