Cory Combs is Associate Director at Trivium China, a Beijing-based policy research and strategic advisory company. Cory directs Trivium’s cross-cutting research on China’s climate, energy, and industrial policies. He advises governments and multinationals on China’s decarbonization and industrial upgrading strategies, consults on opportunities for international engagement and investment, and produces Trivium’s China Net Zero Weekly newsletter, which offers the public open-access analysis of China’s decarbonization efforts.

Prior to joining Trivium, Cory consulted on renewable and nuclear energy technology commercialization at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where he was on the risk management team for the DOE Loan Programs Office’s $20 billion investment portfolio.

Cory received his bachelor’s degree in physics (astrophysics) at Yale University and his master’s from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he studied energy economics and Chinese politics. He has published peer-reviewed research in Advances in Applied Energy and is currently collaborating on an investigation into subnational drivers of Chinese outbound critical minerals investments.

Cory is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, which aims to promote bilateral understanding and cooperation, and is a regular speaker at industry and think tank conferences and events. He has contributed analysis of China’s climate and industrial policies to AP, Reuters, National Geographic, S&P Global, WSJ, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Nikkei, Table.Media, and Politico, among others.

Charlotte is an expert in AI data-driven energy management, professional experience in the clean power industry in China, the USA, Germany and Russia. She is a serial entrepreneur, who founded EQuota Energy in 2014. EQuota Energy is an AI-based data analytics SaaS company providing predictive maintenance, energy optimization and carbon management for energy-intensive manufacturers and utilities to reduce unplanned downtime, energy consumption and carbon emission. EQuota serves steel manufacturers and utility groups in China and the Middle East. EQuota was listed as a Technology Pioneer by DAVOS and awarded as APAC 25 by Cleantech Group.

Limin Gu, Senior Director of NZIP product & development of Envision Group, is responsible for Envision’s net-zero industry park & business development. He is committed to providing low-carbon solutions inside & outside of China and to working out solutions to steadily increase the renewable energy penetration in the overall energy sector.

Prior to joining Envision, he served as a senior director at Trina Solar and GCL Group, both of which are top-tier new energy companies and is responsible for the companies’ business development in the low carbon sectors, corporate strategy, and investment. At Trina Solar, he also concurrently served as the general manager of its hydrogen company.

Before joining GCL Group, he served as the chief analyst for renewables at the international consulting company IHS Inc. (nowadays acquired by S&P), covering the industry and market tracking of various sub-fields of new energy, and led a number of market entry and CAPEX related projects for leading industrial customers such as Samsung, GE, Siemens & Huawei. Earlier, he was the Asia manager at Evonik GmbH, a top-tier specialty materials company and responsible for renewable & semiconductors industries.

Ligang Wang, full professor at North China Electric Power University (since 2020). He received a doctoral degree from the Technical University of Berlin in 2016, with 1-year research stay at RWTH Aachen University. He worked as a postdoc at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) from 2015 to 2020.

His research focuses on component and system development of power-to-x based on solid-oxide fuel cells and electrolysis. He has coordinated and participated in more than 17 R&D projects, including 11 EU H2020 projects, 3 projects from The National Natural Science Foundation of China, 3 projects from the China Ministry of Science and Technology. He has published 60 journal articles with a citation record of over 2500, and 15 patents. His work has been awarded the 1^st prize of the China Ministry of Education Science and Technology Development.

He is currently the leader of the solid-oxide technology R&D team in the National Energy Storage Industry-Education Innovation Platform (NCEPU), a member of the call expert consortium for the Hydrogen Program of The National Key R&D Program of China, Scientific Advisory Board of European Fuel Cell and Electrolysis Forum, IEA Annex 32 workgroup, etc.

Mr. Zhang Kun, the Executive President of GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd., has been engaged in the new energy industry for 16 years. After earning his master’s degree from the TU Dresden in Germany, he worked with the Meyer Burger Group in Switzerland from 2007 to 2014. He joined GCL Group in March 2014 and served as deputy general manager of the Sales & Marketing Center of GCL- Poly Energy Holdings Limited, vice president of the overseas business division of GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd., and vice president of GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd.

Ma joined REFIRE Group in 2017. After helming the Group and business unit brand expansions, she has led the company’s international expansion in hydrogen and fuel cell technology markets. She holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Canada’s Carleton University, and a postgraduate degree in Urban Design from the University of Hong Kong.

Headquartered in Shanghai, REFIRE is the world’s leading deployer of commercial hydrogen fuel cell zero-emissions mobility and power. The company enjoys a 40% market share of the 13,000 commercial FCEVs operating in China, currently the world’s biggest market. The global aggregated milage of REFIRE fuel cell-powered vehicles is now around 160 million kilometers.

Gary Yang is a member of the Global ESG Steering Committee, as well as head of the environmental practice group of China offices.  Before Dacheng, Gary Yang was APAC General Counsel at Fortune 500 chemical MNCs (AkzoNobel and Air Liquide). Prior to that, he worked at Simmons & Simmons LLP and Zhonglun Law Firm at their Shanghai offices. He has passed the bar in China and New York. In 2023, an illegal waste disposal case represented by Gary Yang was published by China Supreme Procuratorate as a guiding case for enterprises applying for non-prosecution decision. A guiding case is similar to case law, which in China serves as decision-making reference for the courts. This case is the first one in China that achieved non-prosecution decision through an ESG improvement plan and also the first non-prosecution decision for multinational company environmental criminal liability. Gary has in-depth experience in investments and transactions with ESG impact. He also assists clients in disputes, government investigations and corporate criminal liability in areas of ESG non-compliance.

João Graça Gomes is a Senior R&D Engineer at the Sino-Portuguese Centre for New Energy Technologies (SCNET), a joint venture between the China Three Gorges Corporation and EDP. His work is focused on joint research projects between Portugal and China, mainly related to energy storage, electricity planning and offshore wind. Before joining SCNET, João worked in the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association (APREN) as a Renewable Energy Policy Analyst and served as a teaching assistant in the University of Lisbon and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). He holds a BSc and an MSc in Energy and Environmental Engineering from the University of Lisbon and an MPhil in Power Engineering from the SJTU. He has published numerous scientific articles and collaborated on reports of organizations such as the World Bank, Bioenergy Europe, REN21, the World Energy Council and others.  Due to his research and contribution to the energy sector, he received several awards from the Portuguese Engineers Society, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, several exclusive scholarships such as the China Three Gorges Scholarship and the Outstanding International Student Scholarship of the Chinese Ministry of Education, and was the Ambassador of the European Climate Pact for China between 2020 and 2022. João is also a board member of the exclusive Future Energy Leaders 100 program from the World Energy Council, a Board Member of Future Energy Leaders Portugal and the Coordinator for Asia and Oceania of the Portuguese Diaspora Council, an association sponsored by the Portuguese Government, dedicated to the uplift of the country’s image and reputation in the world.

Stéphane is co-founder and CEO of Enwise. He is passionate about closing the carbon cycle for human activity. He has been designated entrepreneur of the year 2021 by Young Green Tech. Enwise has been short listed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 2021 and listed in the top 25 APAC cleantech companies by Cleantech Group in 2020. Stéphane has a PhD in Material Science from EPFL and a Master of engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris.

Ms. Ni, Founding Director of Shanghai Green Light-Year Environmental Service Center, China Member of IUCN CEC and Director of ESG Development and Promotion Center of Shanghai Pudong New Energy Association. She has 20 years of experience in developing and managing international projects with multi-national corporations, international organizations and Chinese governmental agencies. Apart from having been a professional project manager and fund-raising manager, she is also a communications expert in managing government relations and corporate relations. She has proven expertise in managing and delivering thematic projects on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship, public-private partnership, SME Development, microfinance, socially responsible investment (SRI), green financing in China, environmental protection and climate change. A Graduate from Cambridge University (under UK Government’s Chevening Scholarship), she is a passionate networker to bridge Chinese organizations with the rest of the world. Helen has been working with a local commercial bank, PwC London’s CSR and SME development project in Sichuan with DFID, UNDP China, IFC under the World Bank Group, the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, UNEP Finance Initiative, and WWF China.

Mr. James Xu is responsible for operating Ant Group’s ESG governance structure in developing and implementing the company’s ESG strategy and building relationships with global partners to foster joint ESG efforts.

Before taking the current role, James has almost 20 years’ experience both in the public and private sector. He joined Alibaba Group in 2014 and successfully established several strategic partnerships between Alibaba and foreign governments, especially with ASEAN and EU countries. He was actively involved in B20, UNCTAD and WCO in incubating new rules and standards in digital trade and contributed to many domestic government plans regarding digital transformation.

During his service in the Chinese central government from 2005 to 2014, James led multilateral and bilateral Non-Tariff Barriers negotiations in the WTO and Free Trade Agreements with Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Norway, etc.

James holds a B.S. in Peking University and a M.Phil in University of Cambridge. He was awarded the Chevening Scholarship of the UK government in 2011.

Xinnan focuses on climate & energy communication work in China, acts as the comms lead for various projects focusing on energy system transition, overseas energy investment, subnational climate action, EVs, data center sector and renewable energy in China.

Prior to working at an INGO, she worked at State Grid Corporation of China for digital content operation. She holds a master degree in media culture& communication from NYU, and a undergraduate degree in communication from University of Colorado.

Dr. Chong Cheng Tung is an Associate Professor at the China-UK Low Carbon College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He holds a PhD degree (Engineering) from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on the production and application of carbon-neutral fuels, thermochemical conversion technologies, and renewable energy systems. He has published more than 150 papers (h-index 40, total citation ~6000) in top journals including Combustion and Flame, Fuel, and Energy, among others. Dr. Chong has won several research awards, including the Royal Society-Newton Advanced Fellowship, the PYRO ASIA Young Researcher Award and the ASEAN Science Diplomat Award. He was listed as the Top 2% researcher in the world (since 2020) in Stanford University’s Scientist List. He has served as the guest editor of ENERGY (Elsevier), Clean Technologies and Environmental Policies (Springer) and Journal of Biotechnology (Elsevier). He also serves as the board member of the International Conference on Low Carbon Asia and as the Scientific Committee Member of the 3rd Symposium on Ammonia Energy.

Mr. Yafu Zhao is the climate fintech program lead of New Energy Nexus in China, covering the research of climate fintech ecosystem and the development of accelerating program to support climate fintech startups. Mr. Zhao was previously in charge of clean energy project financing in Ping An Group and consumer lending risk modeling in Discover Financial Services.

Zhan Li is the Vice Tech Director of the Electrical Meteorology Institute, Wind Power Innovation Center, SPIC in Shanghai. He leads the Research and Development in wind & solar power forecast and the meteorological application in renewable energy. Prior to joining SPIC, Zhan Li had had previous experiences both in China and abroad in the meteorology field. He has worked as an Algorithm Expert in meteorology at Damo Academy, part of Alibaba Corp., where he investigated the AI application in numerical weather prediction and developed a regional weather model for solar and wind forecasts in the application of renewable energy. In Toronto, he worked as a Meteorological Data Scientist at The Weather Network, where he led the unified nowcasting project to provide the most accurate 0-6 hour forecasts and developed a new algorithm of variational data assimilation method to optimally estimate the current meteorological information at surface level. Zhan Li received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science at University of Utah. During his Ph.D., he was a Research Assistant and was involved in the research project about 4D-variational data assimilation of the airborne radar to improve the initial conditions and numerical forecasts for Typhoon Nuri’s genesis in 2008. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University, he led a collaborative project with the Weather Network and Conducted the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) data assimilation using Canadian radar for a lake-effect snowstorm event in 2015.