Industrial engineer, professor and politician. She is currently Minister of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government.

She holds a degree in Law from Deusto and a diploma as a specialist in Basque Studies from the UPV-Eusko Ikaskuntza, and has also completed postgraduate studies in Management Skills.

Born in Eibar, Ana Oregi is an architect with a degree in urban planning law. She was delegate of Housing and water director of the Basque Government, as well as deputy minister of Territorial Planning and Water and minister of Environment and Territorial Policy until 2016. From that year until 2019 she was a member of the Basque Parliament.

She has been a career civil servant of the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz since 1991 where she is a Member of the Local Government Board, as Political Responsible for the Area of Territory, Climate Action, Mobility and Public Space and Delegate Councilor of the Department of Territory and Climate Action. President of the Governing Council of the Autonomous Organization Center for Environmental Studies (CEA), she is also President of the Board of Directors of the Municipal Society Ensanche 21 Zabalgunea.

Prof. Michel Armand, born in France and educated in France and USA, he owns a Master in inorganic, organic chemistry and physical chemistry (Paris 1968); Ph.D. in Physics (1978); Fullbright Fellow in 1970. He has been Directeur de Recherche at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) since 1989, Invited senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (1982-1983). Professor at University of Montreal (Canada) (1995-2004). Director of the Joint CNRS-UdM International Laboratory on Electroactive Materials (2000-2004). Resumed as Directeur de Recherche at CNRS in Amiens (France). Prof. Armand joined CIC energiGUNE in 2011 as part of the Scientific Committee of the Power Storage; Batteries and Supercaps area while leading the creation of the Polymer Electrolyte research group, currently at the top of European Research on Solid State Batteries. With an h-index of 67 and over 66000 citations, Prof. Armand is acting or has acted as Editorial Board for several journals (Solid-State Ionics, Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, Synthetic Metals, J. Power Sources) and Conferences advisory committee and organisation for several international conferences. The Scientific Distinctions and Awards received include both Bronze and Silver Medals from C.N.R.S. (1978, 1989); Royal Society, Faraday Division, Medal Award (1985); Preis fur Umweltteknologie Saarland Länder (1988); Battery Division Award, The Electrochemical Society USA (1988); Pergamon Medal, International Society for Electrochemistry (1995); Volta Award ECS European Section (2000), first recipient; Doctor Honoris Causa from Uppsala University (2006); Galileo Award for polymer electrolytes research (2010); International Senior Researcher, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2011); Aymé Poirson Prize, French Academy of Sciences (2012); Catalan - Sabatier Real Sociedad Española de Química Prize (2012) and Doctor Honoris Causa University from Deakin University (2016). JES Focus Issue on Challenges in Novel Electrolytes, Organic Materials, and Innovative Chemistries for Batteries in Honor of Michel Armand, the Electrochemical Society, (2020).

Pilar González has a degree in Physical Sciences from the UAM, was number one in her class and has almost 20 years of professional experience in the energy sector. She has been working at IBERDROLA for more than 10 years, where she is currently the Head of Energy Storage within the Innovation, Quality and Sustainability Department. Within IBERDROLA she has developed different functions and has worked, among others, in the CEO´s cabinet and in the International Management of IBERDROLA. She is one of IBERDROLA´s leading experts in energy storage systems and has been a member of the Technical Committee of the European Storage Association (EASE) since 2016. Pilar González is CIC energiGUNE’s Foundation President.

His research interests are in the field of materials science and electrochemistry, more precisely in electrochemical systems for energy conversion and storage, with main activities in the field of modern battery systems. He was a coordinator of two European projects developing Li-S batteries, and he has tide connections with different industry. He received several awarded, e.g. the Honda initiation grant (2013) and is a member of Slovenian Academy of Engineering. He is a deputy director of Alistore ERI (http://alistore.eu/) and core member of Battery 2030+ initiative (https://battery2030.eu/).

Robert Dominko has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers (H-index 50 SCOPUS 06/2020).

José Ignacio Hormaeche holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (1986), specializing in Hydraulics and Energy. In 1991 he obtained a Master´s Degree in Business Management from INSIDE, Universidad Comercial de Deusto, specializing in Marketing.

Currently and since March 2013, he is General Director of the Energy Cluster Association of the Basque Country, which brings together more than 200 companies and entities, and whose mission is to improve the competitiveness of companies in the energy sector in the Basque Country (with special attention to SMEs), through collaboration in the areas of technological development, internationalization, talent and sustainability.

Industrial Engineer from the University of Navarra and Master in Business Administration. He has worked for 17 years in the automotive sector performing various functions. For 8 years he worked for the company DANA in the USA and Eastern Europe in Product Engineering, Process Engineering and as a Six Sigma Black Belt. For the last 9 years he has been the Technical Director of ACICAE and AIC, in charge of defining and executing the Technological Agendas of both organizations, as well as promoting collaborative projects with strategic allies in Research, Development and Innovation. He actively participates in collaboration with Universities in training programs, sharing his knowledge and passion for the automotive sector.

Wouter IJzermans is the Executive Director for BEPA, the private-side association representing the battery research and industry communities in the co-programmed Partnership Batt4EU. The Batt4EU Partnership intends to establish a globally competitive and sustainable battery value chain in Europe. International positioning is key for this endeavour. Before starting as the Batt4EU Executive Director, Wouter was active for over 10 years in the Dutch energy sector, working on various European-funded projects.

Graduated as a mechanical engineer, he has been Vice President of ACC - a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Total Energies and promoter of gigafactories in France, Germany and Italy - and General Manager of Nissan Energy.

Dr.-Ing. Stefan Wolf is a senior consultant for innovation issues concerning energy systems, electric mobility and battery technology at VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH. He holds a doctorate in energy system analysis from the University of Stuttgart. In more than 10 years of professional work in research and development, Stefan acquired extensive knowledge of the energy and the industrial sector. Beyond his academic education, Stefan is an active intrapreneur and he holds certificates in innovation and product management.

PhD in Chemical Sciences from the University of the Basque Country, he is the author of 40 articles published in specialized scientific-technical journals and 5 patents of invention extended at international level, in addition to more than 50 communications and papers presented at national and international congresses.

Txomin Nieva received the Diploma in system engineering from the University of Mondragon, Mondragón, Spain, in 1997 and the Ph.D. degree in computer Science from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2001. In 2004, he joined the CAF Group. He is currently the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CAF’s subsidiary company CAF P&A, where he moved to in 2007. He Leads a large group of research engineers in power electronics, electromechanical design, control electronics and SW areas. He is responsible for developing new products for propulsion systems, control & communication systems, and ESS.

He has more than 5 years of experience dedicated to electrical energy storage, development of energy management strategies and hybridisation of systems in both the renewable energy and electromobility sectors. He holds an industrial doctorate in control, automation and robotics engineering and is a lecturer on the master´s degree in smart grid control and distributed generation at the University of the Basque Country.

Josu Arrinda has a degree in Automation and Electronics from Mondragon University where he also holds a PhD in hybrid generation systems management (Renewable Generation + Batteries). He has more than 9 years of experience dedicated to large-scale electrical energy storage, development of energy management strategies and hybridization of systems in the renewable energy sector. Leading storage projects around the world (Europe, USA, etc...). Currently he has been the technical director of the BESS area in Ingeteam for more than 4 years.

Soraya Romo Díez is an industrial engineer with more than 20 years of experience in the sector. She began her career working in technical profiles and, in the last 10 years, she has held management positions. Her professional career includes working for large corporations such as Iberdrola and Vinci Energies, and for family companies such as Velatia or Grupo Lekunbide. She has been BCARE´s general manager since 2020.