Contributors

Phil Scanlon

Phil Scanlon joined Solace in 2016 and today leads the global Solution Engineering team, responsible for delivering technical excellence across solutions architecture, presales, and field engineering. He is responsible for a global organisation that partners with customers to design and implement real-time, event-driven infrastructures that drive digital transformation and prepare for AI adoption across the enterprise. 

With more than 25 years in enterprise software, Phil’s career spans leadership roles across the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia-Pacific. At Solace, Phil is a recognised architect and evangelist of Event-Driven Architecture (EDA), empowering global customers—from financial services to manufacturing—to deploy scalable, enterprise-grade event meshes. He’s also a prominent voice on the global stage, presenting at industry conferences, executive forums, and CIO summits to spotlight strategic trends in real-time systems, integration and AI.

Philippe Du Four

Philippe Du Four is the Chairman Global Power Practice of Marsh Inc.

Phillip Vaughan

Phillip Vaughan is Director for the Utilities Industry at SAP Asia Pacific-Japan. He drives the regional business development strategy and activities for the electricity, gas, water, waste and recycling sectors.

Pramod Jain & Arun Ramamurthy

Pramod Jain is a leading expert in Wind Power, Energy Storage and Internet of Things. He is a consultant to private developers, the Asian Development Bank, USAID, US Department of Energy, United Nations Development Program, Inter-American Development Bank and others. One of his areas of focus is improving the operations of wind and other power plants through solutions that include sensors, cloud computing and smart analytics. Pramod has provided consulting in the USA, Bangladesh, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Mongolia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Philippines, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts, Suriname and Vietnam. He is the author of a book Wind Energy Engineering, McGraw-Hill, NY, published in April 2016. He holds a B. Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.

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Arun Ramamurthy is a Senior Public Management Specialist (ICT & e-Governance) at ADB. Arun is an expert in designing and implementing digital technology solutions and innovations in development economics activities of ADB. His recent work includes piloting new connectivity and communications technologies in Bhutan and Myanmar. He is presently involved in conceptualizing Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence solutions through ADB interventions in India, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and the People’s Republic of China. He was with Tata Consultancy Services, India and worked in the US, UK, and Singapore before joining the ADB.

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Praveen Kakulte

Praveen Kakulte is the Founder and CEO of Powercon Ventures, and a first-generation entrepreneur with over three decades of experience in renewable energy. He has built a fully bootstrapped, end-to-end renewable energy ecosystem under the Powercon Group. 

His expertise spans project development, construction, operations, and asset management across wind and solar domains. He is also known for pioneering Asia’s first Energy Studio in Pune and founding CORE, a training academy that has trained over 3,000 professionals globally.

Prihastya Wiratama, Lulu Safira, and Benny Zulchairi Bursyah

Prihastya Wiratama is the Project Manager of ASEAN Power Interconnection at the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), where he has served since 2023. He leads efforts to strengthen regional energy cooperation through the ASEAN Power Grid initiative, focusing on cross-border electricity interconnection and policy coordination to support the region’s energy transition and enhance energy security. 

Before joining ACE, Prihastya spent over 12 years at a leading Indonesian consulting firm, where he played a key role in advising and supporting Independent Power Producer projects. His portfolio included feasibility studies, grid impact assessments, financial and technical advisory, and stakeholder engagement, successfully helping many clients win tenders in Indonesia’s competitive power sector. 

In his current role, Prihastya has made significant contributions to advancing interconnection projects, including securing funding support from international agencies to conduct feasibility studies for cross-border projects such as the Indonesia-Malaysia interconnection. 
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Lulu Safira is the Project Officer on Power at the ASEAN Centre for Energy. She is currently active in cross-border electricity interconnection projects and regional cooperations under the ASEAN Power Grid initiative. 

Lulu holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Universitas Indonesia where she first discovered her interest in the energy industry. After graduating, she continued her passion; handling upstream oil and gas projects in Indonesia as a field engineer with Halliburton. 

She moved on to renewable energy and obtained MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures from Imperial College London before finally joining ACE.

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Benny Zulchairi Bursyah is a seasoned power system planner with over 14 years of experience in the electricity sector. He currently serves as the Manager of Power System Planning for Sumatra and Kalimantan at PLN (Persero), a role he has held since 2021. 

In this position, he is responsible for formulating PLN’s Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL), particularly focusing on the expansion of generation capacity across Sumatra and Kalimantan. Throughout his career, he has been involved in numerous system studies, both locally and through international utility collaborations. 

Prima Madan & Vivek Dhariwal

Prima Madan is a senior economist and policy analyst at Emergent Ventures with expertise in energy and climate change. She is closely working with Ministry of Power, India on energy efficiency financing and demand side management programs. 

Vivek Dhariwal is a senior energy and transport analyst at Emergent Ventures with expertise in developing low carbon strategies for corporate, transport and energy sector. He has advised various fortune 500 companies, government and multilateral agencies to achieve the low carbon strategy development. 

Priyantha D C Wijayatunga

Dr. Priyantha D C Wijayatunga is aSenior Energy Specialist in Asian Development Bank.

Putra Adhiguna and Christina Ng

Putra Adhiguna

Energy Technologies Research Lead, Asia

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

Putra Adhiguna leads technology research in Asia and covers energy transition in the emerging economies context, including the various facets of technology developments, investment trends, and policy directions.

As an energy professional for over 15 years, he has led numerous high-profile projects, held various leadership positions in Fortune500 companies, and advised diverse public and private stakeholders. 

He firmly believes in the critical role of publicly accessible information to shed light on the uncharted road of energy transition. His views and writings have been featured in various publications and media outlets. 

Putra holds an engineering degree from Institut Teknologi Bandung, and a Master in Public Policy from the London School of Economics & Political Science. He is also an alumni of business leadership program from Texas A&M University.

Christina Ng

Research & Stakeholder Engagement Leader, Debt Markets

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

Christina Ng oversees a team of financial analysts that provide debt market analysis covering Asia Pacific. She also represents IEEFA at stakeholder forums. Her research of interest includes trends and issues in green and transition finance, policies and regulations, with a focus on the energy sector.

As a former standard-setter in international financial reporting, Christina directed the research and analysis of accounting issues and financial statements crucial for the development and improvisation of standards to enable investors and other market participants to make informed finance decisions. She also advised stakeholders in the adoption and interpretation of standards and worked closely with global standard-setters, investors, regulators and public-listed corporations. 

Her appreciation for sound policies and governance and the important role investors play in driving meaningful change, opens the door for IEEFA to participate in relevant policy and standard-setting globally. 

Christina qualified with CPA Australia after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Accounting and Finance) from the University of Melbourne in Australia. She then furthered her studies in business sustainability management with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in the United Kingdom.

Rachel Schelble

With over 15 years of experience working in the oil and gas industry, Rachel Schelble recently joined Wood Mackenzie as a Director in Corporate Research with a focus on Midstream Infrastructure, Carbon Management, and Energy Transition Strategies.

Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Rachel worked for ExxonMobil where she held multiple positions in competitor analysis, commercial negotiation, value chain integration, infrastructure development, geoscience integration, and resource evaluation in roles based in Russia, Canada, and the U.S.  Most recently, she led a project focused on understanding the potential of nature based solutions for carbon sequestration, and development of carbon management strategy profiles for U.S. oil and gas companies.

Prior to this, Rachel was located in Midland, TX and worked as part of XTO Energy (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil), focused on developing the Permian Basin, leading commercial infrastructure and marketing negotiations and working to align business objectives across the Permian Value Chain from Upstream through to Chemicals.

Rachel has a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Southern California, and a BSc in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the University of New Mexico.