Jacques Lafond

Jacques Lafond has held various leading positions in the multinational company Total. Before his retirement in 2008, he was based in London for seven years as President and CEO of Total Gas&Power Ltd. (TGPL); Total affiliate for worldwide Trading, Shipping and Marketing of Natural Gas, LNG, LPG, Power and CO2. The four preceding years, he was President of Total Asia and responsible for Total downstream activities in Asia, including China and India.

From 1989-1995 he was President and CEO of Total Petroleum Services (TPS), Total affiliate for worldwide Trading and Shipping of Crude oil, LPG and Petroleum Products based in London with branch offices in New-York, Singapore, Tokyo and Paris.

His career at Total started in 1973 in Denver, Colorado when he joined Total Petroleum North America and where he held various positions in Crude oil and Product supplies, shipping and wholesale sales.

Jacques Lafond is a graduate from the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, holds an MS degree from University of California, Berkeley and joined the Stanford University Business School Executive program for one year. Mr Lafond is Chairman of the ICE Endex Supervisory Board.

Marc van't Noordende

Marc van’t Noordende has been Chief Executive Officer of NKT Cables between mid-2011 and the end of 2014. With sales of more than €1.2 billion, NKT Cables is a mid-sized supplier of a wide range of power cables with manufacturing sites in Europe and in China as well as a turnkey project provider for high voltage on- and offshore cable projects. Before joining NKT Cables, van’t Noordende had an international career in different sectors, including energy, chemicals and management consulting. He has worked both for publicly and privately owned companies and has worked and lived in a number of different countries, including the United States (6 years), France (7 years), Italy (3 years) and Germany (3 years).

Between 2000 and 2008, van’t Noordende has been with Essent N.V., the largest Dutch utility company. Van’t Noordende was an Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the company. Before Essent, van’t Noordende spent, amongst others, 12 years with chemical multinational AkzoNobel and had positions in Finance, Business Development, Sales and General Management.

Van’t Noordende has a Law degree from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands as well as an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

David Peniket

David Peniket is the President of ICE Futures Europe, the London-based energy exchange that is part of the Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE). In this role, Mr. Peniket oversees all technology, market operations and financial functions at ICE Futures Europe. Prior to joining ICE in 2001, Mr. Peniket served as Director of Finance at the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), today known as ICE Futures Europe, since May 2000. Before joining IPE, Mr. Peniket was an accountant at KPMG since 1992, where he worked as a consultant in the company's financial management practice. In addition, Mr. Peniket served as a Research Assistant to John Cartwright, SDP Member of Parliament prior to assuming a career in finance.

David Peniket earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is also a Chartered Accountant.

Ulco Vermeulen

Ulco Vermeulen is Managing Director Participations and Business Development, member of the Management Board of N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie. This division concentrates on the development of non-regulated services and products and on participation in national and international projects in the gas infrastructure sector.

Ulco Vermeulen plays a key role in the social debate on energy in the Netherlands. He is chairman of Green Gas Netherlands and is internationally active in the debate on sustainability, including through the IGU.

Ulco Vermeulen has occupied various strategic and commercial positions at Gasunie since 1990. He was responsible for the export of natural gas to Germany and for the sale of gas to the Dutch energy companies. Subsequently, he was in charge of Gas Transport Services. From 2005 to 2007 Vermeulen was Director of Participations and Development. After that he was the Managing Director of Gate Terminal B.V., first LNG terminal in the Netherlands for a year. Between 1984 and 1990, Ulco Vermeulen was senior policy officer at the Energy Policy and Natural Gas Departments at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Ulco holds a degree economics.

Gordon Bennett

Gordon Bennett is Managing Director, Utility Markets at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), responsible for sales and business development for ICE's long-established European natural gas and power franchise, together with its international emissions and coal portfolios.

Prior to joining ICE, Mr. Bennett spent over 12 years at the energy broker Spectron. Mr. Bennett joined Spectron as Group Financial Controller in April 2002 and was appointed to the Board as Chief Financial Officer in February 2005. He moved to New York in February 2006 as Managing Director of North America and after Imarex’s acquisition of Spectron in 2008 was appointed Managing Director and co-head of Energy at Imarex. He relocated back to London in February 2011 as Managing Director and Global Head of Energy and was appointed to Marex Spectron’s Executive Committee.

Prior to Spectron, he served as a Senior Manager in the Energy, Infrastructure and Utilities division of accounting firm Andersen and was responsible for several large energy trading companies. He also launched the Andersen Spectron Energy Indices in 2001.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales having qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1998. Mr. Bennett holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (with Honours) in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh.