Philip OLIVIER holds Electromechanical and Nuclear Engineering Degrees as well as Management Degrees from the University of Gent and INSEAD in Fontainebleau. He has over 30 years of experience in the electricity and gas industry. In 2007, he was appointed to the position of CEO of SUEZ Global LNG. After the merger between Gaz de France and Suez, he became CEO of the “Global LNG” BU, Business Unit responsible for the management of the ENGIE Group’s LNG shipping, supply and assets portfolio. With the acquisition of ENGIE’s LNG business by Total in 2018, he was appointed Senior VP and responsible of the new LNG entity within Total - combining Total and ex-ENGIE LNG assets, portfolios and teams. In 2020, he was appointed Senior Representative Asia, Gas Division, GRP and Country Chair for Japan.

Hidetake Takahashi currently serves as an Executive Officer and the Head of Energy and Eco-Services Business Headquarters at ORIX Corporation, where he has been leading ORIX’s global renewable energy initiative since 2011.

He joined ORIX in 1993 and has held a variety of investment, management and business operations positions in multiple industry sectors, including energy, private equity, real estate, and corporate finance.

He also serves as a member of the board of directors of companies invested by ORIX.

He received a Bachelor of Economics degree from Keio University (Japan) in 1993.

Peter Taksøe-Jensen is the Danish Ambassador to Japan. He was appointed to this position in 2019.

Before his current post, Ambassador Taksøe-Jensen was Denmark's Ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2015 and to India from 2015 to 2019. Before that he was Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs at the United Nations. He was appointed to this position by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in August 2008.

Before joining the United Nations, Taksøe-Jensen served for more than two decades for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which he joined in 1987. He worked in different areas in the ministry including the Legal Service, the Security Policy Department and the European Union Law Department and on various government commissions. He was posted to different places including to Vienna and to Brussels. Taksøe-Jensen has been Under-Secretary for Legal Affairs and Head of the Legal Service in the Danish Ministry since 2004.

In his capacity as ASG for Legal Affairs, Taksøe-Jensen was responsible for supporting the overall direction and management of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs.

Taksøe-Jensen obtained his law degree from the University of Copenhagen. He has been awarded the Knight 1st Class of Order of Dannebrog.

Dimitry Rakin is the Associate Director of the Economist Corporate Network North Asia, where he is responsible for events planning, private briefings, data analysis and research in Japan and South Korea. He is an expert on Japanese economy, business and trade as well as on the history and politics of the East Asia region.

Prior to joining The Economist Group, Dimitry was a Senior Officer of Economic Affairs in the Trade Delegation Unit of the Russian Embassy in Japan connecting Russian and Japanese companies, promoting Russia as an investment destination and facilitating Russia-Japan intergovernmental negotiations on economic cooperation. He started his career as an editor covering East Asia in one of the biggest Russian news agencies (ITAR-TASS) working in the central office and Tokyo Bureau of the agency.

Dimitry has an MA degree in Japanese language and history from the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) and was also a Japanese government (MEXT) research scholar at Meiji University’s Graduate School of Law, Tokyo. In addition to native Russian language skills, he is fluent in English and Japanese.