Helena Molin Valdés is the head of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) Secretariat at the UN Environment office in Paris, a position that she’s held since 2013. Helena is an experienced leader within the UN system. She was a senior executive with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), where she led work on resilience, disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, and climate change related topics. She was UNISDR’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean and worked with the Pan American Health Organization on hospital mitigation and disaster preparedness. Before joining the UN Helena was a practicing architect, planner, and head of a Swedish NGO based in Central America that worked on community based projects and appropriate technology development, including improved bricks production and cook stoves with the University of Lund.

Heather Adair-Rohani  leads the work on energy and health at the World Health Organization Headquarters.  She has helped lead the coordination and development of the WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion and is currently overseeing the work to support countries in the implementation of these Guidelines through the Clean Household Energy Solutions Toolkit and the establishment of the Health and Energy Platform of Action.  She also actively participates and represents WHO at various global initiatives focused on health, air pollution and energy like UN Energy, Sustainable Energy for All, Inter-Agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators, and the Global Strategy for Women, Children and Adolescent Health. She has coordinated a multi-stakeholder survey harmonization process and the expansion of the WHO household energy database, as well as WHO’s database on electricity access in health care facilities among other activities aimed at enhancing the evidence for policy-makers and to build country capacity to address air pollution, energy access and related health impacts.

Smita leads the Clean Energy and Climate Action Portfolios at Social Alpha. Social Alpha is an initiative to drive economic growth, social justice and climate action through the power of entrepreneurship and market-creating innovations. Smita has been deeply engaged with the global energy access ecosystem for more than 12 years, contributing across a wide spectrum of institutional programmes and interventions in public, private and development sectors. 

 Smita is passionate about catalysing large-scale, yet inclusive, social change through responsible investments and market-based solutions. Smita firmly believes that an honest engagement with the primary stakeholders must include women, and other on-the-margin populations, and advocates better contextualisation of solutions for community adoption, scale and deep impact.  She has extensively worked on designing and implementing evidence-driven strategies that accelerate and sustain social impact. Prior to joining Social Alpha, Smita worked with organisations such as TERI, Tata Trusts, Sambodhi and Ashden India Renewable Energy Collective (AIREC). Smita holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from TERI University, and is a Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellow on Social Innovation.

Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) is under the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation is an Apex government body to promote renewable energy technologies in Nepal.

 Mr. Adhikari had academic studies in engineering and finance and worked 10 years in a big hydropower development in private sector, more than 15 years in renewable energy, energy access and clean cooking in Danish, Norwegian, ADB, World Bank supported energy programs in Nepal and 2.5 years in energy access program of World Bank and government of Myanmar. 

 He is a senior renewable energy expert in the areas of policy, project design and planning; financing and resources mobilization, business model development and training and capacity developments in projects and programs in energy access and clean cooking. He has written research articles, given talk programs in TVs and radio, presented papers in national and international workshops/seminars, supervised a number of bachelor and master level thesis, and taught master level courses in renewable energy.

Tara Ramanathan is Director of Clean Energy at Nexleaf Analytics, a nonprofit focused on amplifying the impact of life-saving solutions including the vaccine cold chain and clean cooking. With more than 10 years of experience working with vulnerable populations, Tara always remains focused on her North Star: the women who cook. She has an MBA from University of Oxford Said Business school with an entrepreneurial focus on systems change and business models to scale impactful clean cooking.