Meet our Jury
Michaela Spaeth
Michaela Spaeth is Director for Energy and Climate Policy, Economic Affairs and Human Rights, International Labour Rights and Issues at the German Federal Foreign Office. Michaela is a career diplomat. Her professional path has focused on economic and global issues and climate policy. She has worked at German missions in Dhaka, London, Beijing, Warsaw and Vienna, the office of Tom Koenigs, Member of the German Bundestag and Deputy Special Representative for Civil Administration of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London. Michaela holds a Masters’s degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, and a Degree in Economic and Social History, Political Science and Early Modern and Modern History from the University of Freiburg and the Institut d’études politiques in Paris.
Vera Scholz
Vera Scholz is Director for Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure within GIZ where she started to work in 1999. She has been working in development cooperation for 20 years. Her areas of expertise are climate change, management of natural resources, infrastructure (energy, transport and water), voluntary social and environmental standards, corporate social responsibility and public private partnerships for sustainable development. She worked in Asia (India) and Africa (Kenya). Vera Scholz holds a master in Political Science with a focus on international relations.
Simone Peter
Simone Peter is the President of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE), representing the German Renewable Industry with the goal to achieve 100% renewable energies in power, heat and transportation. Simone was minister for the environment, energy and transportation in the state of Saarland, Member of Parliament in the state Saarland and chairperson of the German Green Party. She was also a founding member of the Renewable Energies Agency and its first managing director. Simone holds a PhD in Biology from the Saarland University. She is ever since fighting for the energy transition (Energiewende).
Sven Egenter
Sven Egenter heads the foundation funded energy and climate policy mediaservice Clean Energy Wire CLEW as Editor in Chief. Before he launched CLEW, he covered the German, Swiss and British economies during his 12 years at Reuters, writing extensively about the financial crisis. He ran the team covering the British economy as Chief Economics Correspondent, UK in London and managed Reuters’ editorial operation in Switzerland as Acting Bureau Chief in 2010. Before his career as a journalist, he worked for the EXPO2000 World Exhibition in Hannover. He taught journalism at Kingston University and holds a MS in Journalism from Boston University and a degree in economics from the University of Münster.
Anne-Sophie Garrigou
Anne-Sophie Garrigou is the Editor-in-Chief of The Beam Magazine, a Berlin-based publication that takes a modern approach to sustainable development and climate change, and Director of Beam Media. She is a journalist with a strong commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Since creating The Beam three years ago, Anne-Sophie has built a network of about 250 global experts and has helped researchers, international organisations, entrepreneurs and activists to translate their knowledge into a story that will be more accessible to a greater audience.
