Energy Council London 2026

Sherree Kendall is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ London office and leads the Global Energy Sector. She is a member of the global Industrial, CEO & Board of Directors, and Corporate Officers practices with 20 years of experience in executive search with a particular focus on advising clients in the energy and industrial services sectors internationally. Sherree is joining the 2024 Awards of Excellence Judging Panel. The panel will be meeting this September to review, deliberate, discuss and shortlist the nominations received from our global network. Awards of Excellence World Energy Capital Assembly Sherree advises clients on CEO, senior leadership, and non-executive chairs and directors with a commercial, financial, operational, and technical background. Within the sector, Sherree partners with global integrated energy companies, equipment and services groups, EPC, and new energies clients spanning a range of quoted, private, and private equity-backed vehicles. Prior to joining Heidrick and Struggles, Sherree was with an FTSE-listed global executive search firm, leading energy practice based in London.

Neal is a venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur with 9+ startups under his belt, and one of the best seed-stage hit rates in cleantech. Neal helped launch the CVC fund at Royal Dutch Shell, co-founded 7 tech startups, and co-founded Jane Capital Partners a leading cleantech investor whose seed investees raised over $400M. Old Growth Ventures (TX) – Managing Partner of family office backed real estate partnership Historic Preservation Fund I. Royal Dutch Shell (TX) – Hired to lead N. America VC arm of Shell’s $400M venture fund. Investor Magseis (IPO Oslo), Salamander (Spinout), Geli (Storage software, Acq by Hanwha Q Cells), Launched and led Shell’s $100M spinout fund. Jane Capital Partners (SF) – co-founder at age 25. Seed investor in Zenergy, (IPO LSE), Block Shield (IPO LSE), Smart Wires. Advisor to $1B+ in corporate venture capital at ConocoPhillips, Meridian Energy, Shell, Macquarie Bank. Neal has co-founded 7 startups from energy to SaaS, variously held CEO, VP, CFO, and Chairman roles, including smart grid startups Smart Wires, where he was also CFO of the modular power flow controls startup; and Zenergy Power, a superconducting smart grid technology (IPO). He also launched a solar IPP for Meridian that built one of the 1st utility-scale solar farms in the US. He began his career in private equity, and at Bankers Trust in energy, before learning startup investing at the parent company behind Yellowpages.com (Acq by AT&T). Neal maintains one of the largest networks in the sector. He founded and operates Cleantech.org , and has been cited on energy in 100s of publications from Time Magazine to the WSJ. In 2018 he took time off to run for US Senate from TX against Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz, winning the Libertarian Party Nomination, and nearly upsetting the race. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Texas A&M.

Xavier is Snam Head of Corporate Strategy, investigating long term future of gas scenarios,decarbonization, innovation and strategy initiatives. Snam is the largest gas infrastructure operator in Europe with asset in Italy, France, UK, Austria and more recently in Greece and new businesses focusing on gas use in transport sector, biomethane production and small scale liquefaction plants. Xavier has a 10+ years professional experience in the energy business, maturated as consultant in McKinsey & Company, working in the gas and power sectors focusing on strategy and regulatory projects. Early promoter of the Cleantech initiative, he supported energy companies in defining their energy transition pathway and has been a senior member of a global network of practitioners focusing on knowledge development on energy and climate change. He has an extensive, international and diversified working experience with operators along the gas and power value chain, such as utilities, independent power producers, midstream gas and Government institutions in Italy, Europe,Japan, US, as well as in emerging markets (ASEAN and LatAm).

Caner Can is an accomplished Energy Advisor, with over two decades of experience in the field. He is currently working as an Energy Counselor at the Permanent Delegation of Türkiye to the EU in Brussels. Prior to this, Caner served as the Energy Counselor of the Turkish Consulate General in Houston, Texas. As an Energy Advisor of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he represented Türkiye at various energy governance organizations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well as at the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group. He has also contributed to several international energy projects in Türkiye. Caner has a Master of Excellence on Regulation of Gas Markets from the Florence School of Regulation at the European University Institute, and has written his MA dissertation on the EU-Russia interdependency on natural gas at the School of Economics and Social Sciences at TOBB ETU University in Ankara. Caner is currently pursuing his PhD from the University of Groningen on energy transition in Europe and the role of critical minerals.

David is currently Head, Global Energy and Diversified Industries for the TMX Group Inc. In his role, David is responsible for developing and implementing sector listings business development strategy and tactics for both the Energy and Diversified Industries practices for the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV). Prior to joining the TMX Inc., David spent 25 years in the Canadian capital markets industry both as an investment banker and as an institutional equity sales professional. While in the employment of various Canadian investment banks David executed over 55 public and private equity financings and advisory mandates for a cumulative dollar value in excess of $800MM. In 2009, David founded First Resource Capital Corp. (“FRCC”). FRCC was a natural resource focused investment bank that was registered (until August 2016) as an Exempt Market Dealer. FRCC's business model consisted of assisting both private and publicly listed Canadian companies (mostly natural resource exploration and development companies) raise capital (debt and/or equity) from sophisticated institutional investors (i.e. private equity funds, hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, flow-through funds, natural resource focused funds, and investment counselors / portfolio managers, etc.). David was awarded a Master of Business Administration (Finance Major) degree from the University of Calgary, Richard Haskayne School of Business in 1997 and a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science / Economics) degree from the University of Alberta in 1991. David has also successfully completed various Canadian Securities Institute courses and exams including the Canadian Securities Course, the Conduct and Practices Course and the Partners, Directors and Senior Officers Qualifying Examination.

Nishadi Davis is Wood's Head of Carbon Advisory for the Americas region. Driven by her passion for energy and sustainability, Nishadi supports her clients to set and meet their emissions reduction goals by devising the most investible, scalable and sustainable pathways. With over 15 years of industry experience, Nishadi is a licensed Professional Engineer with B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Bob is a senior industry executive who has worked across the energy value chain for operators, service companies, manufacturers, and private equity. He assists executive teams in setting strategy and developing and implementing action plans to achieve those objectives. With 40 years of industry and consulting experience, Bob has held senior executive positions at ExxonMobil and Schlumberger. He holds a BS in Physics from Carleton, a BSEE from Michigan Tech., and an Executive MBA from SMU. Beginning his career at ExxonMobil, Bob rose to a series of senior technical and management positions, ultimately managing global geoscience research and technical services. In that role, his organization discovered and booked over 1 billion barrels of reserves in its last year of operation. Over the years, he has built three major energy consultancies, with cumulative revenue growth of over $200mm. During his career, he has consulted with over 75 energy clients. He currently advises four energy technology startups.

Shahin holds the position of Investor Relations Manager for Africa Oil and is based in London, UK. He previously worked as a sell-side E&P analyst for TD Bank and Pareto Securities and a project financier with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. He started his career in the upstream oil and gas industry as an offshore and subsea engineer before leaving for the City and world of finance. According to his former engineering manager: “good engineers stay on doing engineering, whereas bad engineers end up in banking and finance where they should cause less damage”!