Steering Committee asia

Verena Pichler is a qualified climate scientist, economist and lawyer specialising in development, implementation and evaluation of best practice economic environmental policies.  With a career that spans the private, public and not-for profit sector, Verena brings a multidisciplinary and diverse perspective to the consideration of policies. With a strong background in energy demand-side management, Verena currently leads the project team evaluating Australia’s largest energy efficiency certificate trading program (the Victorian Energy Upgrades program). This follows from her previous project, which quantified costs and benefits of the program to date over its ten year lifetimes, and set ambitious new emissions reduction targets. Verena specialises in evaluating programs from a technical, environmental, social and economic perspective, including how they can best support consumers, but also governments, in transitioning to a net zero carbon economy.  While her focus lies in strategic evaluation, Verena has also worked extensively in evaluating technologies, including evaluating baselines for deemed, and measurement & verification upgrade methodologies. Verena’s recent focus is in evaluating market dynamics associated with small certificate trading programs in order to promote price efficiency and reduce program costs.

DEFILLA Steivan, Swiss national, President Assistant of the APEC Sustainable Energy Center APSEC since 2018, oversees the APEC Cooperative Network of Sustainable Cities created by APEC Leaders in 2014. His APEC Sustainable Urban Development Report – From Models to Results has been published in 2019 as a first APEC publication of APSEC, followed in 2021 by the APEC Integrated Urban Planning Report – Combining Disaster Resilience with Sustainability and the APEC Green Finance Report – Unlocking the Urban Energy Transition, the second ever report of APEC on green finance. He co-authored and edited the APEC Urban Energy Report 2023 – Driving Cities Through the Low Carbon Transition and the Promoting Carbon Neutrality in North Sulawesi – Vision, Targets, Benchmarking and Monitoring (forthcoming). He is a Professor at the School of Architecture, Tianjin University, China, teaching a graduate course on Sustainable Urban Development in APEC under the SDGs.

He is the former Director of the Energy Charter (2010-2016), an intergovernmental energy organization with 50 Member states, headquartered in Brussels. He managed the expansion of the Energy Charter to include 30 new observer states, among them China, who all signed the International Energy Charter declaration in May 2015 in an ad hoc Ministerial conference in The Hague, The Netherlands. He also supervised or co-authored 26 studies and analyses and 2 books on energy-related subjects.
As Senior Energy Advisor to the Swiss Economics Minister (1999-2010), he contributed to the reform of the Swiss electricity sector, the Swiss infrastructure strategy, and the Swiss foreign energy policy. He wrote a book and co-authored 13 articles in English, German, French, and Russian languages. He also attended Governing Board meetings of the IEA and co-chaired multilateral negotiations at the Energy Charter.

Steivan holds Masters degree in Statistics and a Bachelor degree in Economics from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He also holds a Postgraduate degree in Energy from the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Lausanne.

My interest in evaluation and impact measurement began after seeing clients challenged by program implementation. I started Aartha, a consulting company, to focus design, implementation, and evaluation of program investments. Our work began with Human Capital programs and is expanding to other areas.

I am a keen student in the field of evaluation. I lead Columbia University’s Venture Capital Club’s Impact Program and serve on Asia Pacific Evaluation Association committee on the regional strategy theme of measuring Sustainable Development Goals. I also represent the ROI Institute USA as their Regional Director in Asia Pacific. The ROI Methodology is used to evaluate program effectiveness and impact in many organizations globally.

I hope to contribute to making evaluation more accessible and widely applied in all sectors for all impacts. Much of our success in development and humanitarian goals depends on the ability to measure and value the outcomes we want to achieve.

On another note, I love the outdoors, nature, and hiking. I read voraciously and love to travel. Above all, I aspire to develop genuine relationships with people in all I do.

Dr. Archana Walia is a practicing development professional with over twenty-four years of core experience of working on issues across the sectors ranging from climate change; clean energy, energy efficiency, urban development, water management and integrated resource management.

She has served in several leadership position as a country director, deputy office director, senior climate change advisor and a team leader with demonstrable experience to lead teams of professionals and administrative staff, planning strategies and programs, managing the portfolio for results, planning budgets and financial management.

Serving as the Director of India program at CLASP, she provides leadership, management, and strategic direction to all program activities to ensure the efficient use of resources and achievement of results. She oversees strategies and activities for India’s participation in the Global programs such as Superefficient Appliance and Deployment program (SEAD) under the Clean Energy Ministerial as well as actively develops business development strategies.

Archana served as the deputy director of the Office of Clean Energy and Environment at USAID/India. In this capacity, she served as the senior energy and climate change advisor at USAID providing intellectual leadership, advisory and analytical inputs in the development of climate change program strategies including clean energy, sustainable landscape and water. Her experience ranges from developing program strategies and analyzing the financial, economic, institutional, technological and environmental costs and benefits of various regulatory, policy and technological changes especially relating to clean energy and energy efficiency. Prior to this, Archana worked with the Department for International Development (DFID), UK bilateral agency for over four years managing the first ever Power Sector Reform Program in India in the state of Orissa. She worked with the British Council division as Project officer for three years administering and managing projects and training program in the field of Natural Resources and Environment.

Ripu comes with 15 years of international multi-disciplinary experience in facilitating India’s clean energy transition. He specializes in design and development of both on-line and off-line monitoring and evaluation and program and knowledge management systems. Past decade of his specialized experience is in the clean energy sector, during which he has worked with a variety of donors and institutions, including U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department for International Developed (DFID), Government of UK, and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). While framing M&E systems has been Ripu’s forte, leading continuous improvement efforts and knowledge management within organizations and programs has been an equivalent mission all through his career.

Most recently, Ripu has been the Monitoring, Evaluation and Knowledge Management Specialist for USAID Greening the Grid (GTG) Renewable Integration and Sustainable Energy (RISE) Initiative, implemented by Deloitte Consulting. It is a five-year program implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Power (MOP), Government of India (GOI) that aims to support GOI’s efforts to manage large-scale integration of Renewable Energy (RE) into the grid. Previously Ripu served as the M&E Specialist for USAID/India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy – Deployment (PACE-D) Technical Assistance Program. His key responsibilities in these roles have been to develop results-based, gender disaggregated strategy and define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including collection of baseline data to demonstrate quantitative results and progress; develop strategy to sustain and scale program interventions including cross cutting initiatives such as gender equality and private sector engagement; provide strategic advisory inputs to the Chief of Party (COP) and USAID for effective program operations and management in light of dynamic global scenario and U.S. and India government priorities; Enable program coordination and joint work planning among U.S. Government (USG) activities, Government of India (GOI) stakeholders; consolidate content and develop weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports to USAID on program performance measurement; guide a dedicated support staff for M&E/KM activities along with working closely with the engineering team to deliver agreed deliverables.

Earlier, while at TERI, Ripu travelled across rural India villages, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa on energy access issues working closely with the rural communities, especially rural women at the grassroots level. He worked with a variety of state and local governments, public and private sector stakeholders and donor agencies. He also led multiple key Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects for a variety of public and private corporate donors as the Principal Investigator, including ICICI Foundation, Rural Electrification Corporation, Power Finance Corporation, Power System Operation Corporation, and GAIL India Limited.

Ripu is a great believer in forming alliances. In his most recent engagement at USAID GTG-RISE Initiative, he has been instrumental with on boarding of leaders, experts, international agencies and think-tanks in forming interest groups such as the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) aimed at enhanced private sector engagement in the clean energy transition; and South Asia Women in Energy (SAWIE) Initiative aimed at accelerating representation of women at the leadership levels in the energy, industrial and manufacturing sectors in the South Asia Region. Ripu is an expert reviewer for REN21 Global Status Report and Mentor for POWERED Accelerator, an initiative by Shell Foundation, DFID, Zone Start-ups

Ripu loves to interact socially and can be found at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

R.M. Soedjono (Jon) Respati is currently Chairman of the Indonesian Energy Efficiency and Conservation (MASKEEI). Before taking his current post at MASKEEI, Jon was a senior clean energy development and a long activist with Indonesian Renewable Energy Society (METI) in which he served twice at its Board of Directors, and in other capacities including Director of Business Development, Solar Energy Focus Group, and in organizing several national and international conferences on renewable energy on METI’s behalf. He is currently a member of METI’s Board of R.E. Business Association.

His business and professional career spans over more than four decades in which he has held senior positions at various national and international companies and organizations in Indonesia and abroad.  He began his professional career as a government civil servant in the early 1960s with the Ministry of Public Works, before moving to the Netherlands to pursue his study in Economics and Business at the Vrije University, Amsterdam. In Indonesia, he worked for an international oil company before he took up the position of CEO with a major international brewery and beverage company, and later in various senior positions with companies in the fields of Tourism Business, Power, Plantations and Renewable Energy.

He was a lecturer in Green Economy at a local University, and led the founding of the Center for Sustainability at the same university. He was also a guest lecturer at several high learning institutions and a speaker at many seminars, workshops and conferences on clean energy. He was involved in the founding of the Indonesia Renewable Energy Society in early 2000, and became a senior activist promoting Indonesia development of renewable energy in collaboration with the government. He later founded the Indonesian Energy Conservation and Efficiency in 2014 and became its first Chairman.

Jon attended a Doctoral Studies program at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and holds a Master’s Degree in Economics and Business.

Hae-in is working on the evaluations of various programs from energy to international development field, Hae-in has been involved in the entire process of monitoring and evaluation. Working with diverse partners such as utility and government, Hae-in has designed a monitoring and evaluation framework, defined indicators, and developed methodologies for impact evaluations. Currently, Hae-in is focusing on the evaluation of demand side management programs, and has been assessing (or estimating) the impact of the programs.

Good evaluations of energy programs in Asia-Pacific will definitely help to use energy efficiently and achieve a transition to clean energy.

Songhee Han has a keen interest in the principle of climate justice, the nexus between sustainable development and climate change, and the impact of evaluation. She has been working in this field at non-profit organizations, academia, and a government-funded research institute and has a doctoral degree in international studies focusing on development cooperation.

Throughout her career, she has collaborated closely with diverse stakeholders, contributing to the evaluation and monitoring of projects related to development cooperation and climate technology development and transfer. Her involvement spans a range of areas, including feasibility study of climate-related aid, case study on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and net-zero initiatives, and research project on sustainable finance.

Her publications are mainly on climate-development nexus in developing countries, aid determinants and effectiveness, barriers and enablers to climate technology transfer, and innovative financing for development. Analyzing the impact of energy programs is a crucial element in her research as well.

I am currently an Affiliate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where I was involved in the evaluation of energy efficiency programs and technology performance measurement for over 36 years. I have been working with colleagues around the world in developing a community of evaluators of energy programs in Asia Pacific. As part of this effort, I have been involved in organizing workshops in Asia, as well as organizing our first conference in Asia in Bangkok in November 2017.

Evaluation is critical for improving our way of life: Developing new energy programs and policies as well as improving existing energy programs and policies, for implementing the path to sustainability.
My work and career is evaluation! My close network of colleagues are involved in evaluation, and I look forward to working with others (especially the “next generation”) in promoting evaluation.

Effective evaluation will lead to many opportunities in the private and public sectors in the design, implementation and evaluation of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs and policies.
I am interested in this area of energy evaluation because of the opportunities for improving society, and I am excited in working with new and experienced individuals and organizations in this effort. Evaluation is often misunderstood and under appreciated: I hope this community of evaluators will change that image.

Poh Seng (PS) Lee, a Dean’s Chair Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), is at the forefront of sustainable energy research. As Executive Director at the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) and holding leadership roles within the Singapore Energy Consortium (SEC) and the Centre for Energy Research & Technology (CERT), Prof. Lee champions the advancement of energy-efficient technologies and policies. His pioneering work, especially in sustainable data centre liquid cooling solutions, underscores his commitment to addressing climate challenges. Prof. Lee’s entrepreneurial venture, CoolestDC Pte Ltd, further exemplifies his dedication to transferring research innovations into practical, market-driven solutions.