Major Projects and Industry Forum 2024

Mark Grenning: Director Policy and Regulation – EUAA
Mark who has been in this role since 2015, has been a long term Director and past Chairman of the EUAA. He is a member of the AEMO 2024 ISP Consumer Panel and the Grattan Institute’s Energy and Climate Reference Group. He has had extensive experience in representing users interests in a wide variety of national energy forums and providing advice to National and State energy bodies. He is a long term member of the Customer Panels of both Energy Queensland (Ergon and Energex) and Powerlink.

Prior to his EUAA career, Mark had a 30 year career in Rio Tinto with a focus on energy management. This included Chair of the Board for Gladstone Power Station, responsibility for the power supply agreement to Boyne Smelter and project development for the energy supply to the Yarwum alumina refinery. In the last 7 years he was the subject matter expert advising on energy supply options to Rio Tinto’s operations around the world.

Mark and his wife live in Brisbane and they have daughters living in Toowoomba and Cairns.

Angie Zahra: General Manager – Stanwell Corporation

Angie Zahra’s career spans over three decades in Queensland’s energy industry, commencing in 1991 as Chemical Technician at Stanwell Power Station. Over the last 32 years, she has undertaken numerous operational and leadership roles at Stanwell, helping to ensure and maintain a secure, reliable energy supply.

Today, Angie leads Stanwell Power Station as General Manager of Central Generation, leading her 200 team members and building a diverse, inclusive workplace that supports the growth of our region and our people. As General Manager, Angie is now helping to lead Stanwell Power Station’s transformation into a Clean Energy Hub. She is deeply committed to the local community and to ensuring mutual benefits for Stanwell and our communities through the energy transformation..

Lewis Glynn: Chief Operating Officer & CEO – Surf Lakes Capricorn Coast

Lewis has over a decade of experience managing large and complex construction projects up to $2bn in value as well as founding his own smaller constriction and development companies.

Lewis’ project experience includes aquatic centres, Sydney Harbour marinas, high-rise mixed-use developments, sports stadiums, luxury hotels, and residential towers (100m+ high). In central London, Lewis was the Technical Manager for a $2bn mixed-use development for the Berkeley Group. More recently, Lewis joins us from one of Australia’s largest project management consultancy firms where he managed a Business Unit. There, Lewis and his team managed a diverse $1bn+ portfolio from development and design through to construction.

Lewis’ passion for surfing and background as RNLI senior lifeguard led him to pursue aquatic projects with the aim of eventually taking that to the Surf Park industry.

Prof. Jamshid Aghaei is a Senior Member of IEEE and holds a Full Professorship of renewable and sustainable energy systems position in the School of Engineering and Technology at CQU. Throughout his academic career, he has focused on researching and advancing decarbonised, digitalised, decentralised, and democratised power and energy systems.

His expertise spans numerous areas, including power system operation and planning, integration of distributed energy resources (renewables and storages), electricity markets, applied optimisation and AI/data analytics. He has been proactively involved in different phases (proposal writing, implementation, and administration) of results-driven research projects, teaching and training activities, as well as scholarly both independently and within a team. Jamshid has demonstrated research impact throughout his career, spanning academia and industry. With a publication record exceeding 290 publications with over 13,500 citations, his scholarly work is strong evidence for his influence in the field of digitalised, decentralised, and decarbonised energy systems.

He has supervised and guided over 80 higher degree students, contributing to 20+ national and international research projects, demonstrating his commitment to impactful research. As principal investigator and technical coordinator for the DriVe2X project in Finland, he secured €9.2 million from the EU Horizon Europe program.

Most recently in his career at CQUniversity, he secured approximately $1 million from the Queensland Government for a project focused on leveraging mobile energy hubs for electricity networks during floods and cyclone disasters.  He has been recognised as one of the top 1-2% of scientists in his field in the world.