Paul van Son, based in Essen (Germany), joined innogy SE (previously RWE) as its Country Chairman for MENA (West Asia and North Africa) and Turkey in January 2015. Innogy SE, is a leading company in the field of renewables, grids and retail of power and gas, with an annual turn-over of 40 bln€.

Paul has been active for over 35 years in various supervisory board, executive and operations management positions in the international renewable energy, electricity and natural gas business. In his present function he reports to the Chairman of innogy’s Executive Management Board.

His leadership experience is marked by pioneering positions and developments, such as: control system development at Siemens AG (Germany), system operator of the unbundled Dutch national power system at TenneT (previously SEP) and power system control centre consultancy at DNV/KEMA. From 1998 onward he founded Essent Sustainable Energy (Nl) as its managing director, he was CEO of Essent Energy Trading, and Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Essent GmbH in Düsseldorf, building up these innovative and international key activities of Essent N.V. (the largest Dutch energy company).

In 2009 Mr. van Son was appointed CEO of Dii GmbH (Munich), known as “Desertec Industry Initiative”, an international industry consortium for facilitating a market for renewable energy in the deserts of MENA, including international grid connections. Presently, besides his role in innogy, he is leading the Dii Desert Energy industry group, focusing on solving financial, technical and regulatory challenges for renewable energy and hydrogen projects and interconnected grid integration.

Mr. van Son is the founder and honorary President of the European Federation of Energy Traders (www.efet.org). He is Chairman of the Energy4All Foundation (www.energy4all.org ), a non-profit organization promoting decentralized energy systems in Africa. He is among others member of the Board of DEWA/innogy’s Joint Venture, innogy International Middle East, in Dubai, member of the Board of Ghorfa (German-Arab Chamber of Commerce) and the Board of the German-African Business Association. He graduated as an electrical engineer (MSc) at the Technical University Delft and on Corporate Governance at Nyenrode University, Netherlands.