Tony Potter

Managing Director of CMAI Middle East & India

Tony Potter is Managing Director of CMAI Middle East & India based in Dubai.

Tony joined CMAI in March of 2006 as Director Olefins Studies Europe, Middle East & Africa, and also had responsibility for CMAI’s Düsseldorf office. He has thirteen years of petrochemical industry experience combined with over thirteen years of global consulting experience.

Prior to joining CMAI, he was an independent consultant specializing in competitive intelligence and economic analysis of the oil, petrochemical and polymer industries. From 1983 until 1996, he was employed by Exxon Chemical Europe, in a range of engineering, operations management and planning management roles.

Tony has a degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London.

Bernd Holling

Vice President of Business Development at Linde-KCA-Dresden, a Linde Engineering entity in Germany

He is responsible for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) activities within Linde. He joined Linde in 2007 from BOC.

Prior to taking this role he worked in industrial gas companies in the area of engineering and commissioning of air separation plants and tonnage gas marketing and sales in Europe. He is co-inventor of several patents in the field of gas separation technology.

Bernd has a PhD in Physics from the Technical University in Dresden in 1991.

Krish R. Krishnamurthy

Energy Innovation Council Manager, Innovation Management at Linde

In his current role as Energy Innovation Council Manager in Linde, Dr. Krish Krishnamurthy works closely with the Energy Council members and the business units to move forward initiatives in the field of energy. Krish joined BOC (now part of the Linde Group) in 1985 and held several progressive positions in the R&D and Engineering organizations. He has won several company awards recognizing his contributions for moving technical ideas to commercial application.

Krish’s technical expertise is in the areas of separation process development and cryogenic distillation. He is an inventor on about 35 U.S. Patents, a co-author on over 30 professional publications and has a significant number of technical presentations to his credit. Krish has served several positions in professional organizations including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and, the International Institute of Refrigeration.

Krish obtained his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York and his B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Madras, India. Krish is a registered P.E. (professional engineer) in the State of New Jersey in the USA.

Linda Lefevre

Branch Manager of Air Liquide in Abu Dhabi

Education: Ph.D in Materials Science and Engineering – Ecole des Mines France.
10 years experience with Air Liquide in international positions.
Started as Project Manager in Research Department of Air Liquide in 1999 – Surface and Heat Treatment of Materials.
Sales Manager – Engineering Department of Air Liquide – International Sale of Plants for Air Gases production from 2004 to 2006.
Technical Development Manager for Steel Industry in Air Liquide: Development of new Air Separation Plants for Large Integrated Steel Mills, from 2006 to 2009.
Since 2009, Branch Manager of Air Liquide in Abu Dhabi. In charge of developing Air Liquide’s business in the Emirate.

Rick Kowey

Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager for Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc.

Rick Kowey’s experience in the specialty gas industry spans more than 26 years, including twelve years of service to Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc.

As Chief Marketing Officer (“CMO”) & General Manager of Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc., Mr. Kowey is responsible for all Corporate Strategic Marketing initiatives, including commercial product development, new opportunity development and innovation, across all six business units of Matheson Tri-Gas. Kowey also serves as General Manager of the Global Specialty Gases, AGT, and Equipment strategic business units.

Mr. Kowey joined Matheson Tri-Gas in 1997. Prior positions at Matheson include Executive Vice President, Global Specialty Gases Group, Research and Development, and Corporate Innovation; Senior Vice President and General Manager, Specialty Gas and Equipment Group; Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Electronic and Specialty Gas Group; and Eastern Region Sales Manager. Prior to joining Matheson Tri-Gas, Kowey held several leadership positions during his 14-year tenure with Scott Specialty Gases, Inc. in Plumsteadville, PA.

Mr. Kowey holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, and an MBA in Marketing from Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. Mr. Kowey is also a graduate of the prestigious AeA/Stanford University Executive Institute. He enjoys running, golf and tennis, and is an accomplished musician and composer of liturgical music.

Iraj Ghorbani

Managing Director and founder of Delvar Afzar Industrial Group

Education: MSc. degree in Industrial management and BSc. degree in engineering of Electronics.

Profession: Managing Director and founder of "Delvar Afzar Industrial Group" including ten companies mainly active in Industrial gas production and business, manufacturing equipment and investment.

Delvar Afzar as a leading company owns the largest factory in private sector in Iran for industrial gases production in South West of Iran and distributing its' products in the region. The major customers are Oil and Gas industries, Steel industries and Petrochemical plants.

Delvar Afzar is a General Contractor for establishment of Air Separation Units in every scales in cooperation with Linde Germany.

Delvar Afzar Invests in ASU plants as a model of B.O.T and B.O.O contracts for aforesaid industries.

Manufacturing PSA generators and cryogenic flat bottom tanks has been started in Iran by Delvar Afzar. Many of hospitals, fish farms and industries are using Delvar Afzar PSA oxygen generators.

Thierry Couffin

Filling & LNG/LCNG refuelling stations sales manager

Thierry has a fluid mechanics engineering degree from French University of Quimper. He started his career working as a process engineer for the beverages & pharmaceutics industries. Then he moved to the gases industries and works for Cryostar within the distribution sales team, and is know involved with the promotion of filling and LNG/LCNG refuelling stations worldwide.

In the last thirteen years, he has been in charge of the projects management, customers’ service and moved to the sales department developing business for Filling and refuelling stations, operating from Cryostar Automation offices in Capdenac - France, working with major industries and natural gas companies.

Thierry has a good experience with the confines in the Middle East countries and was dealing with about thirty automated turn key filling stations.

A significant part of this time has been invested in developing projects for filling operations, gas pumping for cryogenic applications and special gases projects, using Cryostar technology.

Jim Bowman

President of Rexarc International Incorporated

Jim is the current President of Rexarc International Incorporated, a leading Acetylene and Compressed Gas equipment and component manufacturer that has delivered products to over 39 different countries in the world to date. He has been a senior manager in manufacturing organizations for over 25 years.

From 2000-2008 he was the Vice President of Operations for Production Control Units, Inc. in Dayton, Ohio, part of the Sterling Fluid Systems Division headquartered in Germany. Sterling is an international organization that engineers and manufactures fluid filling and testing equipment for the automotive industry.

Jim was also the Vice President of Manufacturing for the Sheffer Hydraulic and Pneumatic Cylinder Corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1998. He received his Bachelors Degree in Engineering and his Masters Degree in Business Administration from The University of Dayton in Ohio, USA. Jim speaks conversational German and his hobbies include SCUBA diving and coaching athletic teams.

Bruce Holman

Director of Technical Services

Bruce has been employed at Rexarc International for almost 20 years. He started out as a machinist and then became Assistant Plant Manager and Plant Manager from 1994 to 2005. He then became Director of Technical Services and managed the customer service department.

He has been a member of the Compressed Gas Association (CGA) since 2004 and has served as the Chairman of the Acetylene Committee since 2006.

He has consulted or commissioned acetylene plants and systems for customers all over the world to include Malaysia, Australia, Turkey, Brazil, Finland, and the US.

His hobbies include agricultural activities and coaching basketball in his hometown of West Alexandria, OH-USA.

Henrik Lyhne

Sales Manager at Union Engineering A/S

Henrik Lyhne is responsible for project sales of the Industrial Gases Group at Union Engineering. The IG Group is responsible for all non-standard and individually designed CO2 plants, with particular focus on the latest technologies for CO2 plant design, targeting traditional and new potential types of raw gas sources.

Henrik has more than 20 years experience working with project sales and technical management. His career started in the process industry working with process control, instrumentation, and Condition Monitoring Systems. Later he moved to the heat transfer industry where he via several positions was working with design and sales of heat exchangers for industrial applications mainly for Oil & Gas and Petrochemical.

Previously he was working for the companies Spectris GmbH and Invensys APV Heat Transfer (Now SPX) holding various positions with global presence. For Six years he was permanently based in Dubai/UAE responsible for starting up the Middle East industrial sales organization of APV. He joined Union Engineering in 2008.

Henrik holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Odense Teknikum, University of Southern Denmark, and a MBA.

Jan Van Houwenhove

Sales and Marketing Director of the Cryogenic Division of the VRV Group

Jan Van Houwenhove lives and works out of Belgium where he studied industrial chemistry. In 2001, he finished his MBA at IMD, Switzerland . He speakes five languages. Since 1990, he has been active in the field of cryogenics. First, as employee of BOC Gases in Belgium where he started the CRYOSPEED business and later in various sales development functions, within the industrial gas and cryogenic equipment business.

Currently, Jan Van Houwenhove is responsible for sales and marketing for the VRV Group, an Italian based cryogenic equipment specialist with production sites in India, Italy and France. In his role, he is identifying the opportunities for the VRV Group in the field of industrial and medical gases, LNG, cryo biology, research and services.

VRV is looking forward on developing the Middle East region from 1 January 2010 with products coming out of the Indian and European production sites.

Savir Julka

Head of Marketing and International Business

Mr. Savir Julka holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Post-Graduate Diplomas in Marketing, Sales and International Business Operations.

His career spans over 20 years in core industrial marketing, sales and business development.

Savir currently heads the Marketing Department and directly oversees the international business of Inox India Limited, a company specialized in manufacturing & supply of high quality cryogenic storage and distribution equipment & packaged systems, worldwide.

Achieving international corporate brand awareness, global supplier status and “one-stop-cryo shop’ position of Inox has been a passionate pleasure…!

Over the last 12 years with Inox India, he is actively associated with global Industrial gas industry, particularly in cryogenic systems, and specializes in handling technical and commercial interests.

John Raquet

Managing Director of Spiritus Consulting

John Raquet is the founder and Managing Director of Spiritus Consulting Ltd, an international consultancy specialising in the industrial gases sector. He has been associated with the industrial gases business for over 28 years, formerly working with Air Products in both the UK and South Africa, before joining Taylor-Wharton (a major equipment manufacturer). Following his direct involvement in the gases business, John joined Chem Systems - a leading chemical consultancy firm based in London for 8 years, before starting up what became 'Spiritus' in 1995.

Spiritus provides a variety of industrial gas services to various industries which range from market research, techno - economic analysis and strategic planning, to M&A due diligence assignments and third party legal expertise. John is responsible for the market intelligence gathering side of the business as well as the strategic planning activities. Spiritus has over 20 Associate Consultants spread globally to address consulting needs by a variety of clients.

John Raquet is a regular speaker/commentator to the financial institutes in Europe and the US and presents papers at both industrial and investor conferences across the world.

In 2003, he founded gasworld.com Ltd and has remained Managing Director of this business and steered the company to a global presence in new markets in Russia and also China in recent years as well as moving into conference management specifically on the industrial gases business.

Dr. Rohintan (Roy) S. Irani

Technical Director, Gas package Solutions

Dr Rohintan (Roy) S. Irani is is the Technical Director at Gas Package Solutions (GPS) Ltd, based in the UK. Previously, he was the Global Technical Authority, Cylinders, for BOC Ltd. (UK), now a member of The Linde Group, for almost a quarter of a century. He joined BOC from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), where he undertook prototype testing of novel cylinders on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive and advised the latter UK Government Department on all aspects of cylinder safety.

For BOC, he was responsible for designing, developing and specifying new cylinders whilst ensuring that the tens of millions of cylinders already in service within the Group were operated with maximum safety and at optimum efficiency. Over the past 25 years he has audited a large number of cylinder manufacturers in different parts of the world, to include seamless steel, aluminium alloy, welded steel and composite (types 2/3/4/5) cylinders.

Since October 2007 his duties at GPS Ltd. have included several due diligence exercises, safety audits of cylinder companies’ plants (both gas production sites and cylinder manufacturers), assisting companies with improvements in productivity, innovation and modernity, whilst also conducting failure investigations concerned with all aspects of the gas cylinder package. The latter includes not only the cylinder shell, but also associated ancillaries such as bundles, trailers, valves, regulators, safety devices etc.

Dr. Irani is the author of over 75 scientific and technical publications and editor of many conferences. He has been invited to present keynote lectures by major nations including UK, US, India, China and Canada, He is the Chairman of several committees dealing with Gas Cylinder Technology both internationally at ISO and CEN and at BSi within the UK.

He holds a B.Sc. (First Class Hons.) in Materials Science and a Doctorate in Physical Metallurgy (D.Phil.) both from The University of Sussex.

Carlos Duran

Senior Engineer

Carlos Duran holds an Engineer Degree from Polytechnic University of Barcelona.

After been involved in some Engineering Consultancies in the field of natural gas, he joined Ros Roca Indox Cryo Energy 10 years ago as a senior engineer in the cryogenic department leading the R&D department, achieving several patents which increased the know how of the Company.

His activities have been concentrated on projects development related with cryogenic logistics: liquefaction, transport, regassification and refuelling stations.

Currently, he is supervising international projects for air separation and liquefaction plants and he’s the main responsible of sales and international marketing.