Orkhan Zeynalov is a professional with over 20 years of experience in international development and policy, and with a proven track record of fostering regional and global partnerships on diverse topics. His 20+ years of service with the Foreign Ministry included postings in New Delhi, Vienna, Tehran and Washington, D.C., as well as responsibility for a variety of portfolios, including energy diplomacy, regional transport policy, coordinating cooperation with international global and regional organizations. During 2013-2016 he was appointed as a Director for Energy, Minerals and Environment Directorate at the ECO Secretariat and during that time led ECO delegations to the Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) and UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York. Between 2016-2018 he was a deputy lead negotiator (chair of negotiating group on economic and sectoral cooperation) for a new bilateral agreement with the EU. In December 2020 he joined the Ministry of Energy as a director for international cooperation and led negotiations on behalf of Azerbaijan on new MoU with the EU for strategic energy cooperation (signed in July 2022), as well as a negotiation group on a joint “Dostlug” field in the Caspian Sea with Turkmenistan. He returned to the Foreign Ministry in September 2022 as a Director of Economic Cooperation Department. During his tenure in the MFA he was in charge of energy, climate, transport and trade policy and coordinated activities of economic sections of the Azerbaijani Embassies abroad. Between January-April 2024 he was a deputy lead negotiator for the COP29 Azerbaijan Presidency, and led Mitigation, Action Agenda and Partnerships teams of the COP Presidency. O. Zeynalov has appointed as a Deputy Minister of Energy in April 2024. Mr. Zeynalov is fluent in English, Russian, Turkish and Azerbaijani with working knowledge of German and Persian. He is married, has a daughter and a son.