Professor Dr. Emmanouil Kakaras has been Executive Vice President, GX Solutions, at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries EMEA (MHI EMEA) since 1 June 2024.

He led the MHI EMEA Dusseldorf branch in Germany from 2021 and served as Senior Vice President for New Products and Energy Solutions at MHI Group company Mitsubishi Power Europe from January 2018. Before this he was Vice President and Head of Research & Development at Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe since September 2012. His R&D activities mainly focus on flexible operation of thermal plants, on fuel cells and electrolyzers, the development of large-scale energy storage and the utilization of CO2.

Professor Kakaras’ academic background is on clean energy generation technologies and since December 1991 he has been a Professor at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. He lectures at the University of Duisburg-Essen and has also been guest lecturer at the Universities of Warsaw and Tokyo. He participates as an external member in various working groups organized by the European Commission (CAG, Energy Committee), the Advisory Council of the Technology Platforms on Zero Emission Power Plants and on Smart Networks for Energy Transition as well as the Scientific Board of Industrial Associations (VGB, Rhein Ruhr Power, BDI). Professor Kakaras is also a member of several advisory committees of academic institutions (Academy of Athens, EASE).