SPEAKERS

Jane Taber

Senior Vice President | NATIONAL Public Relations, Atlantic

Jane Taber is a former Globe and Mail political journalist who spent more than 25 years covering Parliament Hill and Queen’s Park.

During her tenure on Parliament Hill with the Globe, Jane was also co-host of CTV’s Question Period – and she has spent more hours than she can count on campaign buses and planes following the leaders during federal election campaigns. She’s interviewed the country’s main political players, covered leadership contests, trade deals, international summits and the important issues of the day.

She also worked as communications director to the former Premier of Nova Scotia.

Jane specializes in media training, having coached CEOs of major Canadian companies, the heads of national law firms and senior cabinet ministers and MPs.

In addition to media training and coaching, Jane is also focused on moderating panels and conferences, media relations and speech writing, crisis communications and post-secondary labour issues. Jane is a graduate of Carleton University’s journalism program and was appointed to the Carleton University Board of Governors in June 2019 and re-appointed to another three-year term in 2022. Jane also served as a mentor to the Public Policy Forum’s Action Canada leadership fellows.

Simon Arseneau

Technical Director, Geostructural and Heavy Civil Engineering | GHD

Simon D. Arseneau is Technical Director, Geostructural and Heavy Civil Engineering at GHD in Montreal, Quebec. With more than 18 years of experience, Simon specializes in the planning, design, and delivery of complex civil infrastructure, including dams, hydraulic structures, foundations, tunnels, and major earthworks projects. He is recognized for integrating geotechnical, geostructural, and heavy civil engineering solutions to address complex technical challenges while balancing project risks, constructability, environmental considerations, and stakeholder needs.

Cherie Babineau

Senior Engineer | GHD

Cherie Babineau, P.Eng., PMP is a Senior Engineer, Project Manager, and GHD Associate with more than 14 years of experience leading complex decommissioning, demolition, closure planning, and environmental projects across Canada. She specializes in helping clients transition aging industrial and utility assets through strategic closure planning, environmental assessment, stakeholder engagement, risk management, cost estimating, procurement support, and project delivery.
Cherie has managed multidisciplinary closure projects for clients in the power, mining, industrial, and pulp and paper sectors, including hydroelectric facilities, thermal generating stations, mine sites, industrial plants, and large-scale contaminated sites. Her experience spans the full closure lifecycle, from feasibility studies and closure planning through detailed design, procurement, construction support, and post-construction monitoring.

For the Milltown Dam decommissioning project, Cherie served as GHD’s Project Manager, coordinating GHD’s multidisciplinary team and supporting project planning, design, environmental, regulatory, and construction-phase activities for one of Canada’s most significant recent hydropower decommissioning and river restoration projects.

François Berset

Sales Manager | MC-monitoring SA

François Berset, Dipl. Eng. HES and Executive MBA, is Sales Manager at MC-monitoring SA, a Swiss company developing and manufacturing condition monitoring systems for power-generating machinery. With a career spanning more than 30 years in engineering and technology, he brings a rare combination of deep technical expertise and commercial acumen to the global hydropower market.

Over the last 7 years, François oversees sales across a diverse portfolio of international territories — including India, France, Northen and Eastern Europe, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and recently Canada. Across these markets, he promotes with the help of local partners & distributors integrated condition monitoring solutions encompassing sensors, data acquisition systems, and software for power plant units, with a primary focus on the hydropower segment. He works closely with plant operators and OEMs to bring solutions to protect and optimize turbine-generator units through continuous vibration monitoring and machinery diagnostics.

Carolyn Brown

Environmental Scientist and Toxicologist | Ecoreg Solutions

Carolyn has over 15 years of experience assessing environmental impacts, focusing on aquatic environments. After working for 10 years in environmental consulting, she returned to school to pursue a PhD. Her research focused on the improvements that can be made to the baseline and prediction phases of Environmental Impact Assessments to improve post-development monitoring, using the Mactaquac Hydroelectric Generating Station as a case study. Carolyn joined Ecoreg Solutions over two years ago and serves as a project manager and provides technical expertise to assist mining, nuclear, hydropower, and municipal clients with their projects. Carolyn is on the board for the Laurentian Chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, actively participates in the Environment and Science Committee of the Ontario Mining Association, and recently joined the WaterPower Canada Fisheries and Environmental Affairs Working Group.

Pierre-Olivier Côté

Biologist | BBA Consultants

Pierre-Olivier Côté is a biologist with more than 20 years of experience in environmental consulting. As an environmental professional at BBA, his work has focused on aquatic ecosystems, environmental assessments, habitat compensation, and environmental monitoring. He has supported all phases of project development, from baseline studies and environmental impact assessment, to permitting and regulatory compliance.

As Aquatic Team Lead, Pierre-Olivier works closely with environmental specialists involved in projects throughout Québec while continuing to support projects as a project manager, director, and technical advisor.

His experience spans numerous small-scale dike and dam projects, as well as the three community-led hydropower projects developed in partnership with Indigenous communities in Québec in recent years: Onzième Chute (Mistassini), Val-Jalbert (Ouiatchouan), and Matawak (Matawin). He has also worked on a wide range of initiatives involving First Nations, including mining baseline studies, aquatic habitat compensation projects, and environmental monitoring programs.

Drawing on both his own experience and the collective expertise of multidisciplinary teams at BBA, Pierre-Olivier helps advance collaborative approaches to environmental management and First Nation participation. His work across different sectors has provided opportunities to work alongside First Nations in a variety of contexts, helping to broaden his perspective on effective engagement and knowledge sharing.

Daniel Giesbrecht

Senior Mechanical Engineer | KGS Group

Mr. Giesbrecht is a Mechanical Engineer at KGS Group. He has over 15 years of experience providing mechanical design for gates, hoists, balance of plant and turbine systems for hydroelectric and industrial projects. His experience includes the installation and commissioning of turbine, generator and gate systems, as well as overhauls, dam safety reviews and turbine performance testing.

Terence Hubbard

President | Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Terence Hubbard was appointed President of the Impact Assessment Agency (IAAC) on November 28, 2021. In his role, he is responsible for leading all reviews of major projects under the Impact Assessment Act, in cooperation with other Government of Canada regulatory agencies, as well as provinces and territories and Indigenous groups.

Prior to joining IAAC in 2018, Terence was Director General of the Petroleum Resources Branch with Natural Resources Canada. In this role, he had responsibility for Canada’s oil and gas policy, including overseeing the development and implementation of Canada’s pipeline safety and offshore oil and gas regulatory regimes as well as serving as Canada’s representative on the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency.
He is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan where he obtained both his Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in economics and now lives in Ottawa.

Drew Leyburne

Assistant Deputy Minister, Energy Systems | Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)

Drew Leyburne is Assistant Deputy Minister for Energy Systems at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). Prior to this, he served in various senior executive roles at NRCan, worked at the Privy Council Office, and was an Associate with McKinsey & Co. in Toronto. Drew holds degrees from Oxford University and Bishop’s University.

Albert Mikhail

Turbine Performance Testing Specialist | KGS Group

Albert Mikhail has over 48 years of experience in the hydropower sector and has performed over 600 turbine operational and performance acceptance tests. He specializes in pre- and post-unit rehabilitation performance comparisons, applying a range of analytical methods – many of which he developed himself – to assess hydroelectric unit performance.  Albert was also involved in developing the testing methods for the International Water Sharing Agreement between Canada and the United States at Niagara Falls.

Emmanuel Ngue

CEO and Principal Engineer | EN Solutions Hydro

Emmanuel Ngue is a licensed engineer in Quebec with a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering applied to Hydropower from École Polytechnique Montréal and a Maintenance Management Professional certificate from PEMAC. With over a decade in the energy industry, including roles at Andritz Hydro and GE Vernova, he has led major refurbishment and installation projects in Canada and the U.S. He is the founder of EN Solutions Hydro, a Canadian firm pioneering AI-powered maintenance solutions for the hydroelectric sector.

Dr. Laura Read

Director of Technical and Federal Partnerships for HydroForecast | Upstream Tech

Laura Read develops the technical product strategy and processes to continue growing our HydroForecast system and team. At Upstream Tech, she leads partnerships with federal agencies and water resource organizations, working closely with hydropower operators across North America to advance the adoption of AI-driven streamflow forecasting. She brings expertise in hydrologic sciences and statistics, project management, technical writing, and client communication. Laura holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering and graduate and undergraduate degrees in chemistry and environmental engineering.

Abe Schneider

CTO | Natel Energy

Abe Schneider is co-founder and CTO of Natel Energy. He leads the hydraulic design of Natel’s FishSafe turbines, in addition to contributing to R&D and external affairs. Before starting Natel in 2009 with his sister, Gia, he was a mechanical engineer at The Timken Company and Makani Power. He earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT. In his free time Abe enjoys surfing, climbing, fly fishing, and beekeeping with his wife and children in San Francisco.

Camilo Serna

Senior Vice President, Strategy and External Engagement | NERC

Camilo Serna serves as senior vice president of Strategy and External Engagement. In this role, he oversees NERC’s external engagement and communications activities, including outreach to and engagement with federal, state, and provincial agencies and associations in the United States and Canada, NERC’s Member Representatives Committee, and the broader industry stakeholder community. He also leads the Reliability Analysis and Performance Analysis program area. Finally, Mr. Serna leads the development of multi-year strategies—working with the NERC Board of Trustees, chief executive officer, and the Executive team—to ensure NERC meets its reliability and security vision and mission.

Prior to joining NERC in 2024, Mr. Serna served as vice president of Rates and Regulatory Affairs for FirstEnergy, leading the development and implementation of federal and state regulatory strategies across the company’s five-state footprint. Prior to that, Mr. Serna worked for DTE Energy, first as vice president of Corporate Strategy and then as vice president of Regulatory Affairs. Before DTE, he also worked at Eversource Energy as vice president of Strategy and Policy. In his prior roles, he led the development and implementation of strategic, corporate development, and energy policy initiatives.

Mr. Serna began his career in management consulting firms—primarily with Oliver Wyman—where he helped utilities and energy companies in Europe, Latin America, and North America with the development of strategic and operational initiatives. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia) and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Peggy Trousseau

Hydraulic Engineer | Hydro-Quebec

Peggy Trousseau is a hydraulic engineer who has been working at Hydro-Quebec for over 25 years. After spending several years working on dam safety studies, she transitioned to river management where she discovered the fascinating world of production planning.

Since the early 2000s, the energy sector has undergone significant transformation, and Hydro-Québec has evolved along with it. Actively involved in the energy transition, Peggy set up a working group to better understand the implications of integrating large volumes of wind energy into the power system. With this multidisciplinary team, experts examined issues related to the electrical grid, capacity expansion, and wind generation, while Peggy and her colleagues focused on the operational challenges facing Hydro-Quebec’s hydroelectric generation fleet.

Christian Winkler

Senior Sales and Business Development Manager | Bridge Executive Renewable Solutions Ltd

Christian Winkler is a senior industrial engineer, having graduated from the University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany in 2008. He started working at Fella Maschinenbau GmbH in 2007, focusing on the DIVE-Turbine for his final thesis. He has been involved in the sales, project management and realization of more than 70 projects with DIVE-Turbines globally ever since. He played a major role in the establishment of DIVE Turbinen GmbH & Co. KG in 2012, since then he has held the position of Senior Sales and Business Development Manager.