Following RWE’s acquisition of Essent, Richard Lewis has been appointed Managing Director of Essent Trading. Richard joined RWE Supply & Trading in March 2009 in the newly created position of Chief Commercial Officer, Sales & Origination. His group combines RWE Supply & Trading’s existing Gas Supply, Industrial Sales and Origination functions.

Prior to joining RWE Supply & Trading, Richard was previously a Managing Director of Commodities for Barclays Capital bank in London, where he was responsible for European trading and sales of power, gas, coal and CO2 allowances.

Andrew is a senior energy professional with over 15 years experience of international energy markets. As CEO and Chief Trading Officer at Essent Trading, Andrew has overall responsibility for Asset Trading, Structured Trading, Capital Trading, Coal, Bio & Freight Trading and Operations.

Prior to joining Essent Trading, Andrew worked for leading organisations such as BP and Illinova in the USA and has invaluable industry experience.

Carl Hagert has over 12 years of energy industry experience, mainly in the Nordic and Continental energy markets. Carl joined Essent Trading in September 2005 as the head of the Structured Origination team, which covers both the Industrial and the Wholesale participants across Europe.

Prior to joining Essent Trading, Carl was Senior Manager of TXU Nordic Energy and the head of the Origination and Wholesale team.

Maurice Paulussen is a senior professional with over 16 years of experience in international energy markets. As the SVP International Development at Essent Trading, Maurice identifies, develops and implements energy merchant opportunities in new markets, for new products and in new segments of value chains.

Before joining Essent Trading in 2000, Maurice worked as an advisor and project manager at PNEM/MEGA-Group's (PMG) Corporate Strategy department.

Olivier Herbelot joined Essent Trading in August 2007, as Senior Vice President responsible for the Structuring & Analytics group. He has over 16 years of energy-related risk management experience, acquired in both the private and multilateral sectors, and heads the company's structuring, portfolio analytics, and market research activities.

Prior to joining Essent Trading, Olivier worked for five years for BP in London. As Head of Market Risk, he recruited and led a team of more than 20 risk management professionals in the company's Integrated Supply and Trading division.

Remco Frenken has been a senior trading professional in the European energy industry over 18 years. As Senior Vice President of Global Commodities, Remco is responsible for the global trading of bio-energy, wind power and emissions, and his career in our company has spanned more than ten years in various positions.

Prior to joining Essent Trading, Remco worked at KEMA as Project Manager in the field of advanced computer models (fuzzy logic, neural networks).