Maria Van der Hoeven

Maria van der Hoeven is a Dutch professional with broad political and managerial experience. She started her professional career as a teacher, and later on became director of a Vocational Training Centre for Adults, and director of Technology Centre Limburg.

As a Member of Parliament from 1991-2002, she served as Minister of Education, Culture and Science (2002 - 2007) and until October 2010 as Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy. She was Executive Director of the International Energy Agency from September 2011 to 31 August 2015, a period in which she underlined the strong links between energy, climate and energy security; the need for energy efficiency; and the importance of renewables, innovation and technology. This is why she was invited to serve on the Advisory Board for the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

From October 2016 - October 2021 she was member of the Board of Trustees of Rocky Mountain Institute (US), and from 2016 - 2019 member of the Supervisory Council of Innogy in Germany. From 2016 - 2018 she was vice chair of the High Level Panel on EU Decarbonization Pathways, an initiative from the European Commission.

Since 2016 she serves as a non-executive director on the Board of TotalEnergies in Paris where she took over as Chair of the Audit Committee in 2021. Her other mandates include membership of the Supervisory Board of COVRA (Netherlands), senior fellow at CIEP, (Netherlands) and Advisor to the Secretary General of World Energy Council since 2021.