• CERAWEEK 2025 | March 10-14, 2025
  • CERAWEEK
  • March 10 - 14, 2025

Daniel Berkove

S&P Global

Senior Advisor, Energy

Daniel R. Berkove, Senior Advisor, Energy, S&P Global, is an advisor to senior levels of business and government, serving in this capacity for over two decades. He has extensive experience spearheading major consulting initiatives across Africa, the Middle East, and Eurasia that address complex, high-value, and multi-stakeholder issues. These include projects focused on strategy development, competitiveness and innovation, corporate transformation, integrated resource planning, and the nexus of energy sector and economic development.

Daniel is also a member of the CERAWeek leadership team heading CERAWeek's Africa- and East Mediterranean-focused content and community and supporting VIPs from regional governments and national oil companies. In 2014 he established the private Africa Forum, when he served as Co-Chair of the inaugural Africa Energy Summit. In addition, he has served in executive and board positions for organizations across a range of sectors including chemicals recycling, commodity trading, IPP development, fintech, mobility technology, and poverty reduction.

During his career, Daniel has been variously based in Israel, France, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He presently serves as a board member of Innovation: Africa and ARIS. Fluent in Russian and Hebrew, Mr. Berkove holds a BA from the University of Michigan.

Sessions With Daniel Berkove

Tuesday, 10 March

  • 07:30am - 08:40am (CST) / -

    Africa's Upstream: Getting the investment?
    Upstream Oil & Gas

    Competition for upstream investment is fierce, and while some African countries have struggled to attract investment others have adopted approaches that have led to new investment and project sanctions. Despite headwinds, the resurgence in African upstream licensing rounds in 2019 promises to extend well into 2020. With an abundance of global opportunities, and as new African plays are gas prone and increasingly in deep water, how will countries remain competitive? How will investors respond? Should investment capital be deployed on existing projects or on new opportunities, if at all? How will countries respond to the energy transition imperative? What will this mean for investment?

  • 03:30pm - 04:20pm (CST) / -

    African Energy Innovation: Gaining momentum
    Geopolitics/Policy/Regulatory Digitalization Innovation & Technology

    The African continent has seen the transformative power of technological innovations, such as mobile money services, so that today the region is the global leader in their adoption and use. Africa is on the cusp of applying technology and innovation to energy sector issues, from electricity access to energy infrastructure. Considering the unique history, culture, and languages across Africa, can startups make an impact on the region’s long-term energy dynamics? Can African startups be relevant globally?

Wednesday, 11 March

  • 03:00pm - 03:45pm (CST) / -

    Plenary - Africa's New Energy Future
    Investment & Trading

    Africa is rising—both as a region and as individual countries—buoyed by abundant natural resources and population and by GDP growth rates among the highest in the world. Still the continent’s growth outlook is weighed down by burdens from the past and present, including low energy and commodity prices; dynamic energy markets; concerns about geopolitics, sustainability, and security; and technological disruption. How are Africa’s energy leaders addressing, in the short and long term, threats to economic development? Where are the opportunities? What is the right balance between national action, regional collaboration, and international cooperation? For countries whose economies are dependent on fossil fuels and where energy poverty is endemic, what is “sustainable” and how will the energy transition progress?

Thursday, 12 March

  • 10:30am - 11:20am (CST) / -

    Bringing Electricity to Underserved Populations
    Power & Renewables

    Among the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 by all 193 United Nations member states was “universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services by 2030.” For decades, however, numerous institutions have attempted to solve the issue of energy access across sub-Saharan Africa, India, and developing Asia, yet few have seen progress. The situation in Africa is particularly intractable; in 2030 the region is projected to still account for 90% of the global population without electricity access. Which approaches to ensuring energy access have worked—and which haven’t? How should governments, the private sector, and development organizations collaborate while avoiding the creation of detrimental dependencies on foreign aid and international debt? To what extent should environmental considerations be weighed? What technologies and business models can be gainfully adopted to accelerate energy access?