PRESIDENT OF EURACOAL

Prof. Alicja Krzemień was elected by EURACOAL members in June 2024 to be the association’s President. She is a mining engineer and Associate Professor of environmental engineering, mining, and energy at the Central Mining Institute – National Research Institute (GIG-PIB) in Katowice, Poland. A member of the Polish Academy of Sciences Mining Committee, she also serves on the European Commission’s Coal Advisory Group, the Scientific Council of the Strata Mechanics Research Institute in Kraków, and the International Organizing Committee of the World Mining Congress. At EURACOAL, Prof. Krzemień chairs the Technical Research Committee and, within the UN system, she sits on the taskforce on safe operations and closure of coal mines at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in Geneva. For the last ten years, she has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Oviedo in Spain where she has not only shared her knowledge but also applied it in practice by leading a €19 million demonstration project on the repurposing of a former coal mine with a green hydrogen plant financed by the EU Research Fund for Coal and Steel.

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF EURACOAL

Mr. Vladimír BUDINSKÝ is a Board Member and former President of the Czech Employers’ Association of Mining and Oil Industries (ZSDNP) where he is responsible for foreign affairs. He was previously Vice Chairman of the Board at ČEZ Distribuce and responsible for foreign affairs at Severoceske doly a.s., a lignite mining subsidiary of ČEZ Group. Born in 1959, he graduated from CVUT, the Czech Technical University in Prague, and gained his MBA at the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies and Sheffield Hallam University. He has held various managerial positions in the energy and transport industries. Since 2014, Mr. Budinský has served as Vice Chairman of the UNECE Group of Experts for Cleaner Electricity Production from Fossil Fuels and is currently Vice Chairman of the UNECE Group of Experts on Cleaner Electricity Systems. In 1995, he was appointed Transport Minister in the first Czech government. In December 2020 Mr. Budinský was elected Vice President of the Czech Confederation of Employers’ and Businesses’ Unions (KZPS). He served as EURACOAL President from January 2021 to January 2023.

VICE PRESIDENTS OF EURACOAL

Mr. Jacek Kaczorowski was elected a Vice President of EURACOAL in June 2024. He is President of the Management Board at PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna S.A. (PGE GiEK), a subsidiary of Poland’s largest utility company, PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna. Mr. Kaczorowski graduated from the AGH University of Kraków with degrees in Mining and in Management & Marketing. Since the beginning of his professional career, he has been associated with the Bełchatów lignite mine – one of the largest in Europe. While a member of the management board of KWB Bełchatów S.A. (Bełchatów lignite mine), he was Chief Investment Officer from 1999 to 2003, and President of the Management Board and CEO from 2006 to 2010. From July 2009, he simultaneously managed PGE Elektrownia Bełchatów S.A. (Bełchatów power plant) and led its consolidation with thirteen other power and mining companies across Poland. Until the end of 2015, he was President of PGE GiEK where he implemented the corporate-wide Efficiency Improvement Programme among other initiatives such as the modernisation of units 5 to 12 at the Bełchatów power plant. He has overseen some of the largest investment projects of the Polish power industry, namely the construction of the 858 MW Bełchatów unit 14 in 2011, as well as Opole units 5 and 6 with a total capacity of 1 800 MW, the 496 MW Turów unit 7, and CHP plants at Gorzów and Rzeszów. From 2018 to 2022, Mr. Kaczorowski was President of the Management Board at the Łódź water and sewage plant and subsequently, until 2024, President of the Management Board at Gazstal – a company supplying pipes and structural steel to the drilling industry and others. At the Polish Academy of Sciences, he sits on the Mining Committee where his knowledge of opencast mining and mining economics is highly valued.

Dr.-Ing. Lars KULIK has been a Member of the Executive Board of RWE Power AG since August 2016, serving as Chief Technical Officer for lignite mining, refining and power generation. He graduated as a mining engineer from RWTH Aachen and was awarded a doctorate in engineering from the same university in 1992. He then joined Rheinbraun AG (now RWE Power), beginning at the Hambach opencast lignite mine. After a number of promotions, he was appointed Head of the Lignite Planning in 2004, and then in 2010 took over responsibility for Lignite Development as well. In January 2017, he was unanimously elected as a Vice President of EURACOAL.

List of Past Presidents