PRESIDENT OF EURACOAL
Dr. Tomasz ROGALA is Chairman of the Board at Polska Grupa Górnicza SA (PGG – Polish Mining Group), the largest hard coal producer in Europe, with an annual output of around 30 million tonnes from nine mines. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Silesia where he specialised in financial law. He also completed postgraduate studies in EU law at the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and in business management at the University of Economics in Katowice as part of the Harzburg Kolleg programme. In 2021, he was awarded a postdoctoral degree by the Główny Instytut Górnictwa in Katowice after defending his thesis on the theoretical modelling and improvement of coal mine management processes, with a practical focus on the planning, cost control and decision making by enterprises during mine restructuring. Dr. Rogala is a state-licensed insolvency practitioner and expert on corporate valuations. Previously, he was the President of the Management Board of Kompania Węglowa SA, prior to its restructuring. He was appointed EURACOAL President in January 2023 having previously served as President from March 2018 to January 2021.
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF EURACOAL
Mr. Vladimír BUDINSKÝ is President of the Czech Employers’ Association of Mining and Oil Industries (ZSDNP). 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 and was previously the association’s Senior Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT OF EURACOAL
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.
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