Mr. Pototschnig is the Deputy Chairman of Mercados – Energy Markets International, an international consulting firm focusing on the energy sector.  He served as the CEO from July 2007 to December 2008.

He is an economist and econometrician by training with seventeen years of experience in the field of economic regulation, utility sector reform and market design, acquired in a variety of high level positions.

Mr. Pototschnig joined Mercados EMI in January 2006 from the Italian Transmission System Operator, where he had worked since 2000. In this period he was responsible for designing options for incentive-based regulation of transmission activities. Between 2000 and 2003 he was seconded to serve as CEO of the newly established Italian Electricity Market Operator, GME. Under his leadership, GME developed the market rules and procedures and designed and implemented the IT market platform, both for the power market and for the Green Certificates market.

Mr. Pototschnig currently also acts as Adviser to the Director of the Florence School of Regulation, a joint initiative of the CEER – Council of European Energy Regulators and of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Florence, where he regularly teaches on utility regulation and market design in the energy sector.