Scaling Clean

#Cleantechers –

My most recent Scaling Clean guest is a rare, career-long cleantecher. Zoe Gamble is a lawyer-turned-CEO who now serves as President of CleanChoice Energy, founded by my long-time buddy, Tom Matzzie. But this isn’t her first time leading a company. Zoe already served as CEO of Pine Gate Renewables, where she grew the company from 8 to 86 employees in just two years. I think you’ll find her a wealth of management expe...

Cleantechers - 

We have had guests on Scaling Clean with a lot of different backgrounds, but I think my most recent guest is the first who combines journalism, corporate communications, legal, renewable energy development, and an operations background on her rise to be the CEO of Indianapolis-based Geneex Solar. If we've ever had a Renaissance CEO on the show, Emily Williams is it. 

Here are her B3P's:

14:37: An effective CEO&...

Cleantechers - 

My most recent Scaling Clean guest started in software and then migrated to digital marketing. But for the last 15 years, she's helped lead GroundWork Renewables, a California-based company offering on-site solar meteorological stations for utility-scale power developers, operators and owners. I had the pleasure of meeting Ann last year at RE+, and within five minutes of talking with her, I knew we had to have he...

#Cleantechers - 

On the show, we've had leaders with a variety of backgrounds. Some, like my guest in this episode, have come from investment and finance. But few have achieved so much so quickly in their careers as Jo-Jo Hubbard. This McKinsey veteran got her start in a fintech startup, then moved into renewable energy finance. From there, she helped found the UK-based Electron, a SaaS company, out to transform energy trading to m...

#Cleantechers - 

My most recent Scaling Clean guest has a compelling background. You might say he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. 

Russ Bates grew up in the southern Indiana coal fields, starting his career as a union electrician, then moving up the ladder to foreman, and eventually VP. At the 26-year mark, he moved into company ownership, and he's now the founder of the Cleveland-area NXTGEN Clean Energy Solutions. NXTGEN...

My most recent Scaling Clean guest has been at the helm of her company for 16 years. Geraldine Gray runs Endiem, a Salesforce practice based in Houston. Her company works to help companies drive commercial growth by aligning their strategic goals with their Salesforce options. She has served clients in a wide number of sectors, not just in cleantech.

Geraldine has also been very public about her successful battle with cancer, and I...

My newest Scaling Clean guest is Katie Mehnert. She got her start in oil and gas, and she’s become a leading thinker and evangelist for growing the clean energy talent pool as CEO of Ally Energy, a global consultancy based in Texas. Katie’s journey through the incumbent parts of the energy sector has given her an enhanced perspective on being a clean economy CEO. 

Here are Katie’s B3P’s

12:38 - As a leader, you have to surrender th...

Cleantechers - 

My recent Scaling Clean guest, Scott Case, is deeply experienced in starting successful ventures. He came to cleantech by way of Priceline, as that company’s founding Chief Technology Officer.

Among nearly 20 other different experiences, Scott now runs ZettaWatts, which has pioneered what it calls the “Additionality Rec Market” (AREC). It's offering fixed-price forward contracts to buy AREC from new projects und...

George Hershman is one of the most prominent leaders in U.S. clean energy. He spent his career running SOLV Energy, formerly known as Swinerton Renewable Energy. He also recently served as the Chairman of the Solar Energy Industries Association. 

SOLV is a widely recognized EPC. It has built 8 GW of utility scale solar capacity and now manages over 9 GW across more than half the states in this country. 

If there is anyone who has c...

Cleantechers –

My most recent Scaling Clean guest is someone I’ve known for 20 years, Stephen Lacey, who has a perspective on clean economy like no other. 

He’s covered our sector as an editor and early podcaster at Renewable Energy World, then editor-in-chief for Greentech Media, and now he's the founder of a new media and research company, Latitude Media. Stephen's not only covered our CEO audience, he's joined th...

Cleantechers - 

My most recent guest on Scaling Clean has been an advisor to three Seattle-area companies, a policy lead for the e-mobility leader Lime, as well as an official in four municipal transportation departments. But, he's also the CEO of an innovative camper van sharing company, Cabana. 

On a recent episode of This Week in Cleantech, I nominated Scott Kubly for “Cleantecher of the Week” because he courageously aut...

We've had serial entrepreneurs, power sector veterans, techies, and people with finance and energy trading backgrounds, but Nikhil Vodhovkar is one of the few first-timer CEO’s we've had on the show. Not only is he an alumnus of academia at a very high level – Johns Hopkins,  MIT – but he leveraged that background to start Raptor Maps.

This SaaS company provides owners and operators of both utility-scale and C&I proje...

As listeners know, our show engages CEOs in conversations that harvest best practices and usable tips to successfully build, run and lead companies. Our diverse lineup has featured power sector veterans, techies, individuals with finance and energy trading backgrounds, among others. Now, we introduce our first CEO with an environmental consulting background, Robin Laine. She’s also possibly the youngest CEO we’ve had on the show.

Over the last 2 years of interviewing clean energy CEO’s, Sean Kelly is our first with the background as a veteran energy trader. In fact, Sean has traded or managed traders for over 7 different companies in his career

I brought Sean on the latest episode to speak about his background in energy trading and how that helped equip him for his role as co-founder and CEO of @Amperon for the last 6 years. He describes Amperon as “the f...

On Scaling Clean, we have the pleasure of interviewing people with a variety of backgrounds. One less-represented experience on our podcast are PhD-ers turned CEOs.

That’s why I’m excited to talk to Mahesh Konduru, who is the former CEO and now board chair of ProSep, a global energy services company focused on water treatment and chemical efficiency.

Mahesh's company is private equity financed, with operations and subsidiar...

Cleantechers, welcome back to Scaling Clean. The podcast that gathers company-building and management tips from the most accomplished leaders in cleantech. 

I don’t know about you, but everywhere I go, and everyone I hear from in cleantech leadership is wrestling with the same thing: Where to find talent in a tight labor market. At Tigercomm, we’re having clients ask us to build their corporate communications partly to support...

Cleantechers, welcome back to Scaling Clean. This is the podcast that gathers company building and management tips from the most accomplished leaders in clean tech. Today we talk with Hala Ballouz, who has spent the last 15 years growing Electric Power Engineers, EPE as it's known among developers, from a consultancy of 10 staff to a national presence of over 200 grid connection experts. Hala is actually the CEO of two companie...

This is Part II with the brilliant Tom Starrs. Tom’s interview was rich with information on cleantech government affairs and communications, so we decided to split this episode in two parts. 

2:11 - We need to scale up renewables to make it a larger portion of our electricity supply, but to do so, we need a new grid model and new technologies such as battery storage and transmission enhancements.

19:04 - There have been m...

Today we're interviewing somebody who has not only been a CEO, he's also advised other CEOs on marketing and public affairs, something he continues to do for his present employer, EDP Renewables. 

And Tom Starrs is our precedent-setting guest for a reason. While he's done a lot of things in a career spanning 21 years in five different companies, Tom is, by my reckoning, the longest tenured and most experienced clea...