November 4, 2025 • 33 mins
On the latest episode of Scaling Clean, I sat down with a leader who built his career in oil and gas with companies like Schlumberger and Halliburton. Akshay Sagar is now the CEO of the world’s largest solar O&M provider, NovaSource Power, managing more than 30 GW of solar and storage projects worldwide.
I love Akshay’s advice about focusing on people and not being intimidated when people around you bring great ideas.
Here are three big takeaways from our conversation:
🔹 Great leadership starts with people, not assets.
Akshay says every organization is made up of two things: “people and steel,” and steel can always be replaced. The true differentiator is talent. Surround yourself with people more talented than you are, invest in them, and never be intimidated by their ideas.
🔹 Turnarounds demand culture, creativity, and accountability.
Having managed three major corporate turnarounds, Akshay insists that workplace culture outweighs strategy. Success comes from setting shared values - ownership, discipline, urgency, accountability, and austerity - and adapting your business structure to fit the moment rather than copying someone else’s model.
🔹 Focus is a superpower.
Instead of chasing every new opportunity, focus on what your business does best. Expanding too far can pull attention away from your core strengths. Most of us think we can do it all, but lasting success often comes from going deeper, not wider. Identify the distractions, and have the discipline to say no.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
And this is Scaling Clean, the podcast for clean economy CE OS
investors and the people who advise them.
I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin. Each show we bring you usable
insights from tested leaders that you can apply to the
business of running your business.
Welcome to the Scaling Clean podcast.
(00:22):
This episode was recorded live at RE Plus.
In Las Vegas, my guest today is Akshay Sagar, CEO of Nova Source
Power, the world's largest solarO&M provider.
If you've driven past a solar farm anywhere, it's very likely
that Nova Source had a hand in keeping it running.
Akshay built his career in oil and gas, managing turnarounds
(00:43):
and integrations with big energyplayers like Schlumberger,
Halliburton, and Patterson UTI. Now he's bringing that global
energy expertise into clean tech, guiding Nova sources.
It manages more than 30 gigawatts of solar and storage
projects worldwide. Akshay, welcome to SCALE and
(01:04):
CLEAN. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Melissa. It's a pleasure.
So let's dive into our questions.
We always like to start by hearing about your background.
Clearly, you're the CEO of Nova Source today, but how did you
get there? What was the path that you took
that landed you in this positionthat you're in today?
And also, why did you switch from traditional fuels to
renewables? I graduated as an engineer in
(01:26):
India and my first job was with Schlumberger.
I did not know much about it andtoday looking back, I would do
nothing different. Schlumberger took me from my
university days and put me on the field.
I started my career as a field engineer right in the mud with
everyone hands on in Africa. It was in Angola in the middle
(01:48):
of a civil war and at that time running a business.
Great service being delivered tocustomers and being safe was an
interesting combination for a college graduate just out of
college. And from there, I continued my
journey through different management roles, different
geographies, learning a lot about different businesses.
(02:08):
And then at some point, I switched to other service
companies just for the exposure and the variety.
And at the very end, we went through a merger at Patterson
UTI. And as a result of that, I
started looking at the expansionof the energy portfolio and
renewables made a lot of sense. I've been looking at the
renewable space for a long time and was something which excited
(02:28):
me because this is a sector which has amazing tailwinds, a
very strong pieces of growth, but also needs the discipline
and industrialized approach of the process driven industry.
And I think we could merge our learnings from traditional
energy into what was and is and will continue to remain an
amazing growth engine for the overall energy equation for the
(02:51):
US and the world. Interesting.
You said a few things there thatI want to just dive deeper on.
You talked about discipline and industrialized approach.
What does that mean to you? Like, could you compare with the
way things were in oil and gas and traditional fuels versus
what you were seeing in renewables?
In the case of traditional energy, I think over 100 years
(03:13):
or 100 plus years, making lots of mistakes, the industry had
learnt how not to a take anything for granted.
Safety was very important, making sure time was valued very
efficiently and jobs were done correctly every time.
Coming into this part of the industry, I realized we had a
lot of great technology coming in.
There was a lot of need for energy and energy which was
(03:35):
clean was absolutely a must for us from a planet sustainability
standpoint and just add it to the energy equation.
But where we failed was ensuringthat the urgency to do jobs
right every time and making surethat when things did not work,
they were addressed immediately and having a very rigorous
process that was across the board the same.
(03:57):
I call it kind of the McDonald'sapproach.
You need to have the same taste every time and hence you bring
in customers and bring in satisfaction.
That did not exist and we knew how to do that.
We had done that for a living, and I think merging the 2 has
helped us tremendously at Nova Source over the last 18 months
that I've been here. Excellent.
And when you're looking back, you mentioned that, that merger
(04:20):
that you'd went through, I believe is it Patterson,
approximately what year was that?
That was 2023. So yeah, I mean, I exited
Patterson at the start of 2024. OK.
So now I'm going to move on to the next question and that is we
always ask people about their mentors.
Who's influenced you in your life?
So as you look back over your career, is there anybody that
(04:42):
stands out to you as a mentor and and what did they teach you?
I'm going to go over the obvious.
It's one of the most significantones has been my dad.
He's also been an energy executive, but prior to that he
worked for Ford Motors and BESF,so companies which were not in
energy. But I think what I was impressed
the most about him was his driveto come from nothing to
(05:05):
something and building up a verystrong career.
He was the first person who leftIndia and came to Berkeley and
studied there and built an amazing career.
And the DNA of not giving up andmaking sure excellence as a way
of life is what I learned from him.
In my work career, I've had a few different people who've
helped me, even even even the people at Paterson, their CEO
(05:28):
was a mentor at one point. You know, he helped me through
many things and, and there've been a few others.
So it's, it's tough to make a list, but I think I like to
learn from anyone and everyone who can give me a new idea to
take home. And I think that's my concept of
mentorship. It's not a one person thing,
it's a new idea thing. I like that.
Not a one person thing, a new idea thing.
And I've got to tell you, I feellike at least half of all of the
(05:51):
CEO's I've interviewed have credited their parents as their
mentor. So it's a really common thread.
And I think that's, I think that's really, really cool.
Imagine that you step into a timing machine right now and you
go back to the beginning of yourcareer.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
As I said, I wouldn't do a lot of things different in terms of
a career trajectory, but I woulddefinitely try to avoid the
(06:13):
mistakes I made, which was at a couple of different times.
I thought I knew better than thepeople who were guiding me and
refused certain opportunities, which at the time felt like that
wasn't pretty enough, that wasn't exciting enough.
In hindsight, I should have taken them.
When people in your career are thoughtfully helping you, the
(06:35):
opportunities they offer are also thoughtfully done and we as
individuals should embrace that.If you believe it's done for the
right reasons, I refuse some andI think I will take them this
time around. It's interesting.
You've lived in eight different countries.
What do you notice? Do you have a favorite?
I'll tell you what my wife's favorite is.
That was Paris in France. She likes that place a lot.
(06:58):
But no, I think. I don't blame her, I think
that'd be my favorite too. Paris, France.
She did enjoy that a lot. I've lived and worked on almost
every continent actually. There are a few things which
stand out to me which I think the combination of eight make as
as kind of a portfolio 1 is human ingenuity.
You know, we have found people in almost every place are driven
(07:18):
by an ambition to do right things.
For the most part, cultural diversity and acceptance of
diversity and new ideas. That was something which came
into our DNA as a family. My kids have lived in multiple
countries. They embrace diversity, not for
the sake of diversity, but for the sake of value of idea
thought. And, you know, just doing things
(07:39):
differently could be very helpful.
So that has been very, very much, you know, the way of life
for us and we like that a lot. There's some very creative ways
of solving problems that I learnt along the way.
And you know, getting thrown in the middle of a desert or in the
middle of a jungle and survival,That's the last piece.
I would say. We often complain too much about
(08:01):
things that really are not significant in our overall
scheme of things. But making things work in very
difficult conditions, like working through a war, living
with some very unsafe situations, getting stranded in
places where they don't speak the language that teaches you
how, you know, we have a human spirit that is amazing.
(08:22):
We should harness that and bringthat to our work culture as
well, and our life and our families.
Is there any place that you've been that just stuck with you
visually, like a the geography of a place that just was very
striking to. You We liked Scotland a lot.
Our daughter was born in Scotland and just, it's just a
(08:42):
pretty place. I mean, I think it's calm.
It's pretty amazing. Nice people.
Nice, that sounds amazing. So now we're going to move on to
the section on leadership and change management.
Imagine that you quit your job tomorrow and you become a
lecturer at a Business School. Your first lecture describes
what is the role of an effectiveCEO?
(09:04):
What do you say to your students?
Over the last multiple years going through different
leadership roles in companies and and and M&A activity
etcetera, I came to a very simple simplistic view.
In my mind, you're not being thesmartest guy in the room.
I said organizations are just made-up of two things, people
and steel. Steel I can buy, I can build, I
(09:25):
can mold. I really have to focus on the
people. So I think the first thing I
have learnt is get talent aroundyou.
That is amazing. That is more talented than you
are. Never be intimidated by great
people around you. But their ideas, the disruptive
practices, them questioning you is probably your strength.
(09:45):
And then building people, training them, investing in
them. People invested in me.
Someone took a chance on me. I'm a brown guy from India.
I'm sitting here running a company not because of how I
look, but probably because of what I do.
And I only reached here because many people bet themselves on my
(10:07):
success and and help me. So find people you can bet on,
make sure they're successful, but always get the best talent.
I always say get people who are more talented than you because
they'll make you much better. And don't don't worry about the
steal, you can always get it. It's great.
Oh, I'm interested in this one. I noticed when I was reading
(10:27):
about you, you mentioned that you you've managed corporate
turnarounds. So and look, right now the solar
industry is, is getting a shake up, right.
So can you give an example of a situation like that you've faced
in in a turn around? Sure.
I mean, this is my third significant turn around.
(10:48):
First time was quite, quite a while ago and on my first
exposure to businesses that losemoney, that was new to me and
that was a bit of a shock, but it was a learning.
I think for us the recipe has become more standard.
It's first getting the right management team in place who
believe in the same vision in values and cultures.
(11:08):
So values and culture are very important.
It's, it's not just set for the sake of saying it that, you
know, culture is, is much more important than strategy.
And I, I believe it. So setting the right culture
and, and the right values is important.
Secondly, finding a structure that makes sense for that
business in that market is very important.
(11:28):
Not all structures are the same.Copying something doesn't help.
Being creative helps. So finding what works, look,
looking at problems and trying to solve them in real time is a
lot more powerful than trying toread books on how something
works somewhere else because youyou're not in the same moment of
time. We can suddenly learn, but we
have to adapt. And finally, making sure there
(11:50):
is me. It is immense accountability
across the organization. And, and this is extreme for me,
it starts with me and I set out five objectives for the
organization or five values thatI hold very strong.
That is ownership, I own it, I don't point fingers.
Discipline, it has to be a process based disciplined
(12:11):
approach in the company. Accountability, We are all
accountable at all levels. Urgency, get things done now,
let's not have a meeting for thesake of another meeting.
And finally, austerity. We are in any business in any
part of the world. Much better off being Austria
and then spending the money on the right things rather than
(12:32):
spending them for fun and then struggling to turn around.
So those things have driven me. It was the same in oil and gas.
It's about the same here. And again, the industry may go
through inflections, but they'rejust moments of reset.
Nothing changes. Industries last a long time.
Resets allow us to be a lot moreefficient and that's what's
going to happen in this industrynow.
(12:54):
We are going through a moment intime that oil and gas has gone
through many times. It's called a downturn.
It's just a moment of reset where high caliber, highly
efficient, great companies succeed, and the others may have
to find other things to do. Yeah, I'm, I'm noticing that and
we're seeing that in the industry where I think some of
the more robust companies, they have their plan, they're going
(13:17):
to see this through. I think some of maybe the
younger companies or those with less experience, it's going to
be tough. But with that, I think you're
going to, I think it's going to be good for the industry.
Overall, absolutely. It's going to strengthen us.
It's. Going to be a stronger industry.
Yeah. And actually that's that leads
right into my next question. So you have M&A experience and
there's a lot of talk right now in the solar industry that
(13:39):
there's going to be a lot of M&Aactivity.
So can you give advice to any companies who may be looking to
acquire, other companies are looking to be acquired about how
to approach those deals? So M and AS is a complex
business, most M and AS don't succeed and the reason is rather
simple. The thesis and and the strategy
(14:00):
behind it is flawed. People do it because it looks
nice and do it just for the math.
M&ASM&A activity does not work just on a spreadsheet.
I think a getting the right reasons to make it happen in
terms of where does it strategically fit in the road
map of the companies coming together, making sure cultures
are aligned, making sure that the people who are part of both
(14:22):
companies stay with the companies for success and that
the products and services have complements to each other, not
competitive with each other. You do not want to buy a company
and gobble up part of it and then destroy it.
That just destroys value. But the culture piece is
important. People need to be, you know, if
there's one company which likes to micromanage everything and
the other one is like a free forall, you put them together, it's
(14:44):
not going to work. That's a very simplistic
example. So I think it's very important
that find those right drivers are set up first and not rushing
into the first target you find. Sometimes it's it's just like a
dating game. You don't necessarily marry the
first person you may, but usually like to date and know
and and explore and be thoughtful.
(15:06):
Yeah, that's great advice. I absolutely see what you're
saying about the culture too, because I think people get used
to working in a certain way, so I can imagine a large degree of
friction if you're coming into acompletely different
environment. Yeah.
I mean, you've got to think about it, right.
A company going through M&A is very disruptive at at the level
(15:26):
of an individual, individual employee.
The CEO's and the board, they see it.
But the individual employees, they need to think, do they have
a job, who their boss is going to be, what direction are they
going to take? That's a lot to process and, you
know, with very little information.
Communication is another very important part of any good M and
(15:46):
A letting everyone know where weare today and where we are
heading to tomorrow. And along the way, lots of
updates. Right.
And what does this mean for you,right.
How's this going to affect your day-to-day or is it going to
affect your job, Right? Yeah, Yeah, that's a great
point. In business, a lot of times,
especially the CEO, you are the one who has to make the tough
(16:07):
call and have the tough decision.
So that might be firing somebodythat might be, you know, maybe
there's a tough financial situation you're going through
or admitting and correcting mistake like like you talked
about earlier. So what is your approach to
that? When you have to have a tough
conversation, what is your approach?
(16:28):
I'd say, and yes, you're right, I've had to do that many times.
It's not always fun and I don't take it lightly.
So step one is don't take any decision lightly.
It's not done just for the sake of doing it.
It's done thoughtfully, but be very direct and be quick about
it. I think extending the pain of
any such difficult decision makes it 10 times more painful.
(16:49):
So if it's an employee, just come out, be direct, explain why
you're doing what you're doing. And we fortunately have had
people who've understood that better when we are direct.
And unfortunately we've had to do that many times even here at
Nova Source and insignificant amounts at different times.
The same applies with the customer.
I think there is no substitute for the truth.
(17:11):
If we have a mistake that our team has made, I'd rather we
tell them. We talk through that and
customers appreciate it. Everyone makes a mistake.
We're human at the end of the day.
If I was a robot, I probably wouldn't be going through this
podcast. You'd be having it done very
differently. So we make mistakes.
That's what makes us great. When we accept them and improve
(17:32):
from them and customers, they'relike me on the other side,
right? They'll they'll work with me.
If I try to give them nice fluffy stories then that doesn't
go very far. Yeah.
And I think a lot of times they can see right through it.
We ask this question to every guest.
So in business, do you find thatsuccess relies more on what you
(17:52):
choose to do or not to do? It's more of what I choose not
to do because choosing to do is something I do everyday, choose
a lot of things and I think we get greedy at times trying to do
much or trying to do a diversityof things.
We think we can handle it all, but we don't do it very well.
(18:13):
Staying very focused I think hasmuch more upside.
I'll give an example here with Nova Source.
A lot of people have asked us weshould consider moving into the
wind support business as an energy source or you know,
adding some other pieces. And I've always said no.
We are a utility scale provider of services to the solar
(18:33):
industry and the battery energy storage industry.
And that's what we will be. We'll get deep in it.
We'll add a lot of depth in value, in terms of
predictability, in terms of analytics, but we don't want to
diversify. And that was a choice of not
doing something. It was easy for us to say,
listen, let's just do something else.
We'll look bigger, we'll grow more, we'll be more, we can talk
(18:55):
a lot more about something in the short term.
So I I believe it's more about picking the few key things that
would be distractions and not doing that.
Excellent. So let me ask you this.
You're the CEO, this is a large company.
So are you still involved in thehiring process?
I certainly like to visit with people who are coming at least 2
(19:16):
levels below where I sit. And three, in some cases I want
to at least meet them once. And I think the only reason I
meet them is that's the three reasons I meet them.
One, I want to tell them what I think about the oversourcing,
where I think the company feels like it's going and they
appreciate hearing it from multiple people, including
myself. And 2nd, I want to assess
(19:37):
culture. Will this human be able to work
with me at some point in the future?
Was everyone we hire a few levels below us should aspire to
do my job? I don't hire people to just do
their jobs. I want to hire leaders who will
take over my role and my ELT members roles in the future.
(19:58):
We want to groom leaders for success, not for today, but for
tomorrow. And the third reason is reason
is I'm going to make sure that they very honestly can ask
questions and I tell them upfront, the buck stops with me.
So don't think that I'm going totell you I'm going to check
because if I've got to check, wehave a problem.
I mean data aside, but if you want to hear about directions,
(20:19):
strategy, key decisions. If I can't tell you, you should
not be joining this company. And I think that's very
important for us that we have that open dialogue and trust on
day zero, else it's not going tobe a great combination.
Yeah. Is there a time in your career
where you've done the interview yourself directly?
(20:39):
I, I've interviewed people who work on my team obviously often,
I mean always, I do interview other people too, on and off.
My stars are a little bit more direct than maybe HR.
They're, they're more thoughtfuland pleasant.
I think I just get to the point quick.
I've always believed that, you know, time is well spent when we
(21:00):
focus on what is important and cut the fluff out.
This is the way I run our business and our team.
We run very hard. We run at a very high velocity
as a team and we like it. Some people may not like it, but
those who like it, they stay with us.
Most of my team has worked with me before, more than once in
some cases, and they came back by choice.
(21:20):
They elected to come here. We just like the way we ride
together. That's interesting, though,
because that means that more folks have come over from
traditional fuels into renewables.
Is that right? Absolutely.
And I go back in a customer mix as well.
And there are a lot of people, almost everyone I have met or
90% of the people started somewhere else, traditional
(21:43):
energy, industrial businesses, upstream, downstream chemicals,
whatnot, manufacturing and then at some point saw the value of
growing an alternate energy source as humanity needs so much
energy, which is multiplying very fast.
They came over here, they added their expertise to a very strong
(22:03):
growth and they've enjoyed it. They haven't left.
I don't intend to leave either. Good.
We like you here. This is great.
All right, so now I'm going to move into another section.
I want to talk about marketing and AI.
First, what is your company's approach to AI?
Are you using it either in your company and the services that
you provide to your customers asan offering, or are you using it
(22:26):
internally to help your own internal processes?
It's, it's a, it's a timely question you've asked.
On Monday this week we announcedthe launch of Nova Vision, which
is our AI enabled portfolio of offerings to assist the industry
in terms how do we analyse information, make predictive
choices, predictive optimization.
(22:47):
We have set ourselves a three pronged strategy, predictive
failure, predictive optimizationand inspection efficiency.
Those are things that drive asset performance because as a
company we have moved beyond operations and maintenance to
total asset optimization as an approach.
So our our AI focus is is huge across the company.
(23:10):
From an external product standpoint, the number one focus
is to predict failure of large components that impact energy
generation, which in this case is mostly inverters.
We have also taken a very thoughtful approach that every
function in the company, 100% ofevery function will use AI
(23:30):
engines to automate one to threeprocesses.
I expect a 30% efficiency uptickin the organization across every
function. So AI is more than on the cards.
It's totally in our DNA both internally and externally.
And I think done for the right reasons with the right, you
(23:52):
know, framework, it can be hugely successful.
But AI for the sake of AI to have it on my brochure is 0
value. So the tools we have now
introduced this week on the Novavision, they truly bring, bring
bring value to the industry and I think that will help a lot.
I want to talk more about that. I want to actually give you a
(24:12):
chance for our listeners who might not probably everyone is
familiar with Nova Source, but let's imagine there's a listener
out there that's not just say again like who you are, how big
the company is, what you're doing, your customer types.
Sure. So Nova Source is a services
platform focused entirely on utility scales, solar and
(24:33):
battery storage systems. And about 18 months ago, we
reset our trajectory from operations and maintenance to
total asset optimization. We continue to have operations
and maintenance as the mainstay of the company and those are two
verticals, operations and maintenance.
And we added three more verticals.
One was intelligence, which was a function of putting subject
(24:55):
matter experts on asset optimization.
We created a digital vertical and hence the launch of our Nova
Vision platform which is our AI enabled suite.
And then we created a stand alone back office services
function primarily focused on supply chain, which has been a
weakness in the industry. So that allows us to then take
the whole asset optimization approach and we also reset the
(25:20):
organization in terms of what isimportant to us.
And in the past we always talkedabout what we would do and what
was outside scope and effective availability and stuff like
that, which contracts asked for.And we're going to drop that
entire idea in terms of at leastthe way we operate and made it
(25:41):
actual energy generation. That's what the industry wants,
that's what a customer wants, that's what a BPA requires.
So we measure ourselves on actual energy generation and
most recently based on 3rd partydata, we have now come to
compute and conclude that sites operated by Nova Source are
producing 25% more energy than any of our peers.
(26:04):
And that is public data. It's not Nova Source data, it's
like the industry data. So our approach on asset
optimization and actual energy generation aligned with
customers using our predictive tools and field execution is
definitely showing us additionalenergy and that's what the
industry wants and we will continue our path on that.
(26:26):
And there's much more to come. We have to all get our assets to
operate at 100%. I was just thinking about this
and talking about this with somefolks here at the show right
now, the spotlight is on us, right?
We have a lot of criticism, you know, from, from government
essentially. And so right now it's more
important than ever for our assets to be operating for the
(26:47):
the projects to work and to perform and to deliver as
promised. And so, and so you guys know
like machines break, right? And so I think it's excellent,
this new line that you've developed.
And you know, I think the, if you, if you think about the
government and not to get political out here, but with the
new policy frameworks, an existing site is already
(27:11):
connected to the grid, There's APP in place.
There's absolutely no downside in producing more energy from
the site. It's needed by the industry,
it's needed by the by humanity. Forget about the industry.
Humanity needs energy. Why would we not produce as much
as we can? We're only helping all of us
collectively. It doesn't matter what side of
the political log you're sittingon.
(27:32):
We all need the light bulbs to be running well.
So our approach is get every site to produce 100%, and if
they're built for more than 100%, like some sites make it
more than 100%, How can we get that final step?
So we are today producing actualenergy at 95 to 96% of the plant
capacity and that is a very highnumber compared to anyone in our
(27:55):
peer group. And we kind of openly will
discuss that with anyone on, youknow, how can we improve?
Certainly, you know, I mean we, I mean like us as Nova source
and our and our team feel very good about it.
It's excellent. Yeah, I've heard numbers as low
as 6075% of you know, underperformance.
So you know, up to 1/3 of the asset is is not delivering.
(28:18):
So that's, that's incredible, 95to 96.
Is great. That's why you know the 25%
above industry peer group energyproduction is real for us.
It's not a joke. The data is again not our data.
Data was taken from meter data that is published by the
utility. So it's not actually didn't
create it or Nova source did notanyone can go into the same
(28:38):
math. Publicly available.
Well, and actually your point about data and your data leads
me into the next question about marketing because a lot of times
in marketing we can use our internal data assets to tell the
customer something interesting about themselves that they don't
already know. But I wanted to just ask you
about your approach to marketing.
So tell me about the size of your marketing team and what
(29:00):
marketing tactics have you foundto be successful here at Nova
Source? But also, maybe there's
something that you saw in oil and gas that you think
renewables could learn from. So number one thing that so we
have a decent sized marketing team.
We have a chief commercial officer who kind of overseas
everything marketing, sales, BD and all of it.
And I think the team, I don't know the exact size, but I would
(29:22):
say it's in the 20s which is a good number for us.
The most important thing is a service DNA.
We are a service company and nobody ever comes and tanks
service companies enough. Consider airlines and every time
you fly, it's rare that people get out and say this is amazing
and I loved it today. No, we always complain about it
(29:42):
wasn't clean, it was late, this,that and the other.
But the primary job of an airline is to transport you
safely from A to B and they do it very well every day.
We never count that. So we are a service company
that'll always be customers who will have issues.
So what that's an improvement opportunity for us.
And the part that I like the most, and we have kind of pushed
(30:02):
that into our DNA is getting in front of a client every day.
I as a minimum meet at least 2 customers a week and some weeks
it could be as high as 15. And our team is always on the
road getting out in front of customers.
I do believe human interaction, we are humans at the end of the
day, as value in person is always much better than remote
(30:27):
and listening to our clients. So that's been our big thesis.
It's not magical. It's not like lots of
spreadsheets and AI tools. Those are all enablers to a
thought process, which for us isvery important.
I at this show, this has been anamazing show.
Every day has been a number of leaders.
Now many have become friends. We meet as family still and I'm
(30:49):
only 18 months in this industry.I think the ego level in this
industry is very low, which is amazing.
Great people just get in front of them, talk to them, listen to
them, hear what we need to do tohelp them and in return we do
not expect to be tanked every day.
That's not what services do. We just do a great job safely,
(31:11):
people go home safe and we produce more energy and we can
then celebrate. It's such a great point on the
service DNA. You're busy.
Being a CEO is incredibly demanding.
What do you do to help recharge your battery?
Like what is your downtime or what do you do to reset?
It's interesting, the thing thatresets me the most is solving
(31:32):
more problems. I get very excited.
There is a new problem to solve.I think my mind is very bored if
I'm sitting doing nothing. So I do start my day quite
early. I do wake up at about 4:00 every
day and I do like to go to the gym and that helps me set my day
right. And then after that, it's all
about meeting people. And the one thing which excites
(31:54):
me more than not excites me is if I can meet more people, talk
to more folks and find more issues to solve.
I'm not a big one on. I don't, I don't golf a lot, but
I don't, I do play some sports here and there.
And then the last part that really has always helped me is
time with the family. I think the families can never
(32:16):
be thanked enough for the way they support us.
My wife, my kids. That's very important.
Yeah, excellent. Very good.
Before we end the podcast, do you have any final words for our
listeners and viewers? I'm going to say that the
industry is in an amazing spot and policy frameworks will come
(32:36):
and go as part of what we do as countries and communities.
We should not lose focus on the value of this industry, how we
add to the energy equation. It is fundamental to our
progress as a country, as humanity.
And let's just go onwards and upwards, improve this place
(32:57):
because I think there's a lot ofpotential upside for the
industry, for energy generation and be more creative every day.
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Scaling
Clean, the podcast for clean economies, CEO's, investors and
the people who advise them. I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin.
Our producer is Claire Quirin. If you like what you hear on
(33:20):
scale and clean episodes, we'd appreciate it if you'd give us a
five star rating and leave a comment where you get your
podcast. And until next time, we wish you
all the best in the clean economy transition.
And this is Scaling Clean, the podcast for clean economy CE OS
investors and the people who advise them.
I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin. Each show we bring you usable
insights from tested leaders that you can apply to the
business of running your business.
Welcome to the Scaling Clean podcast.
(00:22):
This episode was recorded live at RE Plus.
In Las Vegas, my guest today is Akshay Sagar, CEO of Nova Source
Power, the world's largest solarO&M provider.
If you've driven past a solar farm anywhere, it's very likely
that Nova Source had a hand in keeping it running.
Akshay built his career in oil and gas, managing turnarounds
(00:43):
and integrations with big energyplayers like Schlumberger,
Halliburton, and Patterson UTI. Now he's bringing that global
energy expertise into clean tech, guiding Nova sources.
It manages more than 30 gigawatts of solar and storage
projects worldwide. Akshay, welcome to SCALE and
(01:04):
CLEAN. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Melissa. It's a pleasure.
So let's dive into our questions.
We always like to start by hearing about your background.
Clearly, you're the CEO of Nova Source today, but how did you
get there? What was the path that you took
that landed you in this positionthat you're in today?
And also, why did you switch from traditional fuels to
renewables? I graduated as an engineer in
(01:26):
India and my first job was with Schlumberger.
I did not know much about it andtoday looking back, I would do
nothing different. Schlumberger took me from my
university days and put me on the field.
I started my career as a field engineer right in the mud with
everyone hands on in Africa. It was in Angola in the middle
(01:48):
of a civil war and at that time running a business.
Great service being delivered tocustomers and being safe was an
interesting combination for a college graduate just out of
college. And from there, I continued my
journey through different management roles, different
geographies, learning a lot about different businesses.
(02:08):
And then at some point, I switched to other service
companies just for the exposure and the variety.
And at the very end, we went through a merger at Patterson
UTI. And as a result of that, I
started looking at the expansionof the energy portfolio and
renewables made a lot of sense. I've been looking at the
renewable space for a long time and was something which excited
(02:28):
me because this is a sector which has amazing tailwinds, a
very strong pieces of growth, but also needs the discipline
and industrialized approach of the process driven industry.
And I think we could merge our learnings from traditional
energy into what was and is and will continue to remain an
amazing growth engine for the overall energy equation for the
(02:51):
US and the world. Interesting.
You said a few things there thatI want to just dive deeper on.
You talked about discipline and industrialized approach.
What does that mean to you? Like, could you compare with the
way things were in oil and gas and traditional fuels versus
what you were seeing in renewables?
In the case of traditional energy, I think over 100 years
(03:13):
or 100 plus years, making lots of mistakes, the industry had
learnt how not to a take anything for granted.
Safety was very important, making sure time was valued very
efficiently and jobs were done correctly every time.
Coming into this part of the industry, I realized we had a
lot of great technology coming in.
There was a lot of need for energy and energy which was
(03:35):
clean was absolutely a must for us from a planet sustainability
standpoint and just add it to the energy equation.
But where we failed was ensuringthat the urgency to do jobs
right every time and making surethat when things did not work,
they were addressed immediately and having a very rigorous
process that was across the board the same.
(03:57):
I call it kind of the McDonald'sapproach.
You need to have the same taste every time and hence you bring
in customers and bring in satisfaction.
That did not exist and we knew how to do that.
We had done that for a living, and I think merging the 2 has
helped us tremendously at Nova Source over the last 18 months
that I've been here. Excellent.
And when you're looking back, you mentioned that, that merger
(04:20):
that you'd went through, I believe is it Patterson,
approximately what year was that?
That was 2023. So yeah, I mean, I exited
Patterson at the start of 2024. OK.
So now I'm going to move on to the next question and that is we
always ask people about their mentors.
Who's influenced you in your life?
So as you look back over your career, is there anybody that
(04:42):
stands out to you as a mentor and and what did they teach you?
I'm going to go over the obvious.
It's one of the most significantones has been my dad.
He's also been an energy executive, but prior to that he
worked for Ford Motors and BESF,so companies which were not in
energy. But I think what I was impressed
the most about him was his driveto come from nothing to
(05:05):
something and building up a verystrong career.
He was the first person who leftIndia and came to Berkeley and
studied there and built an amazing career.
And the DNA of not giving up andmaking sure excellence as a way
of life is what I learned from him.
In my work career, I've had a few different people who've
helped me, even even even the people at Paterson, their CEO
(05:28):
was a mentor at one point. You know, he helped me through
many things and, and there've been a few others.
So it's, it's tough to make a list, but I think I like to
learn from anyone and everyone who can give me a new idea to
take home. And I think that's my concept of
mentorship. It's not a one person thing,
it's a new idea thing. I like that.
Not a one person thing, a new idea thing.
And I've got to tell you, I feellike at least half of all of the
(05:51):
CEO's I've interviewed have credited their parents as their
mentor. So it's a really common thread.
And I think that's, I think that's really, really cool.
Imagine that you step into a timing machine right now and you
go back to the beginning of yourcareer.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
As I said, I wouldn't do a lot of things different in terms of
a career trajectory, but I woulddefinitely try to avoid the
(06:13):
mistakes I made, which was at a couple of different times.
I thought I knew better than thepeople who were guiding me and
refused certain opportunities, which at the time felt like that
wasn't pretty enough, that wasn't exciting enough.
In hindsight, I should have taken them.
When people in your career are thoughtfully helping you, the
(06:35):
opportunities they offer are also thoughtfully done and we as
individuals should embrace that.If you believe it's done for the
right reasons, I refuse some andI think I will take them this
time around. It's interesting.
You've lived in eight different countries.
What do you notice? Do you have a favorite?
I'll tell you what my wife's favorite is.
That was Paris in France. She likes that place a lot.
(06:58):
But no, I think. I don't blame her, I think
that'd be my favorite too. Paris, France.
She did enjoy that a lot. I've lived and worked on almost
every continent actually. There are a few things which
stand out to me which I think the combination of eight make as
as kind of a portfolio 1 is human ingenuity.
You know, we have found people in almost every place are driven
(07:18):
by an ambition to do right things.
For the most part, cultural diversity and acceptance of
diversity and new ideas. That was something which came
into our DNA as a family. My kids have lived in multiple
countries. They embrace diversity, not for
the sake of diversity, but for the sake of value of idea
thought. And, you know, just doing things
(07:39):
differently could be very helpful.
So that has been very, very much, you know, the way of life
for us and we like that a lot. There's some very creative ways
of solving problems that I learnt along the way.
And you know, getting thrown in the middle of a desert or in the
middle of a jungle and survival,That's the last piece.
I would say. We often complain too much about
(08:01):
things that really are not significant in our overall
scheme of things. But making things work in very
difficult conditions, like working through a war, living
with some very unsafe situations, getting stranded in
places where they don't speak the language that teaches you
how, you know, we have a human spirit that is amazing.
(08:22):
We should harness that and bringthat to our work culture as
well, and our life and our families.
Is there any place that you've been that just stuck with you
visually, like a the geography of a place that just was very
striking to. You We liked Scotland a lot.
Our daughter was born in Scotland and just, it's just a
(08:42):
pretty place. I mean, I think it's calm.
It's pretty amazing. Nice people.
Nice, that sounds amazing. So now we're going to move on to
the section on leadership and change management.
Imagine that you quit your job tomorrow and you become a
lecturer at a Business School. Your first lecture describes
what is the role of an effectiveCEO?
(09:04):
What do you say to your students?
Over the last multiple years going through different
leadership roles in companies and and and M&A activity
etcetera, I came to a very simple simplistic view.
In my mind, you're not being thesmartest guy in the room.
I said organizations are just made-up of two things, people
and steel. Steel I can buy, I can build, I
(09:25):
can mold. I really have to focus on the
people. So I think the first thing I
have learnt is get talent aroundyou.
That is amazing. That is more talented than you
are. Never be intimidated by great
people around you. But their ideas, the disruptive
practices, them questioning you is probably your strength.
(09:45):
And then building people, training them, investing in
them. People invested in me.
Someone took a chance on me. I'm a brown guy from India.
I'm sitting here running a company not because of how I
look, but probably because of what I do.
And I only reached here because many people bet themselves on my
(10:07):
success and and help me. So find people you can bet on,
make sure they're successful, but always get the best talent.
I always say get people who are more talented than you because
they'll make you much better. And don't don't worry about the
steal, you can always get it. It's great.
Oh, I'm interested in this one. I noticed when I was reading
(10:27):
about you, you mentioned that you you've managed corporate
turnarounds. So and look, right now the solar
industry is, is getting a shake up, right.
So can you give an example of a situation like that you've faced
in in a turn around? Sure.
I mean, this is my third significant turn around.
(10:48):
First time was quite, quite a while ago and on my first
exposure to businesses that losemoney, that was new to me and
that was a bit of a shock, but it was a learning.
I think for us the recipe has become more standard.
It's first getting the right management team in place who
believe in the same vision in values and cultures.
(11:08):
So values and culture are very important.
It's, it's not just set for the sake of saying it that, you
know, culture is, is much more important than strategy.
And I, I believe it. So setting the right culture
and, and the right values is important.
Secondly, finding a structure that makes sense for that
business in that market is very important.
(11:28):
Not all structures are the same.Copying something doesn't help.
Being creative helps. So finding what works, look,
looking at problems and trying to solve them in real time is a
lot more powerful than trying toread books on how something
works somewhere else because youyou're not in the same moment of
time. We can suddenly learn, but we
have to adapt. And finally, making sure there
(11:50):
is me. It is immense accountability
across the organization. And, and this is extreme for me,
it starts with me and I set out five objectives for the
organization or five values thatI hold very strong.
That is ownership, I own it, I don't point fingers.
Discipline, it has to be a process based disciplined
(12:11):
approach in the company. Accountability, We are all
accountable at all levels. Urgency, get things done now,
let's not have a meeting for thesake of another meeting.
And finally, austerity. We are in any business in any
part of the world. Much better off being Austria
and then spending the money on the right things rather than
(12:32):
spending them for fun and then struggling to turn around.
So those things have driven me. It was the same in oil and gas.
It's about the same here. And again, the industry may go
through inflections, but they'rejust moments of reset.
Nothing changes. Industries last a long time.
Resets allow us to be a lot moreefficient and that's what's
going to happen in this industrynow.
(12:54):
We are going through a moment intime that oil and gas has gone
through many times. It's called a downturn.
It's just a moment of reset where high caliber, highly
efficient, great companies succeed, and the others may have
to find other things to do. Yeah, I'm, I'm noticing that and
we're seeing that in the industry where I think some of
the more robust companies, they have their plan, they're going
(13:17):
to see this through. I think some of maybe the
younger companies or those with less experience, it's going to
be tough. But with that, I think you're
going to, I think it's going to be good for the industry.
Overall, absolutely. It's going to strengthen us.
It's. Going to be a stronger industry.
Yeah. And actually that's that leads
right into my next question. So you have M&A experience and
there's a lot of talk right now in the solar industry that
(13:39):
there's going to be a lot of M&Aactivity.
So can you give advice to any companies who may be looking to
acquire, other companies are looking to be acquired about how
to approach those deals? So M and AS is a complex
business, most M and AS don't succeed and the reason is rather
simple. The thesis and and the strategy
(14:00):
behind it is flawed. People do it because it looks
nice and do it just for the math.
M&ASM&A activity does not work just on a spreadsheet.
I think a getting the right reasons to make it happen in
terms of where does it strategically fit in the road
map of the companies coming together, making sure cultures
are aligned, making sure that the people who are part of both
(14:22):
companies stay with the companies for success and that
the products and services have complements to each other, not
competitive with each other. You do not want to buy a company
and gobble up part of it and then destroy it.
That just destroys value. But the culture piece is
important. People need to be, you know, if
there's one company which likes to micromanage everything and
the other one is like a free forall, you put them together, it's
(14:44):
not going to work. That's a very simplistic
example. So I think it's very important
that find those right drivers are set up first and not rushing
into the first target you find. Sometimes it's it's just like a
dating game. You don't necessarily marry the
first person you may, but usually like to date and know
and and explore and be thoughtful.
(15:06):
Yeah, that's great advice. I absolutely see what you're
saying about the culture too, because I think people get used
to working in a certain way, so I can imagine a large degree of
friction if you're coming into acompletely different
environment. Yeah.
I mean, you've got to think about it, right.
A company going through M&A is very disruptive at at the level
(15:26):
of an individual, individual employee.
The CEO's and the board, they see it.
But the individual employees, they need to think, do they have
a job, who their boss is going to be, what direction are they
going to take? That's a lot to process and, you
know, with very little information.
Communication is another very important part of any good M and
(15:46):
A letting everyone know where weare today and where we are
heading to tomorrow. And along the way, lots of
updates. Right.
And what does this mean for you,right.
How's this going to affect your day-to-day or is it going to
affect your job, Right? Yeah, Yeah, that's a great
point. In business, a lot of times,
especially the CEO, you are the one who has to make the tough
(16:07):
call and have the tough decision.
So that might be firing somebodythat might be, you know, maybe
there's a tough financial situation you're going through
or admitting and correcting mistake like like you talked
about earlier. So what is your approach to
that? When you have to have a tough
conversation, what is your approach?
(16:28):
I'd say, and yes, you're right, I've had to do that many times.
It's not always fun and I don't take it lightly.
So step one is don't take any decision lightly.
It's not done just for the sake of doing it.
It's done thoughtfully, but be very direct and be quick about
it. I think extending the pain of
any such difficult decision makes it 10 times more painful.
(16:49):
So if it's an employee, just come out, be direct, explain why
you're doing what you're doing. And we fortunately have had
people who've understood that better when we are direct.
And unfortunately we've had to do that many times even here at
Nova Source and insignificant amounts at different times.
The same applies with the customer.
I think there is no substitute for the truth.
(17:11):
If we have a mistake that our team has made, I'd rather we
tell them. We talk through that and
customers appreciate it. Everyone makes a mistake.
We're human at the end of the day.
If I was a robot, I probably wouldn't be going through this
podcast. You'd be having it done very
differently. So we make mistakes.
That's what makes us great. When we accept them and improve
(17:32):
from them and customers, they'relike me on the other side,
right? They'll they'll work with me.
If I try to give them nice fluffy stories then that doesn't
go very far. Yeah.
And I think a lot of times they can see right through it.
We ask this question to every guest.
So in business, do you find thatsuccess relies more on what you
(17:52):
choose to do or not to do? It's more of what I choose not
to do because choosing to do is something I do everyday, choose
a lot of things and I think we get greedy at times trying to do
much or trying to do a diversityof things.
We think we can handle it all, but we don't do it very well.
(18:13):
Staying very focused I think hasmuch more upside.
I'll give an example here with Nova Source.
A lot of people have asked us weshould consider moving into the
wind support business as an energy source or you know,
adding some other pieces. And I've always said no.
We are a utility scale provider of services to the solar
(18:33):
industry and the battery energy storage industry.
And that's what we will be. We'll get deep in it.
We'll add a lot of depth in value, in terms of
predictability, in terms of analytics, but we don't want to
diversify. And that was a choice of not
doing something. It was easy for us to say,
listen, let's just do something else.
We'll look bigger, we'll grow more, we'll be more, we can talk
(18:55):
a lot more about something in the short term.
So I I believe it's more about picking the few key things that
would be distractions and not doing that.
Excellent. So let me ask you this.
You're the CEO, this is a large company.
So are you still involved in thehiring process?
I certainly like to visit with people who are coming at least 2
(19:16):
levels below where I sit. And three, in some cases I want
to at least meet them once. And I think the only reason I
meet them is that's the three reasons I meet them.
One, I want to tell them what I think about the oversourcing,
where I think the company feels like it's going and they
appreciate hearing it from multiple people, including
myself. And 2nd, I want to assess
(19:37):
culture. Will this human be able to work
with me at some point in the future?
Was everyone we hire a few levels below us should aspire to
do my job? I don't hire people to just do
their jobs. I want to hire leaders who will
take over my role and my ELT members roles in the future.
(19:58):
We want to groom leaders for success, not for today, but for
tomorrow. And the third reason is reason
is I'm going to make sure that they very honestly can ask
questions and I tell them upfront, the buck stops with me.
So don't think that I'm going totell you I'm going to check
because if I've got to check, wehave a problem.
I mean data aside, but if you want to hear about directions,
(20:19):
strategy, key decisions. If I can't tell you, you should
not be joining this company. And I think that's very
important for us that we have that open dialogue and trust on
day zero, else it's not going tobe a great combination.
Yeah. Is there a time in your career
where you've done the interview yourself directly?
(20:39):
I, I've interviewed people who work on my team obviously often,
I mean always, I do interview other people too, on and off.
My stars are a little bit more direct than maybe HR.
They're, they're more thoughtfuland pleasant.
I think I just get to the point quick.
I've always believed that, you know, time is well spent when we
(21:00):
focus on what is important and cut the fluff out.
This is the way I run our business and our team.
We run very hard. We run at a very high velocity
as a team and we like it. Some people may not like it, but
those who like it, they stay with us.
Most of my team has worked with me before, more than once in
some cases, and they came back by choice.
(21:20):
They elected to come here. We just like the way we ride
together. That's interesting, though,
because that means that more folks have come over from
traditional fuels into renewables.
Is that right? Absolutely.
And I go back in a customer mix as well.
And there are a lot of people, almost everyone I have met or
90% of the people started somewhere else, traditional
(21:43):
energy, industrial businesses, upstream, downstream chemicals,
whatnot, manufacturing and then at some point saw the value of
growing an alternate energy source as humanity needs so much
energy, which is multiplying very fast.
They came over here, they added their expertise to a very strong
(22:03):
growth and they've enjoyed it. They haven't left.
I don't intend to leave either. Good.
We like you here. This is great.
All right, so now I'm going to move into another section.
I want to talk about marketing and AI.
First, what is your company's approach to AI?
Are you using it either in your company and the services that
you provide to your customers asan offering, or are you using it
(22:26):
internally to help your own internal processes?
It's, it's a, it's a timely question you've asked.
On Monday this week we announcedthe launch of Nova Vision, which
is our AI enabled portfolio of offerings to assist the industry
in terms how do we analyse information, make predictive
choices, predictive optimization.
(22:47):
We have set ourselves a three pronged strategy, predictive
failure, predictive optimizationand inspection efficiency.
Those are things that drive asset performance because as a
company we have moved beyond operations and maintenance to
total asset optimization as an approach.
So our our AI focus is is huge across the company.
(23:10):
From an external product standpoint, the number one focus
is to predict failure of large components that impact energy
generation, which in this case is mostly inverters.
We have also taken a very thoughtful approach that every
function in the company, 100% ofevery function will use AI
(23:30):
engines to automate one to threeprocesses.
I expect a 30% efficiency uptickin the organization across every
function. So AI is more than on the cards.
It's totally in our DNA both internally and externally.
And I think done for the right reasons with the right, you
(23:52):
know, framework, it can be hugely successful.
But AI for the sake of AI to have it on my brochure is 0
value. So the tools we have now
introduced this week on the Novavision, they truly bring, bring
bring value to the industry and I think that will help a lot.
I want to talk more about that. I want to actually give you a
(24:12):
chance for our listeners who might not probably everyone is
familiar with Nova Source, but let's imagine there's a listener
out there that's not just say again like who you are, how big
the company is, what you're doing, your customer types.
Sure. So Nova Source is a services
platform focused entirely on utility scales, solar and
(24:33):
battery storage systems. And about 18 months ago, we
reset our trajectory from operations and maintenance to
total asset optimization. We continue to have operations
and maintenance as the mainstay of the company and those are two
verticals, operations and maintenance.
And we added three more verticals.
One was intelligence, which was a function of putting subject
(24:55):
matter experts on asset optimization.
We created a digital vertical and hence the launch of our Nova
Vision platform which is our AI enabled suite.
And then we created a stand alone back office services
function primarily focused on supply chain, which has been a
weakness in the industry. So that allows us to then take
the whole asset optimization approach and we also reset the
(25:20):
organization in terms of what isimportant to us.
And in the past we always talkedabout what we would do and what
was outside scope and effective availability and stuff like
that, which contracts asked for.And we're going to drop that
entire idea in terms of at leastthe way we operate and made it
(25:41):
actual energy generation. That's what the industry wants,
that's what a customer wants, that's what a BPA requires.
So we measure ourselves on actual energy generation and
most recently based on 3rd partydata, we have now come to
compute and conclude that sites operated by Nova Source are
producing 25% more energy than any of our peers.
(26:04):
And that is public data. It's not Nova Source data, it's
like the industry data. So our approach on asset
optimization and actual energy generation aligned with
customers using our predictive tools and field execution is
definitely showing us additionalenergy and that's what the
industry wants and we will continue our path on that.
(26:26):
And there's much more to come. We have to all get our assets to
operate at 100%. I was just thinking about this
and talking about this with somefolks here at the show right
now, the spotlight is on us, right?
We have a lot of criticism, you know, from, from government
essentially. And so right now it's more
important than ever for our assets to be operating for the
(26:47):
the projects to work and to perform and to deliver as
promised. And so, and so you guys know
like machines break, right? And so I think it's excellent,
this new line that you've developed.
And you know, I think the, if you, if you think about the
government and not to get political out here, but with the
new policy frameworks, an existing site is already
(27:11):
connected to the grid, There's APP in place.
There's absolutely no downside in producing more energy from
the site. It's needed by the industry,
it's needed by the by humanity. Forget about the industry.
Humanity needs energy. Why would we not produce as much
as we can? We're only helping all of us
collectively. It doesn't matter what side of
the political log you're sittingon.
(27:32):
We all need the light bulbs to be running well.
So our approach is get every site to produce 100%, and if
they're built for more than 100%, like some sites make it
more than 100%, How can we get that final step?
So we are today producing actualenergy at 95 to 96% of the plant
capacity and that is a very highnumber compared to anyone in our
(27:55):
peer group. And we kind of openly will
discuss that with anyone on, youknow, how can we improve?
Certainly, you know, I mean we, I mean like us as Nova source
and our and our team feel very good about it.
It's excellent. Yeah, I've heard numbers as low
as 6075% of you know, underperformance.
So you know, up to 1/3 of the asset is is not delivering.
(28:18):
So that's, that's incredible, 95to 96.
Is great. That's why you know the 25%
above industry peer group energyproduction is real for us.
It's not a joke. The data is again not our data.
Data was taken from meter data that is published by the
utility. So it's not actually didn't
create it or Nova source did notanyone can go into the same
(28:38):
math. Publicly available.
Well, and actually your point about data and your data leads
me into the next question about marketing because a lot of times
in marketing we can use our internal data assets to tell the
customer something interesting about themselves that they don't
already know. But I wanted to just ask you
about your approach to marketing.
So tell me about the size of your marketing team and what
(29:00):
marketing tactics have you foundto be successful here at Nova
Source? But also, maybe there's
something that you saw in oil and gas that you think
renewables could learn from. So number one thing that so we
have a decent sized marketing team.
We have a chief commercial officer who kind of overseas
everything marketing, sales, BD and all of it.
And I think the team, I don't know the exact size, but I would
(29:22):
say it's in the 20s which is a good number for us.
The most important thing is a service DNA.
We are a service company and nobody ever comes and tanks
service companies enough. Consider airlines and every time
you fly, it's rare that people get out and say this is amazing
and I loved it today. No, we always complain about it
(29:42):
wasn't clean, it was late, this,that and the other.
But the primary job of an airline is to transport you
safely from A to B and they do it very well every day.
We never count that. So we are a service company
that'll always be customers who will have issues.
So what that's an improvement opportunity for us.
And the part that I like the most, and we have kind of pushed
(30:02):
that into our DNA is getting in front of a client every day.
I as a minimum meet at least 2 customers a week and some weeks
it could be as high as 15. And our team is always on the
road getting out in front of customers.
I do believe human interaction, we are humans at the end of the
day, as value in person is always much better than remote
(30:27):
and listening to our clients. So that's been our big thesis.
It's not magical. It's not like lots of
spreadsheets and AI tools. Those are all enablers to a
thought process, which for us isvery important.
I at this show, this has been anamazing show.
Every day has been a number of leaders.
Now many have become friends. We meet as family still and I'm
(30:49):
only 18 months in this industry.I think the ego level in this
industry is very low, which is amazing.
Great people just get in front of them, talk to them, listen to
them, hear what we need to do tohelp them and in return we do
not expect to be tanked every day.
That's not what services do. We just do a great job safely,
(31:11):
people go home safe and we produce more energy and we can
then celebrate. It's such a great point on the
service DNA. You're busy.
Being a CEO is incredibly demanding.
What do you do to help recharge your battery?
Like what is your downtime or what do you do to reset?
It's interesting, the thing thatresets me the most is solving
(31:32):
more problems. I get very excited.
There is a new problem to solve.I think my mind is very bored if
I'm sitting doing nothing. So I do start my day quite
early. I do wake up at about 4:00 every
day and I do like to go to the gym and that helps me set my day
right. And then after that, it's all
about meeting people. And the one thing which excites
(31:54):
me more than not excites me is if I can meet more people, talk
to more folks and find more issues to solve.
I'm not a big one on. I don't, I don't golf a lot, but
I don't, I do play some sports here and there.
And then the last part that really has always helped me is
time with the family. I think the families can never
(32:16):
be thanked enough for the way they support us.
My wife, my kids. That's very important.
Yeah, excellent. Very good.
Before we end the podcast, do you have any final words for our
listeners and viewers? I'm going to say that the
industry is in an amazing spot and policy frameworks will come
(32:36):
and go as part of what we do as countries and communities.
We should not lose focus on the value of this industry, how we
add to the energy equation. It is fundamental to our
progress as a country, as humanity.
And let's just go onwards and upwards, improve this place
(32:57):
because I think there's a lot ofpotential upside for the
industry, for energy generation and be more creative every day.
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Scaling
Clean, the podcast for clean economies, CEO's, investors and
the people who advise them. I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin.
Our producer is Claire Quirin. If you like what you hear on
(33:20):
scale and clean episodes, we'd appreciate it if you'd give us a
five star rating and leave a comment where you get your
podcast. And until next time, we wish you
all the best in the clean economy transition.
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