Let's pick up just where we left off the jobs column earlier this month.
Just after the Solar Energy Industries Association let go of Tom Kimbis and Christopher Mansour, it has added two new executives. John Smirnow will rejoin SEIA as general counsel after having left in 2015, and Tony Chen will serve in the newly created position of VP of business development. Chen was previously at Cool Earth Solar and SolarCity and will focus on engaging new audiences as solar becomes increasingly mainstream.
As GTM recently reported, the Trump administration is planning to nominate Bernard McNamee, one of the chief architects of the DOE’s failed plan to bolster coal and nuclear power plants as emergency assets, to replace outgoing FERC Commissioner Ron Powelson. But McNamee is just one facet of the Trump administration’s push to bolster coal and nuclear. (Read more from Jeff St. John about Trump’s plans to nominate McNamee, partisan comments from FERC’s chief of staff, and more evidence of political pressure at DOE.)
And because it just wouldn't be a jobs column without a Tesla exec move these days, Leon Keshishian, the regional VP for SolarCity (now Tesla) in the Washington, D.C. area, has left the company after seven years. “So many great people and steps to improve our processes, but the next line of talented people [will] figure out how to keep Tesla moving forward,” he wrote on his LinkedIn page, without noting his next move.
Fast-charging network provider EVgo has added Ivo Steklac as CTO, Jay Goldman as VP of business development and Olga Shevorenkova as VP of corporate development and strategy. Steklac was most recently at True North Venture Partners, and previously with SunPower Corporation, C3 Energy and Tendril. Goldman was most recently at Faraday Future and has deep roots in EV charging, having also worked at AeroVironment. Shevorenkova comes from Greentech Capital Advisors. Vision Ridge bought EVgo from NRG in 2016.
After more than a decade with SunPower running the utility EPC group, Jordan Sapp is now with Stem as senior director of deployments. The move comes as SunPower pivots away from utility deployments and goes all in on distributed generation. At the same time, Stem recently closed an oversubscribed Series D that will be used in part to expand into Ontario.
Rocky Mountain Institute has brought on Bruce Nilles as a senior fellow and Uday Varadarajan as a principal. Nilles was previously a senior campaign director with Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, and Varadarajan spent the better part of the last decade with the Climate Policy Initiative.
AutoGrid has named Gytis Barzdukas as VP of product management. He moves to AutoGrid from GE Digital, where he was VP of Predix. Barzdukas will focus on expanding the portfolio to support flexibility-related use cases.
In product management moves, Philip Gross is now VP of product at EnergySage. He was previously with Nielsen.
Kristin Brief is moving across the cleantech spectrum with a new role as SVP of Corporate Development for XL Fleet, which converts fleet commercial vehicles to hybrids and plug-in hybrids. She was previously at energy storage firm Ambri, and at EnerNOC before that. XL Fleet also added Deb Frodl, former global executive director for Ecomagination at General Electric, to its board of directors.
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Pepco Holdings has chosen Anne Lindner for the new role of VP for state legislative affairs. The position consolidates the legislative affairs efforts for Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power and Pepco. She was previously director of government affairs for parent company Exelon.
Solar developer Borrego Solar Systems also had a promotion in its executive realm, moving Andrew Hall from EVP for human resources and IT to CFO. He will still lead IT and will also continue to serve as general counsel.
Electron, a U.K. developer of blockchain-based solutions for energy, has hired Stina Brock as SVP to head up business development in North America. She was previously senior director of global utility and grid solutions for Sunverge.
John Matthiesen is now senior director of smart grid for Canadian EPC Hatch. He was previously VP of power and new energy at consulting firm Advisian.
London-based, Africa-focused IPP Globeleq has named Laurence Mulliez as chairperson of the board starting in September. She is also chair of the board at renewable EPC Voltalia.
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