solar summit 2015

Dr. Antoniadis is responsible for DuPont Photovoltaic (PV) Solutions global technology and for accelerating the introduction of next-generation DuPont materials and offerings into the solar energy market. He joined DuPont in 2011 with the acquisition of Innovalight, Inc., where he was chief technology officer & vice president of Engineering. Prior to Innovalight, his 20-year career included positions with Osram Opto Semiconductors, Hewlett-Packard Labs and Xerox. Widely recognized in the PV industry, he regularly serves as a lecturer and conference chair at leading industry events. Dr. Antoniadis has more than 60 publications in crystalline and amorphous silicon photovoltaics, OLEDs, and polymer materials and has 25 issued U.S. patents. He earned a B.S. in physics from Ioannina University in Greece and his Ph.D. and M.S. in physics from Syracuse University.

Dino Barajas focuses his practice on domestic and international project development and finance, with particular emphasis on Latin American infrastructure projects, debt financings and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Barajas regularly represents lenders, investors and developers in a wide range of domestic and international project financings in the energy, power, infrastructure and commercial sectors, as well as in traditional banking, structured finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, asset finance, joint ventures and venture capital transactions. His clients include commercial lenders, institutional investors, investment funds, project sponsors, and public and private companies. Mr. Barajas has worked on transactions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, Yemen and elsewhere.

Raghu Belur has 15 years of experience in engineering and engineering management. He started his career at the Indian Institute of Science where he worked on a team developing an alternative energy gasification system. He was an early engineer at Cerent where he was responsible for the development of the optical 2.5Gig interface for the Cerent-454 ADM. Cerent was subsequently acquired by Cisco for $7 Billion. At Cisco, Raghu was managing the team developing the 10Gig interface products for the ONS-15454. He co-founded Enphase Energy Inc. with Mr. Fornage in March of 2006. Raghu has a MSEE from Texas A&M University.

Yann is the President of North America at Conergy, one of the largest downstream solar companies in the world. In this role, Yann manages a team of 45 to develop, finance and manage assets throughout the Country. With locations in Miami, New York and San Francisco, Conergy has deployed over $250million and added 100MW to its balance sheet in the past year within the region.

Yann is a known solar expert, who founded and runs SolarWakeup, a daily newsletter that thousands of solar industry professionals have read every day since 2012. Yann has been cited for his perspectives on the solar industry in numerous publications, including Greentech Media, PV Magazine, PV Tech and the local business journals.

Previous to Conergy, he co-founded several solar companies within the EPC and finance segments. He is deploy involved in solar public policy and works with national trade groups to advance solar policy across the Country. Yann has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University and lives in Miami, Florida with his wife and two children.

Joe brings years of experience from the solar O&M field and experience in execution of over 1GW of solar O&M contracts. In 2009, Joe was the Commercial Operations Manager at Advanced Energy Inc., managing their O&M sales and contract negotiations. In 2011, Joe led Swinerton Renewable Energy’s technical services team where he managed both the field operations team and the in-house SCADA team after their development of the utility-scale monitoring program, SOLV. Joe now runs MaxGen’s day-to-day operations and is responsible for all company strategies and contracts. MaxGen is an independent, third-party, O&M provider for all power plant facilities. MaxGen currently has over 300MW of O&M contracts in place across the country. As an independent provider, MaxGen can operate at all project levels and for all clients including, financiers, developers and EPC’s. Joe has been a speaker at numerous industry events, most recently at Solar Power Generation USA.

Matt Card brings over 20 years of marketing, business development, sales and product management experience working and leading in high-technology companies ranging in size and diversity from engineering start-ups, established software development firms and global telecommunications providers.

One of Suniva's first 20 employees, Matt has been instrumental in building Suniva's worldwide customer base since 2008, having led or managed the development of many of the company's key customer relationships. Under Matt's guidance, Suniva's sales organization has developed strategic commercial relationships with leading EPCs nationally and internationally, with major customers in North and South America, Asia, and Europe, and developed an industry-leading distribution channel.

In October, 2014, Matt was appointed to a two-year term with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee, chartered with improving export competitiveness of these sectors.

He has also held senior positions in Sales, Marketing, Channel Development, Strategic Alliances, Product Management, and Systems Development, at various high-technology companies including Air2Web, Infinium Software, KnowledgeWare and Sprint Telecommunications after starting his career in application development at MCI.

Matt holds degree a degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Georgia, and has done graduate studies, majoring in International Business, at Georgia State University.

Mr. Chatila has served as President and Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors of SunEdison since March 2009. Mr. Chatila oversaw our acquisition of SunEdison LLC in 2009 and developed SunEdison’s solar strategy. Prior to joining SunEdison, Mr. Chatila served as Executive Vice President, Memory and Imaging Division of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, a semiconductor design and manufacturing company, from July 2005 to February 2009. From September 2004 to June 2005, Mr. Chatila was the Vice President of Operations of the Cypress Memory and Imaging Division, and before that he served as Managing Director of the low power memory business unit in the Memory and Imaging Division from January 2003 to September 2004. Mr. Chatila initially joined Cypress in 1991 and held a number of management roles in wafer technology development, manufacturing and sales since that time, including the positions described above. From November 1997 to December 1999, Mr. Chatila worked for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) as Senior Account Manager, before rejoining Cypress in January 2000. Mr. Chatila has over 20 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry, with increasing responsibility as an executive during this time, prior to his appointment as our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Andrew Cronk is an experienced engineer and entrepreneur driven to make better decisions through data. Andrew learned the power of data-driven leadership early in his career as an engineer at UPS and Motorola, and he used data to enable manufacturing decisions at the crowdfunding company he founded and successfully exited. Before TempoIQ, he partnered with his eventual co-founder Michael Yagley to lead the software development team at an innovative geothermal energy company. This experience revealed to Andrew and Michael the unique challenges of monitoring and analyzing massive streams of real-time sensor data, and they leveraged these insights in architecting TempoIQ’s sensor analytics backend. Andrew holds a Bachelors of Computer Engineering from Kettering University.

Brian Farhi is a market and product strategy professional with more than 15 years of experience in energy and the high tech industry. Brian's specialty is bringing technically complex solutions to market, managing all aspects of the process from ideation to launch to product line growth. He has successfully launched more than a dozen new products in the software and hardware spaces that have been marketed in B2B and B2C channels.

In his current role as the lead for solar energy and new channel partnerships at Nest, Brian works with solar companies, utilities and new energy channels to overcome conservation, reliability, and customer engagement-related challenges by leveraging Nest's products and services.

Previously, Brian was vice president of marketing and business development at SolarNexus – a software company providing the solar industry with business management software that streamlines the process of selling, installing and maintaining solar systems. Prior to that, Brian was the first associate at a seed-stage cleantech VC firm, helping with the launch of  the US business unit of Fronius inverters - an EU-based market leader, and led SunPower’s inverter and data monitoring system definition and development.  Brian has an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, an MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado's Building Systems Program, and a dual BA in Physics and Sociology from Colgate University.

José Galíndez is Chairman and Co-founder of Solarpack, a company dedicated to the development, construction of turn-key solar PV plants since 2005 with 120 MW built to date worldwide. Previously, he was President of Sulzer Chemtech and CEO of Guascor. He was Chairman of the Spanish Wind Association from 2002 to 2004, and board member in the Photovoltaic Industry Association from 2005 to 2009. He sits on the boards of Industria de Turbopropulsores, SENER and Velatia.

Dr. Tassos Golnas is leading the Performance Analytics team for the SunEdison Global Services organization – a group responsible for the creation and delivery of performance reports and for deep action-oriented analysis of the rich dataset captured by SunEdison’s data acquisition infrastructure. He is also an Associate SunEdison Fellow. He joined SunEdison in 2008 to evaluate newly commercialized technologies in PV power generation and conversion. Since 2009 he has worked extensively with performance and field data from SunEdison’s worldwide fleet and his analyses, with a focus on the perspective of O&M services provider, have been presented in domestic and international conferences and workshops. Prior to SunEdison he managed R&D teams in the semiconductor and photonic equipment industries. Tassos holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Physics from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Brad has seventeen years of clean energy advocacy experience with statewide and national organizations. He was the architect of the nation’s strictest state policy on existing coal-fired power plants, the Healthy Air Act, and led the campaign for Maryland’s law capping greenhouse gas emissions. He is the author of dozens of research reports written for statewide policy campaigns across the country. Before joining CALSEIA’s staff in 2013 he was working to support the development of Sonoma Clean Power and other Community Choice Aggregation initiatives in California.

Michael Herzig heads corporate development and company strategy. Prior to founding Locus Energy, Herzig was a partner and co-founder of the financial services industry IT consulting firm MPI Professionals, which was purchased by CGI. MPI served major financial institutions globally, and had offices in New York, Toronto, Sao Paulo and London. The firm grew from two founders to 100 employees. Before MPI, Herzig co-founded UConnections.com, a college-focused Internet company. He started his career at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in the Financial Services Group. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.

Eran Mahrer serves as Vice President of Market, Utility and Government Origination. He joined First Solar in 2014 and leads the company's engagement with utilities on solar planning and programming. In this role, Mr. Mahrer establishes and maintains relationships with utilities, engages in strategic planning, integrated resource planning and program design initiatives.

Prior to joining First Solar, Mr. Mahrer served as the Executive Vice President of Strategy and Programs for the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA). He joined SEPA in 2012 and led the organization's efforts in driving utility and solar industry strategies and practices in support of solar energy. His experience also includes serving as Arizona Public Service Company's (APS) Director of Renewable Energy and Resource Portfolio Planning. In his 11 years with APS, he led the company's renewable energy strategy, renewable and customer program resource planning, regulatory interface on many renewable matters and implementation of all renewable programs.

Mr. Mahrer received his MBA from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, a Master of Science from Washington State University and his Bachelor of Science from the University of California, San Diego.

Brad Mattson is CEO of Siva Power, a solar technology company based in Silicon Valley. Mattson is a renowned semiconductor entrepreneur and the only person to date who founded and scaled two publicly-traded semiconductor equipment companies. Prior to Siva Power, Mattson was a partner for Vantage Point Capital Partners where he led the firm’s solar portfolio. Mattson is an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, has been named as one of the top 50 most influential people in the semiconductor industry, and authored The SOLAR PHOENIX: How America Can Rise from the Ashes of Solyndra to World Leadership in Solar 2.0.

Michael Maulick is President and CEO of SunLink Corporation, a leading provider of commercial photovoltaic mounting solutions proven in over 500MW of commercial projects at 2,000+ sites across North America. He has been the CEO of three international technology companies, had a 20-plus year career at IBM and has served on Private and Public Boards, most notably as Independent Director for the IPO of Rackable Systems. Michael has arranged almost $200M of financial backing and completed multiple M&A activities. Prior to SunLink, he served as Managing Director of Maulick Capital, an investment and consulting firm he founded in January 2009.

Dr. Mahesh Morjaria has been with First Solar over seven years during which he has had several leadership positions. He led the development of grid-friendly PV plant capability that has now been successfully deployed at a number of large utility-scale PV plants. Currently, he leads a team at First Solar that is responsible for grid integration and systems capability for utility-scale PV plants.

He brings more than 30 years of advanced technology, engineering and product development expertise in energy and other fields. Dr. Morjaria previously worked at GE for over twenty years where he held various leadership positions. In his previous role at GE Energy, Dr Morjaria was the engineering leader for wind turbine and wind plant controls.  Under his leadership GE successfully commercialized advanced control and SCADA features for the GE wind business.

He is an author of numerous papers and patents in the area of renewable grid integration, PV and wind plants, wind turbine controls, monitoring, diagnostics and services technologies. Dr. Morjaria’s academic credits include B.Tech from IIT Bombay and M.S. & Ph.D. from Cornell University in the U.S.

Costa started with PanelClaw when the company was founded in 2007 as it’s first employee. Over the last 10 years, he has focused his efforts leading PanelClaw's sales and marketing and international business development. He also serves on the Board of Directors of PanelClaw, Inc. and SunWealth Management. PanelClaw’s structures have been utilized in on over 1 gigawatt of PV flat roof installations around the world, making the company one of the most experienced flat roof PV structures providers in the world. Costa is passionate about unlocking the true potential of PV flat roof applications worldwide.

Charles Pimentel joined Solar Frontier as Chief Operating Officer and SVP for the Americas where he led efforts to establish Solar Frontier’s presence within North America.  In August 2012, Charles was subsequently appointed the role of Chief Operating Officer and Sr. Vice President for the Americas.  He continues to lead both strategy and the day-to-day operation of Solar Frontier’s module sales business within the United States.  In the Clean Energy business since 1999, Mr. Pimentel has held senior level Sales Management, Business Development, Consulting, and Entrepreneurial roles within the PV, energy storage, flow battery, and fuel cell industries.  Mr. Pimentel earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, a Masters of Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD and holds a NABCEP Photovoltaic Knowledge Certification.

Tim Rebhorn joined First Solar in January 2013 as Senior Vice President, Sales - Americas. As a member of the senior leadership team, he oversees all regional business and project development. Tim’s 30-year career in the energy industry includes senior leadership roles in the natural gas and power generation segments in worldwide markets. Prior to joining First Solar, he was CEO of Quail Nuclear Specialty Services, an industrial construction company. Previous experience includes executive leadership of Resolutions Management/Merrill International, high-level consulting for clients in energy, steel, engineering and construction industries. He began his career in the United States Navy, where he served in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion program and as a NATO staff planning officer. Tim is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and earned an MBA from Texas A&M University.

Mike has over 16 years of experience in the semiconductor and solar industries. His background includes over 10 years at Applied Materials working in the Semiconductor and Solar divisions and over 3 years working on leading CIGS technologies to commercialize products at MiaSole and NanoSolar. Currently, Mike serves as the Marketing Director for SolarEdge North America.

Tucker Ruberti has worked for Advanced Energy since 2007 and is currently Director of Strategic Marketing and Business Development for Solar Inverters.  In his current role he is responsible for the developing and driving AE Solar’s global product and solutions roadmap.

Mr. Ruberti earned a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and an MS in Environmental Management & Policy from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  He has worked in the energy technology space since 1993, working for a broad range of companies including Westinghouse, General Electric, the NYSERDA and IdaTech.

Chad Sachs is the CEO of Radian Generation where he leads the strategic direction for a company that provides asset management services for over 150MWs of operating solar plants.  Before founding Radian in 2013, he has held senior executive positions at leading developers in the commercial dg and utility sectors including MMA Renewable Ventures, Fotowatio Renewable Ventures and SunEdison.  He has raised over $1.1 BN of financing for solar projects since 2005, including tax equity, permanent debt and construction financing.

Prior to working in the solar industry, Mr. Sachs worked at JPMorgan Partners, the private equity arm of JPMorgan Chase, where he focused on growth equities and LBOs, and as a financial analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston. Mr. Sachs holds a M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in International Economics from Georgetown University.

Dr. Lidija Sekaric is the Director of Solar Energy Technologies Office and its SunShot Initiative at the Department of Energy. In that role, she manages and balances a portfolio of nearly $1B in projects, and sets the near and long-term goals for the programs. Prior to joining SunShot, she served as a senior advisor in the office of the Under Secretary of Energy and as a technical and market advisor on some of the world’s largest distributed solar generation projects. Prior to joining DOE, Dr. Sekaric was on research staff at IBM T.J. Watson laboratory where she conducted record-setting research in nanoscale science and engineering. She holds 30 U.S. patents and has over 40 scientific publications. Dr. Sekaric received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Applied Physics from Cornell University and her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College.

Lori is a 29 year employee of SRP and 40 year resident of Arizona. She is responsible for design/implementation of SRP's environmental outreach programs with special focus on renewable energy.

Lori's responsibilities at SRP include development/implementation of renewable energy projects to meet SRP's sustainable resource goals. Singleton oversees research and development projects to support company-wide initiatives for SRP including gasoline lawn mower recycling, tree planting, clean school bus initiative, travel reduction, and other internal environmental programs.

She works on development and implementation of the "green" energy pricing program, solar incentive program for residential and commercial customers and renewable energy education programs for implementation in middle school/high school curriculums.

In addition, she does promotion/public relations for all new renewable energy projects/purchases (solar, wind, geothermal, landfill gas, low head hydro, fuel cells) while serving as the environmental issues media spokesperson for SRP and is a constant representative of SRP on numerous environmental committees, boards and commissions.

She was appointed by Governor Janet Napolitano to serve on the Solar Energy Advisory Council and also has several other current affiliations including: Valley Forward Association, Board of Directors; Audubon Society, Chair, Board of Directors; Maricopa County Regional Travel Reduction Task Force, Chair; Association for Commuter Transportation, Valley of the Sun, President & National Board Director; Southwest Center for Education; and the Natural Environment (ASU), Board of Directors.

Bob Stojanovic, Director of Solar Power for ABB North America, is responsible for driving the company's North American solar market. In this role, Stojanovic offers a turnkey approach to directing wind solutions for customers. He has been with ABB since 1999 and previously served as a regional manager for low voltage drive sales as well as a district drives manager in wind, then solar. As solar transmission continues improve, Stojanovic and his team focus on future storage and smart solutions for the growing North American solar market. He holds an MBA from Loyola Marymount University and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from The University of Western Ontario.

James Tong is the CEO of Advanced Grid Consulting, which advises technology and energy providers transforming the electric grid. He is a recognized expert on market structures and strategies for distributed energy resources. His numerous thought pieces on the electric power industry have been widely cited by policymakers, businesses, and researchers. James also served as a principal on a $2.3M research led by NREL analyzing the drivers and barriers of consumer adoption of solar. In 2013 and 2014, he was named a finalist for the Platts Global Energy Awards Rising Star.

James was previously VP of strategy at Clean Power Finance, where he designed and led three projects that were awarded a total of $4.5 million from the Department of Energy. He had also served in various management positions at GE, where he completed its elite commercial leadership program. James earned a BA in economics from Yale University and an MBA from Northwestern University.

Mr. Phil Vyhanek joined Solectria Renewables in 2010 based on the solid performance and growth since 2005 and in anticipation of the incredible opportunities in the PV market. Mr. Vyhanek comes to Solectria Renewables after holding senior management roles with Laird Technologies, Cushcraft Corporation and Honeywell where he developed expertise in strategic planning, sales, operations, engineering and finance for technology companies. He has a proven track record of delivering results and is experienced in driving systems key for rapid business growth. Mr. Vyhanek is a graduate from the University of Wisconsin with a Degree in Engineering and has an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Tom Werner serves as SunPower’s CEO and chairman of the SunPower board of directors. Prior to joining SunPower, he held the position of chief executive officer of Silicon Light Machines, Inc., an optical solutions subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation.  Previously, Werner was vice president and general manager of the Business Connectivity Group of 3Com Corp., a network solutions company, and has also held a number of executive management positions at Oak Industries, Inc., and General Electric Co. He currently serves as a board member of Cree, Inc., Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and is a member of the Marquette University board of trustees. Werner holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Marquette University and a master's degree in business administration from George Washington University.

José Zambrano is President and CEO at Galt Energy, Mexico's leading residential and small commercial solar developer. In the four years since its founding, José has led Galt Energy to more than 1,000 residential and small commercial systems amounting to more than 5 MW of installations, of which 30% have been financed through its own fund. José is board member of the Energy Cluster for the state of Nuevo León and holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas.

MJ Shiao currently serves as the Director of Community Solar at Arcadia Power, where he works to connect residential customers with community solar projects developed by Arcadia Power's partners. Before Arcadia, MJ held various positions at Greentech Media and Wood Mackenzie, including leading GTM Research, a 30-person team tracking, analyzing and forecasting the evolution of the solar, energy storage and grid edge industries.  MJ is a leading expert in the transformation of the electricity sector. He has spoken at numerous conferences, testified in front of the U.S. International Trade Commission on solar trade issues and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and Buzzfeed. Before joining GTM Research, MJ managed and designed several MWs of residential and commercial PV projects. He holds a bachelor's in electrical engineering from the University of Delaware, where he was named a National Truman Scholar. A believer in the social benefits of solar power, MJ has also researched, installed and tested rural off-grid PV in India and Thailand.

Shyam Mehta is Executive Director at NYSEIA, the New York Solar Energy Industries Assocation, the only industry association devoted solely to advancing solar energy use and deployment in New York State. As Executive Director, Shyam leads NYSEIA's solar policy initiatives and represents the voice of the New York solar industry in interfacing with stakeholders including legislators, regulators, state agencies and utilities. Prior to NYSEIA, Shyam spent almost a decade at Greentech Media (GTM), an integrated research, media and events firm covering the global renewable energy industry, where he covered the global PV supply chain.

Jade Jones is a Solar Analyst with GTM Research covering the global solar supply market. Jade aggregates and analyzes technology and pricing data within the solar manufacturing sector which informs both research and consulting. Prior to GTM, she has held several positions providing insight into the key relationships, business models and technology trends that are shaping the cleantech sector. Jade has a BS in electrical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Scott Moskowitz is the Director of Strategy and Market Intelligence at Hanwha Q CELLS America Inc., where he heads market research and leads communication and policy initiatives. Prior to Q CELLS, Scott was a Research Manager at GTM Research and head of the Renewable Technologies Group, leading a team of analysts covering technology trends in the solar, storage, and wind energy markets. Scott holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and mathematics from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of California, Davis.