Karen A. Austin is Senior Vice President, Information Systems Technology Services and Chief Information Officer for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Her area of focus is information technology, where she is leading the evaluation of every aspect of the group’s business, including the support of current mission- critical systems and developing the company’s technology strategy, infrastructure and architecture.

Prior to this role, Austin held several executive-level positions at Kmart Corporation and Sears Holdings Corporation. While at both companies, she was responsible for systems governing store operations, merchandising, supply chain and finance. At Kmart, she served as Divisional Vice President, Supply Chain Applications, Vice President IT Applications, and Vice President for Applications Development, Chief Information Officer and Interim Chief Marketing Officer. At Sears, Austin served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer and most recently as President of Consumer Electronics. She has also held various information technology positions for The Timken Company and for Central Mutual Insurance Company in Ohio.

Austin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Tri-State University in Angola, Indiana.

DJ Patil has held a variety of roles in Academia, Industry, and Government. These include, the Chief Scientist, Chief Security Officer and Head of Analytics and Data Teams at the LinkedIn Corporation. Additionally he has held a number of roles at Skype, PayPal, and eBay. He is known for co-coining the term Data Scientist. In 2011 he was ranked in Forbes Data Scientist list as #2 behind Larry Page. In 2012 he along with other notable "Gen Fluxers" were featured on the cover of Fast Company

As a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland, his research focused on nonlinear dynamcis and chaos theory and he helped start a major research initiative on numerical weather prediction. As an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow for the Department of Defense, Dr. Patil directed new efforts to leverage social network analysis and the melding of computational and social sciences to anticipate emerging threats to the US. He has also co-chaired a major review of US efforts to prevent bioweapons proliferation in Central Asia and co-founded the Iraqi Virtual Science Library (IVSL).

More details can be found on his LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dpatil and can be followed on twitter @dpatil. 

Mr. Abbo was formerly Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation responsible for Oracle's application and SaaS products including CRM and ERP & Supply Chain products. Prior to joining Oracle in 2006, he was Senior Vice President of Technology and Chief Technology Officer for Siebel Systems. During his twelve-year tenure at the company, he was a member of the Siebel executive management team and led Engineering, Industry Products, and Sales Consulting organizations.

Mr. Abbo earned a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. degree in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. 

Hanns Anders joined Claremont Creek Ventures in 2012 as an associate focused on clean technology. Previously, Hanns was a project manager of energy storage systems at Pacific Gas & Electric where he managed the integration of the utility's grid-scale battery projects. Prior to joining PG&E, he spent time evaluating early-stage opportunities in the renewable energy and waste conversion industries with Huron River Ventures and Waste Management's Organic Growth Group. He was also a Fellow on the student-run Frankel Commercialization Fund, a pre-seed investment fund focused on accelerating the commercialization of technology in Southeast Michigan. He currently sits on the board of the San Francisco Chapter of buildOn.

Hanns holds an MBA and M.S. from the University of Michigan's Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and a B.S. degree in business from Wake Forest University.

John is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Grid Net, the developer of the leading software platform for 3G/4G smart grid solutions.

Before joining SP AusNet, Ash was IT Director (Australia, NZ, Japan & Singapore) for Cadbury from 2008 to 2010, where he was responsible for all IT Strategy and sponsoring the IT separation of Schweppes Australia from Cadbury. Prior to that, Ash held a number of senior IT management roles at Cadbury and Cadbury Schweppes. From 1996-2006, Ash held a number of Commercial, Program and IS roles in local and global Kraft Foods Business Units including ANZ, Asia Pacific and Kraft International, based in London.

Andres is an award winning engineer, executive, speaker, and author. Andres is one of the early pioneers and developers of the Smart Grid concept and technology. He championed Austin Energy’s vision, program, and implementation from 2003 – 2010, as their CIO, and co-authored the book “The Advanced Smart Grid”. He is a member of the IEEE and ASME. He has over 26 years of experience in the Energy, Telecommunications, Software and Computer industries. He is currently the EVP & Chief Strategy Officer at Proximetry, offering AirSync - the first smart grid network management platform. He is a board member of the Utility Telecom Council’s Smart Networks Council, and an advisor to KU, UCLA, UT Austin, KLD Energy, Amperion, and Zpryme. He has received over 33 awards for his industry contributions. He is a well-known speaker on Energy, Telecommunications, and IT topics. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas and he has completed executive programs at Stanford University in business, at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania in quality management, and at The University of Idaho in electric utility management. Andres started his career at Microsoft as a product manager for Windows in 1986.

Patricia Florissi is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). As Americas and EMEA CTO, Patricia helps define mid and long term technology strategy, representing the needs of the broader EMC ecosystem in EMC strategic initiatives. Patricia also acts as the liaison between EMC and our customers and partners, to foster stronger alliances and deliver higher value to EMC clientele. Patricia holds the honorary title of EMC Distinguished Engineer, having been nominated in October 2007.

Patricia joined EMC in February 2005 via the System Management Arts (SMARTS) acquisition as a Distinguished Technologist in the Ionix business unit, and became the CTO for Ionix in November 2005. As CTO, Patricia was responsible for defining, and communicating the medium- to long-term vision EMC would embrace for delivering solutions to automate the management of Information Infrastructure resources. Patricia was appointed Strategic Initiative Leader for Governance, risk and Compliance (GRC) in August 2008, where she was responsible for leading the research, design, execution, and communication of EMC’s GRC vision and strategy. Patricia was appointed Americas CTO in January 2010.

Before joining EMC, Patricia was the Vice President of Advanced Solutions at Smarts in White Plains, New York. In that capacity, Patricia was responsible for researching emerging technologies and for defining the strategy that Smarts would take in bringing solutions to market to address the challenges introduced by these technological advances. Patricia led the research, design, and first release of over half a dozen products. These have been driving millions of dollars in revenue and still remain in the market today.
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Patricia is an EMC Distinguished Engineer, holds a Ph. D. in Computer Science from Columbia University in New York, graduated valedictorian with an MBA at the Stern Business School in New York University, and has a Master's and a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, in Brazil. Patricia holds multiple patents, and has published extensively in periodicals including Computer Networks and IEEE Proceedings.
 

Matthew joined Battery in 2008 and is passionate about working with early to growth stage consumer internet, software and GreenIT companies. Within the Battery portfolio he works with software companies including FirstFuel Software, Clean Urban Energy, SkyFoundry and some seed stage consumer internet companies. He is also an observer on the board of directors of Modular Wind Energy. Prior to Battery, he was Vice President of Plymouth Ventures, a late stage fund based in Ann Arbor Michigan. He has also worked for GE in their corporate strategy group, and also spent time in Africa monitoring infrastructure investments for E+Co, a public purpose investment company.

Matthew holds a BS from Purdue University and MS from the Pennsylvania State University, both in Engineering. He also holds an MS in Natural Resources and the Environment and MBA from the University of Michigan. At Michigan he helped to develop a student run cleantech fund and was an Erb Fellow where he performed research for the UN.
 

Josh Gerber is Lead Architect for Smart Grid at San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), a Sempra Energy utility. In his role leading enterprise-wide smart grid strategy, policy, and project alignment, with a focus on IT infrastructure, networking and security, Josh recently led the development of SDG&E's Smart Grid Deployment Plan. Prior to joining Sempra, Josh was a Systems Engineer at Inflow, Inc., now part of SunGard Availability Services. In his 15+ year career, including 9 years with the Sempra utilities, Josh has held multiple senior positions involving the planning, design, and implementation of smart grid, advanced metering, and data center infrastructure.  Josh serves as SDG&E's representative on the UCAIUG OpenSG Technical Committee and the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Panel.

SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and more than 840,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties.

Mozhi Habibi is a member of the Global Energy & Utilities Strategy & Solutions team, responsible for leading IBM’s energy and utility solutions strategy worldwide.  Mozhi focuses on IBM’s strategy around challenges in the industry, including power generation, intelligent utility network, distributed generation, business analytics & optimization and cloud computing.  The strategy encompasses solution strategy, client & partner interactions, and IBM’s M&A activities.

Previously, Mozhi was the head of Product Management at Space-Time Insight, a provider of geospatial situational awareness software, responsible for overall product strategy.  Prior to STI, she was Sr. Director of Strategic Marketing at Ventyx a company in the energy, utility and telecommunication industries providing asset and workforce management and smart grid operations solutions. Ventyx was acquired by ABB in 2010.

Prior to its acquisition by Ventyx in 2007, Mozhi was responsible for go-to-market strategy, new product innovation and product management at Global Energy Decisions and Henwood Energy, providers of energy operations, analytics and ETRM software for the energy and utility industry.   Mozhi started her career in the energy industry as a field engineer, with General Electric Energy.

Mozhi serves on the board of a number of non-profit organizations in the education field focusing on Science & Math for girls, and is a member of Society of Women Engineers.  She received her Bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, in San Luis Obispo and her masters in business administration from San Jose State University.  Mozhi lives with her husband and 2 children in San Carlos, California. 

Daniel Hokanson is the Director of Product Management responsible for product management and strategy for the Ecologic MDM and Analytics Solutions at Ecologic Analytics. He has held this position for the past 5 years and has more than 20 years of experience in product development and product management for technology companies. Most recently, Daniel managed a software business line at 3M in Supply Chain and Performance Management. He also serves on the Board of Directors for InsightFormation, a provider of Strategy Aligned Management software and consulting services.

Daniel holds a bachelor's degree in both Engineering and Computer Science from Minnesota State University and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology.

Giri Iyer is currently the Product Line Leader for Grid IQ™ Insight at GE Digital Energy, a $2.0B global business. His business team is developing and commercializing a world class real-time analytical system that combines a big data platform and 4D visualization technologies to build a growing library of analytical applications and algorithms that help utility executives turn raw data into operational insight. Grid IQ™ Insight will improve the efficiency and reliability of the grid while enabling better workforce productivity and help empowered customers make better choices in a cleaner society. In his previous roles at GE, Giri has led many award-winning initiatives in GE Healthcare IT and his own start-up businesses.

Giri Iyer has over 20 years of operational experience with Siemens, Philips, General Electric and Hewlett Packard. He has a Master’s degree in International Management from Thunderbird, AZ and an Electrical Engineering degree from the National Institute of Technology, India. He also has a strong interest in children’s math, education and he loves to read, camp and run in his spare time.
 

Linda Jackman is the Vice President of Product Strategy and Management for the Utilities Global Business Unit at Oracle.  An Australian, Linda studied Accounting and Information Systems at Curtin University in Perth, Australia and is undertaking MBA studies at University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia.  She has over 20 years experience in information systems, specializing in capital intensive industries.  After 10 years working in Europe with one of the big six accounting firms, a two year break working for the United Nations in Central America and two years back in Australia leading systems implementations at some of the major mining and utilities companies, she moved to North America in 2001.  In 2005 she joined SPL WorldGroup as Vice President of Product Management for Customer Care & Billing.  She was promoted at the acquisition of SPL by Oracle and today she directs a team of product managers in the mission critical applications for utilities for Oracle.

One industry buzzword Larsh Johnson believes in is “Interoperability.” At eMeter he has always advocated for a design that is easily integrated with a full range of AMI products and minimally disruptive to existing business processes. Larsh is regularly sought out to contribute to industry standards boards and interoperability conferences, notably as a founding member of the GridWise Architecture Council, the Utility Standards Board, and UtiliMetrics. Larsh combined his technical foresight with Cree Edwards’ vision to co-found CellNet Data Systems in 1984. He’s been leading developers in implementing TOU and other advanced metering solutions for over 20 years. Larsh has a B.S. and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Ogi Kavazovic is responsible for Opower's corporate marketing and strategy, including our corporate brand, messaging, media relations, and overall marketing approach. He works closely with our sales and product teams to help guide the company's product strategy, competitive positioning, and go-to-market strategy, and promotes Opower's products at industry events and conferences. Prior to joining Opower, Ogi was a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners, where he advised Fortune 500 clients on corporate strategy development, with particular focus on the utility sector and Smart Grid industry. Ogi began his career as a software engineer, developing risk and asset management systems for major financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Ogi was also one of the lead architects of a "smart field" data management platform for Schlumberger Information Systems. Ogi received his BA and MS degrees in Computer Science from Harvard.

Chris Knudsen is currently the Chief Technology Officer at AutoGrid Systems, Inc. He also chairs the Open SmartGrid committee under UCA and sits on the NIST SmartGrid Architecture Committee.  Prior to AutoGrid Systems, Chris held the position of  Director of the Technology Innovation Center at Pacific Gas & Electric Company where he was responsible for developing new technologies to drive energy efficiency and SmartGrid evolution. 

Chris has over 20 years of communications technology development, networking start-up, and senior management experience.  Chris is an exceptionally strong technical leader with broad experience managing diverse, multi-disciplined technical teams.  Chris has both interacted and held seats on corporate Boards.   He has designed, developed, and operated wireless hardware and systems ranging from a few MHz to 40 GHz.  Areas of experience include wireless data networks, AMI systems, internet data, radar processing, telecommunications, wireless consumer products, and electronic intelligence systems for military applications. 

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Davis and has completed work towards a Master of Technology Management at Santa Clara University.

Kevin Meagher is responsible for a wide range of product direction, business development and strategic planning. As the creator of the power system analytics concept and definition, Kevin leads the Company’s technology development and strategy as well as critical strategic relationships in emerging technologies. Recently named to the “100 People You Must Know in Smart Grid” list by GreenTech Media, Kevin is recognized as an industry expert in the areas of data acquisition, data analysis, expert systems and artificial intelligence. Prior to joining Power Analytics, Kevin was president of a boutique business consulting company that worked closely in product planning, strategic planning and business valuation for public companies such as Eaton, Invensys General Electric, and Alpha Technology, as well as leading venture capital and private equity firms from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Kevin has authored numerous technology works and has been a frequent speaker on power and energy management and related technologies. Kevin has undergraduate degrees in Biochemistry and Business, and an Executive MBA from the University of Colorado as well as doctoral work in Knowledge Management. Kevin also holds a Master Captain's License from the USCG and has a current commission in the U.S. Merchant Marine.

Michael Pesin is a technology executive with over 29 years of experience in the electric utility industry leading technical organizations and managing advanced technology projects.  He is an internationally recognized expert and one of the innovators of the smart grid.

In his current role at Seattle City Light, Mr. Pesin is responsible for technology innovation, defining the utility’s technological strategy and leading utility modernization and Smart Grid efforts. 

Prior to joining Seattle City Light Mr. Pesin worked for over 15 years at Tacoma Power where he held various positions directing technical organizations and leading advanced technology programs. He has also worked as a technology consultant for several US and international electric utilities.

In addition to his work at Seattle City Light, Mr. Pesin works with a number of federal, regional and state organizations to support development of the Smart Grid, AMI, electric vehicles and other technology initiatives.   He is frequent speaker at industry events and has published a number of papers and articles on advanced utility technology topics.

Mr. Pesin holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Power Engineering,has a number of technical and management certificationsand is a licensed Professional Engineer.

William “Bill” Peterson runs Product and Solutions Marketing for NetApp’s Big Data Analytics and Hadoop Solutions.

Prior to joining NetApp, Bill held leadership positions at IDC within the Software Consulting Group and at Page One PR. Bill has also served as a research analyst at IDC and The Hurwitz Group covering the operating environments, portals, content management and business intelligence markets. Bill was director of marketing for TurboLinux where he led the S-1 team, served as vice president of marketing for Venturcom, an embedded software company, and ran vertical solutions marketing for Computer Associates. Early in his career he was an IT manager at Harvard University. Bill did his undergraduate work at Bentley College and has completed MBA course work at Suffolk University.

 

Cesar Rojas is Senior Solutions Marketing Manager at the Teradata Aster Center of Innovation, where he is an evangelist for the company’s data discovery platform and responsible for educating users on the big data scientific method as well as the Hadoop ecosystem. Mr. Rojas is an information management veteran with fifteen years of experience building, supporting and marketing traditional as well as innovative data processing technologies in the Fortune 500 and Global 2000 markets.

Prior to Teradata, Mr. Rojas worked in large industry vendors as well as Silicon Valley software startups in the areas of Database Management, Business Analytics, IT Infrastructure as a Service and High Performance Computing.

Mr. Rojas holds a MBA with emphasis in Electronic Business from Notre Dame de Namur University and bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering.

Aster Data was an early entrant and is a current leader in the Big Data space, bringing deep insights on massive, multi-structured data analyzed on clusters of commodity hardware. Aster Data was backed by top tier investors including Sequoia Capital, JAFCO Ventures, IVP, David Cheriton, and Ron Conway. The company was acquired by Teradata in early 2011 and is now a Teradata division.
 

Howard A. Scott is the Managing Director of Cognyst Advisors. He specializes in market research, utility operations and expert services and recently advised the Obama Transition Team on the ability to introduce Smart Metering across the United States. His technical and business experiences include AMR/AMI and Smart Metering, telecommunications, project and business management, market research, and software development. He worked a dozen years at Bell Labs and Bellcore developing innovative telecommunications technologies. An accomplished public speaker, he has published numerous articles including an extensive market study of the automatic meter reading industry titled The Scott Reports. He has a doctorate in physics and has held a variety of leadership positions in both business and civic organizations.

Samuel Scupham is the Kansas city Office Manager for Renewables & Energy Efficiency (R&EE) within Black & Veatch’s global energy business. The group provides technical assistance for energy companies, investors, governmental agencies, and industrials.

As a member of the R&EE business unit, Scupham is actively involved in analyses of commercial and developing renewable and energy storage technologies. These analyses are varied to include studies of technology selection, feasibility, screening, supply-side analysis, and siting. Studies frequently include conceptual design and estimates of thermal performance, capital cost, and operations and maintenance (O&M) costs.

Scupham is also a member of Black & Veatch’s Smart Integrated Infrastructure team, which focuses on the leverage of data analytics and coordination of diverse infrastructure assets to yield superior, more efficient solutions through enhanced knowledge and synergy.
 

Ivo has more than 20 years of energy and utility experience, having held various leadership positions in research and development, marketing, and general management. As Chief Operating Officer, Ivo is responsible for the day to day operations of Tendril globally, including business development, sales and marketing, product management and development, as well as client delivery and support. Most recently Ivo was CEO of Greenbox Technology, a company that provides interactive energy management for the smart home, which was acquired by Silver Spring Networks in late 2009. Previously he worked as Vice President of Marketing for Energy and Utilities at Schlumberger, and founded Enspiria Solutions Inc., a consultancy and systems integrator with a strong focus in energy management and operational efficiency within Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Demand Response, and Smart Grid. Ivo holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Queen’s University at Kingston Ontario, Canada.

As the Cisco Connected Energy Networks Chief Architect, Jeff is responsible for the Cisco GridBlocks™ Reference Architecture for communications in electric power systems. He also directs the Business Unit’s research activities and provides technical and subject matter expertise to Product Management, Sales , and Advanced Services. He earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986, with a dual specialization in digital signal processing and digital control systems. He is a member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society and CIGRE and is the holder of 17 patents in control systems, signal processing, and smart grid.

Tony Tewelis joined Arizona Public Service (APS) in February of 2008. He currently is the Director, Technology Innovation. He is responsible for the overall strategic development and implementation of the Company’s advanced technology based solutions, with a key focus on smart grid technologies and the integration of renewable energy. These responsibilities include the oversight and management of the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the Company’s key asset deployments and pilot projects, including all small scale (<10 MW) solar power plants, as well as the engineering research, studies, economic evaluations and technical intelligence necessary to support the commercialization and integration of renewable energy resources

Prior to his current role, Tewelis was responsible the corporation’s renewable distributed energy program (end-use applications derived from Solar, Wind, Biogas/Biomass, Geothermal, Hydro, and other renewable fuel sources). His duties included policy development, program design, stakeholder management, market intelligence, budgeting, and other program related activities that result in the overall achievement of regulatory compliance targets, customer satisfaction levels, and other sustainability related goals that were consistent with APS’s strategic and integrated resource plans.

Prior to joining APS, Tewelis worked for nearly twenty years in Wisconsin with utilities, most recently as the Director of Customer Relations and Interconnection Services for the American Transmission Company (ATC). Before ATC, he held several management positions with Alliant Energy (formerly Wisconsin Power & Light).

Steve works with companies in the areas of cleantech, consumer, and software & services, and he serves on the board of directors of SunRun, Akiban, Sentient Energy, Control4, AutoGrid, Airy Labs, Aquion, and Pocket. Before joining Foundation Capital in 2007, Steve held leadership positions at Ning, Immersion, and IDEO. An entrepreneur who lives at the intersection of business, technology, and design, Steve’s innovations have won him over 28 patents and several design awards, including the Business Week Design of the Decade Award, red dot 2009, and IDEA99 Gold and Bronze Awards. Steve earned a BS in Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an MS in Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

As CEO and co-founder of UISOL, Ali provides the vision to build the utility industry’s premier business integration consultancy. Ali draws on 28 years experience in utility-industry focused on computer applications and business integration services. He leads and directs UISOL in applying integration and business process management to the unique challenges of the utility industry.

Ali is a senior member of the IEEE, and served on the Technical Committee of the Power Industry Computer Applications (PICA) conference for over a decade. In 2004 he instigated the all new annual Utility Integration Conference (UIC) and has successfully chaired UIC for the last four years. He also regularly conducts training workshops on Business Process Management for utilities. He has authored more than 60 technical articles and reports, and has addressed and chaired numerous technical panels around the globe on issues related to computer applications and business integration in the utility industry.

As EPB’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, David Wade leads the company’s effort to operate one of the country’s most sophisticated smart electric distribution systems.

Using a 100% fiber optic network as its backbone, EPB has constructed a Smart Grid that is already providing reduction in power outage duration for the Chattanooga, TN community – up to 100% in some instances.

The Smart Grid’s fiber optic communications backbone is also allowing EPB to offer its customers the fastest Internet speeds in the Western Hemisphere, adding another advantage for Chattanooga area homes and businesses alike.

Jim is a recovering developer, professional marketer and amateur photographer with nearly twenty years experience building products and developing emerging technologies. During his career, he has brought multiple products to market in a variety of fields, including data loss prevention, master data management and now big data. At Hortonworks, Jim is focused on accelerating the development and adoption of Apache Hadoop.

Jian Zhang is co-founder and CEO of GridX, responsible for its strategy and execution. Previously, Jian had spent more than a decade developing and delivering large scale billing solutions for telecom carriers and digital media companies. Prior to founding GridX, Jian was founder and CEO of Tradescape, a leading financial clearing and settlement technology provider for digital media applications. In that capacity, Jian led the technology startup from inception through profitability with a combination of vision and execution. Prior to Tradescape, Jian headed the New Network Services product group at Portal Software and was responsible for a line of billing products for cable operators, online media companies and telecom carriers. Portal Software was acquired by Oracle for $220 million and became Oracle Billing and Revenue Management product offering for telecom carriers. An early pioneer of financial back-office technology for cloud services, Jian was the Principal Investigator of a NIST-funded research project in 2003 to develop the financial accounting technology for cloud/grid computing resources. Jian holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA degree from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

David Leeds directs the smart grid research practice at GTM.  Mr. Leeds has guest lectured on the subject at MIT, Stanford, and The Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania). He has been quoted as an expert by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post; his perspective pieces have appeared in a variety of publications including BusinessWeek, Power Magazine and Fortune.  He is the author of the groundbreaking report “The Smart Grid in 2010,” which has been downloaded more than 10,000 times.

An avid world-traveler, David has come into contact with many of our most pressing environmental and social challenges. His research, focused on the convergence of IT, telecom and energy networks, leads him to believe that a smarter future is possible if we can reinvent our collective relationship with energy. Mr. Leeds completed his degree in international business and finance at Trinity College at Oxford (U.K.) and the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He lives and works in New York City.

Rick Thompson brings 14 years of industry experience from leading technology start-ups, incumbent networking and communications companies, and technology market research firms. Most recently, Rick was senior analyst at Heavy Reading, the market research arm of Light Reading, the dominant online media company in the telecommunications market. CMP bought Light Reading in 2005. Prior to Heavy Reading, Rick was a principal at PointEast Research, where he led market analysis and strategic consulting across a wide range of network communications market segments.

Rick previously served as the vice president of marketing at PanGo Networks, a wireless software company, and as director of product management and marketing at Sycamore Networks Inc. At Sycamore, he defined the product strategy and executed the launch of the industry's first intelligent optical switching platform. Under his leadership, Sycamore deployed several of the world's largest intelligent optical network infrastructures for global wired and wireless service providers. Prior to joining Sycamore, Rick held similar product management positions with Packet Engines, a pioneer of Gigabit Ethernet switching that was later acquired by Alcatel, and FORE Systems, a leader in ATM networking that was later acquired by Marconi and, subsequently, Ericsson. Mr. Thompson earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Emma Ritch is an analyst at GTM Research, focused on communications and networking technologies for the smart grid. She has been quoted as an expert by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Nature scientific jounal and The Guardian. She previously worked as senior research analyst at the Cleantech Group, a research and consulting firm, where she advised clients on technologies, trends and investments in energy efficiency in the built environment. Prior to Cleantech, Emma worked as a cleantech reporter for the Silicon Valley Business Journal, where she covered topics including energy storage, biofuels, solar, smart grid and lighting. Emma graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and studied at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands before beginning her career as a business reporter at the Associated Press and The Sun News. She lives and works in San Francisco.

Ben is a Smart Grid Analyst for GTM Research. He previously worked as research analyst for Knwldg Houston, a green energy and healthcare consulting firm, where his research primarily focused on automated metering infrastructure and smart grid regulation. Prior to Knwldg Houston Ben was a policy intern with Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates where he performed research for energy, transportation, and defense clients. Ben graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science.