solar summit 2018

Lynn is Chief Executive Officer of Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN), the largest dedicated residential solar company in the United States, and the creator of the solar-as-a-service model for the residential market. Lynn co-founded Sunrun in 2007 with a passion for creating simple solutions to difficult problems. From a young age she was a competitive athlete who was also drawn to innovation, infrastructure and the environment, all of which prepared her for her current role. Lynn began her career as one of the only female venture capitalists at Summit Partners, a leading growth equity investor. While at Summit she evaluated myriad business models and financing structures and completed investments with an aggregate market value of over $900 million in the financial services and technology sectors. But it was during a summer internship in China while attending business school at Stanford University that she witnessed firsthand the magnitude of the impact that the rapid consumption of natural resources was having on the environment. She knew then there had to be a better way. While back at school Lynn and classmate/ co-founder Edward Fenster recognized the solution to this complex environmental issue could be in simply offering consumers a better choice. By enabling homeowners to purchase clean power in a simple, affordable and more efficient way, Sunrun could pave the way for a cleaner more innovative future – and disrupt the massive and archaic residential energy industry in the process. From the beginning, Lynn helped shape Sunrun’s vision and served the Company in many roles from personally selling Sunrun’s first customers to leading the Company’s growing sales and marketing operations. She subsequently became President and co-CEO and eventually was named Chief Executive Officer in February 2014. She believes in empowering individuals to reach their full potential, a theme prevalent in Sunrun’s vision to create a planet run by the sun.

Dr. Charlie Gay is the Solar Energy Technologies Office Director for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In this position he is leading the SunShot Initiative, a team that is dedicated to research, manufacturing and market solutions to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade.

Dr. Gay is an internationally recognized pioneer in photovoltaics. After starting his career in 1975 designing solar power system components for communications satellites at Spectrolab, he later joined ARCO Solar, where he established the research and development program and led the commercialization of crystalline silicon and thin film technologies.

In 1990, he became president and chief operating officer of Siemens Solar Industries, and from 1994 to 1997, he served as director of DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In 1997, he was named president and chief executive officer of ASE Americas, and from 2001 to 2005 served as founding chairman of the technical advisory board at SunPower Corporation.  He joined Applied Materials in 2006 as corporate vice president and general manager of the Solar Business Group. He served as president of Applied Solar and chairman of the Applied Solar Council from 2009-2013. As president, Dr. Gay was responsible for positioning Applied Materials and its solar efforts with important stakeholders in the energy industry, technical community and governments around the world.

He earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside and was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2013. He established the Greenstar Foundation in 1997 to demonstrate an economically sustainable model that delivers solar power and internet access for health, education and microenterprise projects to developing world villages.

Frank Demaille is President and CEO of ENGIE North America Inc., which manages a range of energy businesses, including electricity generation, natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) distribution and sales, retail energy sales, and services to help customers run their facilities more efficiently and optimize energy use and expense.

Prior to this role, Frank served as Executive Vice President of ENGIE’s international division of the Energy Services Branch (BES), in charge of the BES business development and its activities in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas.

He was previously the CEO of CPCU, the district heating system of Paris (4,200 MWth, 600 km of network), and worked in Dubai and Santiago, Chile, for ENGIE’s Energy International business.

Before joining the company in 2009, he held various positions in the French Ministry of Finance and as an advisor of the French Prime Minister.

Frank graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the “Corps des Mines” in France. He also holds a master’s degree in Finance.

Craig is responsible for leading NRG’s renewables division, including origination, development, operations, and asset management across the Company’s businesses in utility wind and solar, commercial & industrial renewable energy, and community solar.  In this capacity, he also serves as President of NRG Renewables LLC.  Craig joined NRG in 2013, and until assuming his current role, led new business development for renewables, including the establishment of development platforms in new market segments, acquisition of projects, formation of strategic partnerships, and direction of business process improvement initiatives.

Prior to joining NRG, he served as a Principal and then a Managing Director at Hudson Clean Energy Partners, leading investment activities in the firm's solar investing practice, where the firm advanced investments in leading-edge supply chain platforms and built substantial development pipelines in Recurrent Energy and Element Power Solar prior to successful exits from those investments.  Previously, he was the Program Manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Program, where he led the creation of the $1.5 Billion Solar America Initiative.  He has also served terms at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Geoinformatics and Space Technology Development Agency of Thailand, and the U.S. National Academies of Science.

Craig holds an A.B. from Princeton University in History of Science with a concentration in aerospace engineering, and an M.A. in Science, Technology and Public Policy from the George Washington University. He was a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar and received the DOE's Special Service Award for his work in creating the Solar America Initiative.

Adam is the co-founder and Executive Director of Vote Solar, a non-profit advocacy organization with the mission of bringing solar energy into the mainstream.  Vote Solar got its start with a successful ballot initiative for a $100 million solar revenue bond in San Francisco in 2001, and since then has been working with state and municipal governments on pro-solar policies, with the goal of jumpstarting the national transition to renewable energy.  Vote Solar has 13 advocates spread across the country, working full-time to advance solar markets.

Prior to Vote Solar, Adam spent eight years with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco office, where he won the Agency’s top pollution prevention award for developing a program that reduced air emissions of mercury. Adam received a BA with Distinction from Swarthmore College in 1992, and served with the Peace Corps in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa.

Lynn is Chief Executive Officer of Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN), the largest dedicated residential solar company in the United States, and the creator of the solar-as-a-service model for the residential market. Lynn co-founded Sunrun in 2007 with a passion for creating simple solutions to difficult problems. From a young age she was a competitive athlete who was also drawn to innovation, infrastructure and the environment, all of which prepared her for her current role. Lynn began her career as one of the only female venture capitalists at Summit Partners, a leading growth equity investor. While at Summit she evaluated myriad business models and financing structures and completed investments with an aggregate market value of over $900 million in the financial services and technology sectors. But it was during a summer internship in China while attending business school at Stanford University that she witnessed firsthand the magnitude of the impact that the rapid consumption of natural resources was having on the environment. She knew then there had to be a better way. While back at school Lynn and classmate/ co-founder Edward Fenster recognized the solution to this complex environmental issue could be in simply offering consumers a better choice. By enabling homeowners to purchase clean power in a simple, affordable and more efficient way, Sunrun could pave the way for a cleaner more innovative future – and disrupt the massive and archaic residential energy industry in the process. From the beginning, Lynn helped shape Sunrun’s vision and served the Company in many roles from personally selling Sunrun’s first customers to leading the Company’s growing sales and marketing operations. She subsequently became President and co-CEO and eventually was named Chief Executive Officer in February 2014. She believes in empowering individuals to reach their full potential, a theme prevalent in Sunrun’s vision to create a planet run by the sun.

Katherine is a Partner and Co-Founder at 38 North Solutions, a boutique consulting firm that provides a suite of business strategy, public policy and communications services to innovative businesses and organizations. Katherine is currently President of GRID Alternatives Mid-Atlantic and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum‘s Future of Energy Global Future Council. Katherine served as President of the GridWise Alliance, advocating for nearly $5 billion in funding for smart grid projects in the Recovery Act. Prior to that role, Katherine was a policy advisor for Good Energies, Inc., a private investment company with a portfolio in clean energy technologies of nearly $6 billion. She co-directed the American Bioenergy Association, working with the states of Maryland and New Jersey to develop renewable portfolio standards. At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Katherine led buildings research and then managed government relations in Washington, DC. Katherine spent a decade at Virginia Power, designing overhead and underground electrical systems for commercial and residential developments. Katherine studied electrical engineering at Northern Virginia Community College and holds degrees from Cornell University and the Sorbonne. Katherine is part of The Energy Gang podcast through Greentech Media.

Emily Kirsch is the Founder and CEO of Powerhouse, an Oakland based co-working space and seed fund that houses and invests in intelligent energy entrepreneurs. Prior to founding Powerhouse, Emily worked with Van Jones, a former advisor to President Obama turned CNN political commentator, to launch the Green Jobs Corps; Oakland's first renewables focused job training program.Emily is the founding convener of the the Oakland Climate Action Coalition which drafted and secured passage of what was the most ambitious Energy and Climate Action Plan of any city in the country. In addition, Emily worked with the solar company Mosaic to secure their first customers and launch their pilot platform. Emily is a 2012 New Leaders Council Alumni, was featured in the '15 for 2015 Women Leaders in Cleantech', was a 2015 winner of the 'East Bay Innovation Award for Cleantech', and was a 'Grist 50: The 50 People You'll Be Talking About in 2016.' Emily serves on the Board of PV Complete and is on the Advisory Board of the University of San Francisco’s Masters of Science in Energy Systems Management. Emily has guest lectured at UC Berkeley and Stanford.

Jigar Shah is the President and Co-Founder of Generate Capital. Jigar was the founder and CEO of SunEdison (NASDAQ: SUNE, TERP), where he pioneered “no money down solar” and unlocked a multi-billion-dollar solar market, creating the largest solar services company worldwide. He is the author of Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy. After SunEdison, Jigar served as the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change. Generate Capital, the Carbon War Room and SunEdison all follow from Jigar’s vision that business model innovation will unlock the largest wealth creation opportunity – resource efficiency. Jigar is committed to helping entrepreneurs and large companies alike implement resource efficiency solutions using “pay as you save” project finance models. Jigar holds an MBA from The University of Maryland and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He sits on the boards of sPower and the Rocky Mountain Institute.  Jigar lives in New York City and is trying to find the perfect cocktail.