s3 solar software summit 2019

Avra is currently Director, Incubation at National Grid Partners, a utility venture group investing in the potential of energy with a vision to define a smarter more renewable future. She focuses on early stage startups, doing equity investments and working with them to grow. Prior to joining National Grid, Avra spent 10 years as an operator growing early stage companies. Avra was director of Growth at AltSchool, a company transforming K-8 education through personalized learning. Prior to AltSchool, Avra led business development at Stem, an AI and battery storage company. She has spent her career focused on tackling tough problems, including increasing renewable energy at One Block Off the Grid, rebuilding New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina, and developing affordable housing in New York City. Avra has a BA in Urban Studies from Stanford University and a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Eric Reinhardt is Sunrun's Sr. Director of Software Product Management. Eric oversees BrightPath, an end-to-end automated software platform that enables Sunrun and its partners to manage every step of the solar journey from lead creation to system turn-on. He also is responsible for Sunrun's mobile apps, including BrightPath Mobile - a point of sale tool for field sales, and mySunrun - a customer portal that provides self service tools for Sunrun's 20 year customers.

Prior to Sunrun, Eric was Co-founder of Alliance Memory, a semiconductor startup, where he served as VP of Marketing and Operations. He received a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Mccombs School of Business at University of Texas, Austin.

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.

Samuel Adeyemo is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Aurora Solar, a solar sales and engineering design software platform. Immediately prior to Aurora, Samuel was with Vituo Technologies, a company that designed and installed small commercial PV systems in developing countries. Previously, Samuel was a Vice President in JPMorgan's Chief Investment Office, where he was responsible for investing the bank's assets in various public debt markets. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Chicago where he was a Marshall Scholar, and holds an MBA and MSc from Stanford University.

Claudia is a equal parts business strategist and solar evangelist. She is a leader and team builder. She has a strong solar experience in emerging solar markets and the energy regulatory environment. In 2015 she co-founded PVComplete, a solar design platform.

Bradley Williams is Vice president of Oracle Utilities Innovation Engineering, and is responsible drive innovation in electric, gas and water utility operational solutions including outage management, distribution management, distributed energy resource management, mobile workforce management, work and asset management, and analytics solutions as well as smart grid strategy.

Williams has more than 32 years of utility technology innovation experience. Prior to joining Oracle, he was a research director for Gartner’s Energy and Utilities Industry Advisory Services, focusing on utility applications of GIS, SCADA/EMS/DMS, outage and work management, and transmission and distribution (T&D) asset management research. Prior to that, he directed PacifiCorp’s T&D asset management and was responsible for long-term asset strategies and business technology that developed and implemented comprehensive IT investment programs. As director of T&D infrastructure planning, he was responsible for PacifiCorp’s subtransmission planning, telecommunications, and operations technology development groups. Williams also worked at Southern California Edison for 10 years, where he was involved in transmission system planning, distribution automation, and reliability programs. Brad holds 4 US patents and is a licensed professional engineer in California USA.

Alex Au leads NEXTracker’s technology and engineering, driving the creation of the NEXTracker120 and SPT products and now the NX Horizon and NX Fusion. The NEXTracker co-founder has over 13 years of PV product development experience, ranging from residential to utility scale applications. As director of advanced technology R&D at Akeena Solar, he helped to invent the Andalay AC module. At SPG Solar he led the SunSeeker G3.2 tracker design, reducing cost by more than 30% compared to previous versions. Au is listed as the sole inventor for the first PV tracker designed to stow for high wind speeds up to 155 mph, and he holds design patents on the Andalay rack and framing, the SunSeeker tracker, and the NEXTrackerSPT. He studied mechanical engineering at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.

Edmée Kelsey brings a wealth of solar asset management expertise to her role as founder and CEO of 3megawatt. 3megawatt provides solar asset management software designed to support asset owners with managing their solar portfolio risks and asset managers with reducing their asset management costs. As former CFO of Main Street Power, she closed project financing for over 100 of distributed solar PV projects and was responsible for the asset management of those solar assets. As a former VP at the investment bank JP Morgan and managing director of a clean energy corporate finance advisory firm, she gained a deep understanding of the requirements of project finance providers and sponsors, funds and investors. Her background as a founder and CEO of a venture-backed telecom service provider brings utility billing, asset tracking and O&M service ticketing experience.

Paul Grana is the co-founder of Folsom Labs, where he leads sales and marketing, where he has helped to grow the company to thousands of installers in over 70 countries. He founded the Solar Software Summit in partnership with GTM Events. He previously worked at Abound Solar, and led product management and technical marketing with Tigo Energy.  Paul holds a BS in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Chicago, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Abe Yokell is Managing Partner and co-founder of Congruent Ventures, an early stage venture firm that backs companies in the sustainable technology ecosystem. 

Prior to co-founding Congruent Ventures, Abe spent 13 years at RockPort Capital, helping the RockPort team build nearly half of its portfolio, with a primary focus on business models and software solutions that address climate change challenges.  While at RockPort, he was responsible for opening the West Coast office in 2007, where he helped lead investments in energy fintech, residential solar, companies focused on blending software and hardware, data analytics platforms, urban transportation solutions, and energy storage companies.

His RockPort board seats included Renovate America, RePower, Qnovo, Flywheel, and EcoFactor, and he was previously involved with Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH), Streetline Networks (acquired by Kapsch), Recurve (acquired by Tendril), and Eka Systems (acquired by Cooper Power), among others.