YPE SF Bay Area Clean Energy Career Expo 2022

Young Professionals in Energy (YPE) SF Bay Area is thrilled to present our 2nd annual 2-part Clean Energy Career Expo, which is a joint effort between the Scholarship Program and the Mentorship Program. The Career Expo is targeted towards college students, early career professionals, and transitioning professionals who are looking to embark or advance in a career in Clean Energy.

PART 1: CAREER PANELS

Part 1 of the event consisted of 3 Career Panel sessions covering different verticals, including Policy & Regulations, Project & Business Development, and Project & Corporate Finance.

Project and Corporate Finance Career Panel Speakers:

ANNA ASTRETSOVA, VICE PRESIDENT OF FINANCE, GRIDSTOR. Anna Astretsova is a Vice President of Finance at GridStor. GridStor is utility-scale energy storage developer, owner and operator of projects in markets across North America. At GridStor Anna leads all aspects of financing of the company pipeline. Previously at Leeward Renewable Energy and First Solar, Anna has 12 years of finance experience in renewables and has been involved in over $6B of transactions. Anna has an MS in Applied Mathematics from Lomonosov Moscow State University and an MS in Financial Mathematics from Stanford University. She has also been serving as a Founding Broad Member and a Treasurer at a non-profit Women in Cleantech and Sustainability since 2013.

GOKSE OZTURKERI, DIRECTOR, CIBC. Goksenin “Gokse” Ozturkeri is a Director at CIBC’s Global Investment Banking team, marrying clean energy developers and investors into transactions that transform our energy system towards a sustainable future. In this role, Goksenin helps solar, wind, battery storage, and green hydrogen sponsors access debt and equity capital, and structure, diligence, and manage their transactions. In this role, he has closed capital raise and M&A transactions for over 58,000 MW of clean energy assets in various stages, worth over $6bn.

Goksenin holds a Master's in Global Energy Policy and Finance from Columbia University in New York and graduated from Okan University in Istanbul as Class President and Valedictorian with a dual Bachelor's in Chinese Studies and International Affairs. Starting in Fall 2022, he started teaching at Columbia University as an Adjunct Professor.

Goksenin is a member of Global Shapers NYC Hub, a World Economic Forum (WEF) initiative. He is also an active fellow and volunteer at prominent non-profits such as the Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI), Young Professionals in Energy (YPE), Climate Ride, and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). A first-generation immigrant, Goksenin is fluent in Turkish and English and conversational in Chinese and Spanish.

MARISA SWEENEY, DIRECTOR, GENERATE CAPITAL. Marisa Sweeney is an Investment Professional at Generate Capital, a finance company that partners with project developers and technology manufacturers in the renewable energy, technology, and sustainability sectors. Prior to Generate, Marisa worked in New York as a strategy analyst at Onyx Renewable Partners, a Blackstone Portfolio Company and at Goldman Sachs as a Credit analyst. Marisa has a B.A in Politics Philosophy and Law and a B.S. in Management/Finance from Binghamton University (SUNY) and has previously served as Co-President for the SF Bay Area chapter of Young Professionals in Energy.

Policy and Regulations Career Panel Speakers:

JOANNA GUBMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, URBAN ENVIRONMENTALISTS. Joanna is the Executive Director of Urban Environmentalists, a non-profit working to transform cities and towns into more sustainable, human-centered, and just communities through land use policy reform. Urban Environmentalists is an initiative of YIMBY Action, a network of pro-housing activists fighting for more inclusive housing policies. Joanna also serves on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. She is a former co-president of YPE – SF Bay Area.

Joanna came to Urban Environmentalists from the California Public Utilities Commission, where she has served as an Administrative Law Judge and Commissioner’s Advisor, among other roles. While at the Commission, she developed and supervised programs for equitable access to clean energy and broadband; transportation electrification; building decarbonization; energy efficiency; and more. Previously, Joanna conducted three research fellowships in Berlin, Germany, covering solar, transportation electrification, and e-scooter policies respectively. She has also managed energy efficiency emerging technology and market transformation programs at Navigant (now Guidehouse).

POONUM AGRAWAL, SENIOR MANAGER, REGULATORY AFFAIRS, ENEL NORTH AMERICA. Poonum Agrawal leads Regulatory Affairs in the Western U.S. for Enel North America, Inc, an integrated energy company. Prior to Enel, Poonum focused on California regulation and policy at Silicon Valley Clean Energy, a California Community Choice Aggregator and before that at the California Public Utilities Commission working on renewables procurement and market development. Over her career, Poonum has also worked at a startup, in consulting and at the U.S. Department of Energy, focusing on a wide range of energy policy and technology issues, most notably on microgrid R&D program management and electricity transmission policy. She holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in engineering, international relations and technology policy from Tufts University and MIT.

Poonum lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and two children. When she is not driving her kids around for activities, Poonum likes to be in nature, paint, do calligraphy, travel and eat good vegetarian food. Poonum is also working on a children’s picture book.

TESSA SANCHEZ, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS LEAD, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY TEAM, TESLA. As part of the business development and public policy team at Tesla, Tessa Sanchez manages local policy engagement on transportation electrification, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and clean energy issues with cities across the country. Previously, she was the Energy and Electric Vehicle Coordinator at the San Francisco Department of the Environment, the agency responsible for managing and implementing San Francisco's climate action goals and policies. Tessa has also worked in the energy efficiency space at cleantech startups WegoWise and Current by GE. Tessa has a B.A. in Environmental Analysis and Policy from Boston University.

TREVOR UDWIN, PRINCIPAL, PG&E. Trevor Udwin is a Principal focused on customer choice policy at PG&E. He works on renewable energy policy in the areas of behind-the-meter PV, electric vehicles, battery storage, and microgrids. With a background in utility-scale solar development and solar PV product development, Trevor's work focuses on integrating behind-the-meter technologies to the grid through rate design, incentives, and market based structures.

He has two masters degrees from the University of Texas at Austin in Public Policy and Energy and Earth Resources and an undergraduate degree from American University.

Project and Business Development Career Panel Speakers:

JESSICA NYQUIST, PROJECT MANAGER, FORM ENERGY. Jessica Nyquist serves as a Project Manager on Form Energy's business development team. Prior to Form, Jessica worked as an Analyst focusing on intellectual property litigation at international law firm Kobre & Kim. Jessica received her B.S.E. in Computer Science from Princeton University.

MITCHELL TAYLOR, DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND M&A, SAVION. With 7 years of utility scale renewable development experience, Mitchell serves as Savion’s regional development lead for the Pacific Northwest and commercial lead for domestic development stage M&A activities (primarily those involving early to mid-stage projects as well as strategic partnerships and joint ventures). His background includes subject matter expert roles ranging in discipline from lead on real estate, permitting, transmission, origination, to general development, along with broader renewable energy platform oversight, M&A of renewable energy platforms, to now strategic M&A activities focused on early to mid-stage development. Solar has been the predominant renewable energy technology he has deployed however has experience in hybrid solar+storage facilities, standalone storage development, as well as wind development. Mitchell graduated from Creighton University with majors in Finance and Economics and minor in Sustainable Energy.

NIKHIL GARGEYA, SENIOR STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER, ACTIVATE. Nikhil is Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager at Activate where he manages their corporate network, ecosystem engagement and mentors their founders. The Activate Fellowship supports scientist entrepreneurs during the first 2 years of their founder's journey as they commercialize solutions to address some of the largest challenges facing us today, with a focus on climate change. As a part of this work, Nikhil co-developed the Simple Partnership Agreement (SiPA) as a tool for the ecosystem to increase the rate of startup-corporate collaboration and it has helped founders unlock critical early revenue with their partners.

Previously, Nikhil was with Siemens next47 working in corporate venturing and innovation in the energy and industrial space. He's been involved with YPE SF Bay Area since 2016 as an events and board member and helped launch the Scholarship that's now in its 2nd year. Nikhil is also a CELI Fellow '18 and holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley.