Scaling Clean

In this Scaling Clean podcast, my guest is someone who’s been an advisor to three Seattle-area companies, a policy lead for the e-mobility leader Lime, and an official in four municipal transportation departments. He's also the CEO of an innovative camper van sharing company, Cabana. On a recent episode of This Week in Cleantech , I nominated Scott Kubly for “Cleantecher of the Week” because h...

In this Scaling Clean podcast, we talk with Nikhil Vadhavkar — one of the few first-time CEOs we've had on the show. We've had serial entrepreneurs, power sector veterans, techies, and people with finance and energy trading backgrounds, but Nikhil is a bit different. Not only is he an alumnus of academia at a very high level – Johns Hopkins, MIT – but he leveraged that background to start...

In this Scaling Clean podcast , we feature Robin Laine — our first CEO guest with an environmental consulting background, and possibly the youngest CEO we’ve had on the show. As listeners know, our show engages CEOs in conversations that harvest best practices and usable tips to successfully build, run, and lead companies. Our diverse lineup has featured power sector veterans, techies, individuals...

Over the last 2 years of interviewing clean energy CEO’s, Sean Kelly is our first with the background as a veteran energy trader. In fact, Sean has traded or managed traders for over 7 different companies in his career   I brought Sean on the latest episode to speak about his background in energy trading and how that helped equip him for his role as co-founder and CEO of @Amperon for the last 6 ye...

On Scaling Clean, we have the pleasure of interviewing people with a variety of backgrounds. One less-represented experience on our podcast are PhD-ers turned CEOs.   That’s why I’m excited to talk to Mahesh Konduru, who is the former CEO and now board chair of ProSep, a global energy services company focused on water treatment and chemical efficiency.   Mahesh's company is private equity fina...

Cleantechers, welcome back to Scaling Clean. The podcast that gathers company-building and management tips from the most accomplished leaders in cleantech.  I don’t know about you, but everywhere I go, and everyone I hear from in cleantech leadership is wrestling with the same thing: Where to find talent in a tight labor market. At Tigercomm, we’re having clients ask us to build their corporate co...

Cleantechers, welcome back to Scaling Clean. This is the podcast that gathers company building and management tips from the most accomplished leaders in clean tech. Today we talk with Hala Ballouz, who has spent the last 15 years growing Electric Power Engineers, EPE as it's known among developers, from a consultancy of 10 staff to a national presence of over 200 grid connection experts. Hala...

This is Part II with the brilliant Tom Starrs. Tom’s interview was rich with information on cleantech government affairs and communications, so we decided to split this episode in two parts.  2:11 - We need to scale up renewables to make it a larger portion of our electricity supply, but to do so, we need a new grid model and new technologies such as battery storage and transmission enhancements....

Today we're interviewing somebody who has not only been a CEO, he's also advised other CEOs on marketing and public affairs, something he continues to do for his present employer, EDP Renewables.  And Tom Starrs is our precedent-setting guest for a reason. While he's done a lot of things in a career spanning 21 years in five different companies, Tom is, by my reckoning, the longest ten...

If you want a boring guest, you should skip this episode. My guest has worked in over 10 countries on three continents – in the private sector, non-profits and in government across multiple cleantech sectors. After all of that, you might expect David Arfin would be picked to star in the next round of Dos Equis commercials as “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” Instead, he’s the CEO of NineDot...

Over the last 17 years, Nick Cohen has held leadership positions in five companies, with four of them in clean energy. He's now the president and CEO of Doral Renewables LLC, which is developing the appropriately named Mammoth solar project at 1.3 gigawatts. It will be America's largest utility scale solar farm. I've wanted Nick on the show since I first talked with him last year. 01:4...

Jeff Wolfe is an "OC"; – an “original cleantecher.” This entrepreneur has three companies under his leadership belt, including two that he founded. Jeff’s work has spanned solar installation, EV fast charging and investment considerations for Shell New Ventures. His current company is Veloce Energy, which offers easy-to-install EV fast charging infrastructure that's designed to speed t...

Most of our guests to date have led companies that develop renewable energy plants, sell cleantech equipment, or provide energy services. But today our guest is a pure play. She's a career-long investor who served in leadership positions at sequential investment funds, and she now serves as the co-founder and CEO of the DC-based Galway Sustainable Capital. Jennifer Von Bismarck's shop inve...

#Cleantechers, Scaling Clean listeners know that we seek out clean economy CEOs for their lessons on building teams and running companies. All our guests to date have developed their leadership abilities by ascending a career ladder, and they’ve done that across several companies. Today’s guest has instead learned his leadership lessons on the job, so to speak. Jesse Grossman founded Soltage 17 ye...

In Miranda Ballentine, we have a CEO with both.com and.org experience and some.gov experience to boot. Most know her as the head of the Clean Energy Buyer's Alliance, but her experience runs a gamut that includes stints as a sustainability director of Walmart Consulting through David Gardner Associates, and as Air Force Assistant Secretary, managing energy budgets for 170 military installa...

Hello Cleantechers! Kevin Smith, CEO of Lightsource bp, is one of the few people in cleantech who's led two major solar companies. Kevin's a great interview in part because of the depth of his background: Fossil fuels and renewables, Europe and the US, and experience in two different types of solar. Throughout it all, he's proven to be an impressive company builder who draws consistent...

Hello #cleantechers! Listeners of Scaling Clean know our show is designed to bring you management and leadership wisdom from experienced company leaders in the clean technology industry. Today, we are bringing you perspective from Jing Tian, who co-founded her own company early in her career and also led the U.S. presence for three different international cleantech firms. And Jing Tian is also Dr....

Hello #cleantechers. On today’s Scaling Clean , a discussion with Silvia Ortín. She has worked in the power sector her entire career. Silvia started as a contract trading analyst for TXU Energy in the late 1990s. Over a quarter century later, she is the CEO of RWE Renewables Onshore Wind and PV division. Silvia is the first woman to hold the position. Our goal on Scaling Clean is to aggregate insi...

Hello #cleantechers! Ever heard the joke about the engineer who walked into a podcast interview and turned out to be a fountain of wisdom and soundbites? Well, our guest today is just that… except he’s no joke. South African-native Claus Nussgruber leads Utility Global, a net-zero hydrogen company based in Houston. He spent his 31-year career working in and leading corporate initiatives focused on...

Hey #cleantechers, this week we’re back with part two of our conversation with Soluna Computing CEO John Belizaire. John’s current company is building modular green data centers that run on renewable energy. And though he just turned 50, John has already sold two companies. Our conversation for Scaling Clean was incredibly rich. You can hear the first half of the conversation on last week’s episod...

Hey #cleantechers, ever hear about someone and feel at least a little bit awed by what they have accomplished in their lives? Well, we’ve got one of those folks featured in this episode of Scaling Clean. John Belizaire is CEO of Soluna Computing, which builds modular green data centers running on renewable energy. Though he just turned 50, John has already sold two companies. In his current role,...

Pay attention to this episode, cleantechers, because it’s a good one. As our readers know, we designed the Scaling Clean podcast to bring you management and leadership wisdom from experienced company leaders. We’ve got a heavily experienced growth company CEO for you in this episode who is lighting up the traditionally workhorse energy-efficiency sector.  But first, a bit of context; the climate d...

We designed Scaling Clean to bring you wisdom from clean technology leaders, and this episode won’t disappoint.  Host Mike Casey speak to Kimberlee Centera , President and CEO of TerraPro Solutions. Kimberlee is a trailblazer in the renewable energy sector who has helped build over 10,000 renewable energy projects in the U.S. alone. She can accurately be described as an “OC,” an “original clean-te...

Host Mike Casey talks with Graham Richard, the former mayor of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He's one of the few people in clean tech who served in elected office. After his political career, Graham took the reins at the Advanced Energy Economy, a national trade association. He's now a senior advisor at the San Francisco-based investment fund, Finite.

Host Mike Casey talks with Ken Locklin, who is the cleantech oracle you probably haven’t heard of because he has the enviable combination of foresight and humility. For more than three decades, Ken’s honed his ability to observe the major developments within multiple clean economy sectors, and then distill the trends for the rest of us. While serving as Impax Asset Management’s North American Dire...