GENERAL OFFICERS (In alphabetical order. Additional names to be added as bios become available)

Lolu Adubifa - Membership Director

Doug Cole - Membership Director 

Joe Dee - Treasurer

Sunny Elebua - Membership Director

Dan Florea - Chief Technology Officer and Emerging Technology Guru

Egon van der Hoeven - Co-President

Liz Kimmel - Communications Director

Kenan Najafov - Membership Director

Ronald Nottidge  - President

John Schuster - Membership Chair

Dharmesh Thakker - Co-President

Vivek Thumala - Webmaster

ADVISORY COMMITTEE (In alphabetical order. Additional names to be added as bios become available)

Michael Dworkis

Sarah McNeilly

Michael Minyard

David Rosenberg

Ontario Smith

Miriam Wrobel

David Wu

Yashoda Khandkar

BIOGRAPHIES OF BOTH GENERAL OFFICERS AND ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Doug Cole

Doug is a Consultant at the Toronto office of Accenture’s strategy consulting practice, focusing on energy industry clients with operational and growth challenges. Before joining Accenture he worked as an independent consultant in the Canadian nuclear energy industry. He holds a BA and an MA from the University of Toronto , an MA from the University of Pennsylvania , and an MBA from The Wharton School.  

Ronald Nottidge

Ronald started his energy career while in undergrad, and worked his way up to serve as the engineer responsible for one of Chevron’s largest natural gas plants, where he worked on such cleantech initiatives as gas-to-liquid. Afterwards, as the President of the Wharton Energy Club (an MBA student club), he helped create the first Wharton Energy Conference. After graduating, he worked as a venture capitalist for CenterPoint Ventures ($500m fund), where he worked closely with a fuel cell portfolio company, before becoming a private equity investor. He has served on a deal screening team for the Keiretsu Forum (the largest angel network) Cleantech Committee. He has also served as a judge and specialist mentor for the California Cleantech Open, CCTO, (a cleantech business plan contest) since 2007.

John Schuster 

Over the last 19 years John Schuster has helped lead three technology start-up and growth phase companies in positions including CEO, CTO, and VP of Engineering. In these roles he has established and led new engineering and manufacturing departments, developed and implemented new technology products, and introduced these products to commercial and government customers. Most recently, John founded DealerMesh to develop a system to track the real time physical location of vehicles, keys, and employees at car dealerships. Earlier, John was CTO at Terabeam where he was a key member of the team that raised $526M in equity financing. John received his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his BS in Engineering and Applied Science from the California Institute of Technology. In his spare time, John is a dedicated student of global economics and a life long car enthusiast.

Dharmesh Thakker
Dharmesh joined ATV Capital in 2007 as a member of the firm's Cleantech and IT Infrastructure practice areas. He observes on the boards of AltaRock Energy, Nuventix, and Qumu. He is a founding member of the Wharton Energy Network and also serves on the Cleantech Advisory Board at TiE. Dharmesh brings ten years of business development, product strategy and sales experience at start-ups and public companies to assist ATV’s portfolio companies. Previously, he was the Director of Corporate Business Development at Keynote Systems (NASDAQ: KEYN) where he supported acquisitions in the wireless and video infrastructure sectors and established alliances with H-P, Computer Associates and European VARs. He supported strategic sales efforts at key accounts and helped grow recurring annual revenues for emerging products from $0 to $20mm in two years. Previously, he was a member of the founding team at InterNetwork (acquired by FinePoint Technologies) and a Product Manager at Peakstone (acquired by Entrust, Inc.). He was part of the early strategy consulting team at Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ: MANH), and served briefly in the Investment Banking team at Thomas Weisel Partners, raising capital for US and Israeli companies. Dharmesh received his M.B.A. from The Wharton School and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin where he received the Dean’s award for graduating in the top 1% of his class.

Egon van der Hoeven

Egon van der Hoeven is a Commercial Advisor for new business development at ExxonMobil Exploration Company where he is primarily responsible for the worldwide commercialization of unconventional gas resources such as coalbed methane and shale gas. He has a background in Gas and Power Marketing and was previously responsible for gas processing in Colorado, Wyoming and the Gulf of Mexico. Egon also worked West African LNG projects and started out as a commodity research analyst. In 2006 Egon, together with Robert Einspruch, founded ziizoo (www.ziizoo.com), a student-to-student market place for online tutoring services based on an idea they developed while attending The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania. Besides an MBA, Egon holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering and lives with his family in Houston, Texas.

Vivek currently serves as the CEO of Exellor (www.exellor.com), a managed support services firm that provides implementation and support services for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI) software applications. He is on the founding team of the Wharton Energy Network, and co-spearheaded the website development, as well as co-developed the interest group interface. He is interested in helping execute various Clean Tech initiatives worldwide - both software and non-software related. Previously, he held senior management positions at Oracle, and earlier in his career worked at Intel and Kinetics. He has an MBA from Wharton (University of Pennsylvania), an MS in Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a BS in Materials Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India.

Liz Kimmel

Liz is responsible for developing new business opportunities in the Mid Atlantic states and manages Energy Connect Incorporated (ECI) programs that provide customers with a risk-free option to achieve electric system revenues and reduce electricity costs. Previously Liz was District Sales Manager, Mid Atlantic States - Power Measurement, a manufacturer of energy hardware and software for monitoring energy usage and Director of Business Development at Strategistics Inc., an Energy Consulting firm that provides energy services to Institutional, Governmental, Commercial, Educational and Medical facilities. Liz was the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) Regional Vice President Region 1 from 2004-2006 and editor of the AEE DEL VAL Newsletter from 2000-2007. She worked with AEE members and maintained contact with the existing chapters in Region 1. She was instrumental in helping local chapter increase membership and the quality of monthly membership meetings. She attended Executive Committee meetings and served on the AEE Awards Committees. Liz has been active in Energy Management since 1993 and worked on energy projects while employed by Honeywell, Alliant Energy, PECO Energy, Strategistics and Power Measurement. Her specialty is Energy Management and Information Systems and she has helped clients save millions of dollars in energy costs. Liz has given energy related presentations several times at WEEC in Atlanta and received the following AEE awards: Outstanding Service Award, Outstanding Newsletter Editor and Chapter award for Best Domestic Newsletter. Liz is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School and an active member of the Alumni Secondary School Committee

Michael began his career in the oil services sector with Nabors Drilling, working as a roughneck and drilling engineer. After assignments ranging from mergers and acquisitions to rig supervision in regions stretching from the Rocky Mountains to Texas, he was promoted to division manager, one of the youngest at Nabors. Michael then moved on to the integrated oil and gas sector with Hess Corporation, where he filled a number of technical and project management roles in the US, UK, and Africa. Highlights included developing a strategic analysis for the Chairman of the Board and planning a repair project on an offshore facility in West Africa . Michael then shifted to finance, spending almost two years working as the North American energy analyst with UBS Wealth Management. Currently, Michael works for an investment advisor in New York City.

Michael holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Rice University and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School . He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Michael has been quoted in US News & World Report and the Houston Business Journal and has contributed articles to the Oil and Gas Journal and the Journal of Petroleum Technology.

Ontario Smith is a Senior Regulatory Analyst in the Financial and Competitive Analysis group for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The Financial and Competitive Analysis group responds to third party competition throughout PG&E's service territory and provides strategic and and analytic direction in countering attempts by others to serve PG&E’s customers. The group is also responsible for evaluating legislative and regulatory actions which would provide incentives for various forms of customer generation. In addition, Ontario performs economic and financial analysis for facilities acquisitions and supports interactions with local elected officials. Prior to this position, Ontario served as a subject matter expert and resource to regulatory client groups in their interaction with the California Public Utilities Commission and other ratepayer advocacy groups as well as a significant contributor to the development of customer-friendly distributed generation policies.

David Rosenberg is a member of EnviroMission Technologies’ finance and project management team. EnviroMission is a utility scale solar company. Mr. Rosenberg has over 20 years of finance and project management experience totaling in excess of $20 billion in completed projects. Mr. Rosenberg has spent the past 6 years advising and taking an active operational role in a number of “Green” businesses including K2 Industrial Services, a $250MM revenue business with 5,000 employees in 20 states. Prior to that, Mr. Rosenberg was a Director in technology investment banking at Merrill Lynch completing over 60 transactions globally and was involved in the financing, construction & project management of a number of major real estate projects in New York City including 7 World Trade Center, One New York Plaza, A&S Plaza Shopping Center and the Embassy Suites in Times Square. Mr. Rosenberg graduated Cum Laude from the Wharton School of Business with a B.S.E. in Finance and Summa Cum Laude from the University of Chicago with an MBA and was elected into Beta Gamma Sigma – Honors Society for Collegiate Schools of Business.

Coming soon

Joseph Dee

Mr. Dee is an Associate at Cadent Energy Partners, headquartered in Rye Brook, NY.  Cadent is a private equity firm that invests in small to medium-sized companies in the energy industry.  At Cadent, Mr. Dee is responsible for industry research, financial analysis and modeling, due diligence, transaction execution and portfolio monitoring.  Prior to joining Cadent, Mr. Dee worked for Royal Dutch Shell in the Corporate M&A and Finance & Management Consultancy groups.  At Shell, Mr. Dee worked closely with Shell’s Exploration and Production, Chemicals, Downstream and Wind businesses to assess and execute acquisitions and divestments, develop strategic and financial plans and analyze business performance to develop best practices and shape future corporate actions.  Mr. Dee holds a B.S. in Finance from University of Illinois, graduating with highest honors, and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where he was designated a Russell E. Palmer Scholar. 

Michael Dworkis

Michael Dworkis is an analyst with CSL Energy Fund, a hedge fund investing in the energy and commodities sectors. In his current role, Michael has invested in the E&P, oil service, coal, and metals sectors, across the capital structure. Prior to joining CSL Energy Fund, Michael completed his bachelor’s degree at Wharton, where he co-founded the Wharton Commodities Group. During his time at Wharton, he worked for Soros Fund Management and Merrill Lynch.

Yashoda Khandkar

Yashoda Khandkar is a sector specialist in equity research at Fidelity Management & Research Company covering the Utility sector. In her current role, Yashoda focuses on domestic power markets and helps make investment recommendations on electric and gas utility equities.  Prior to joining Fidelity, Yashoda received her bachelor’s degree in Economics and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.  During her time at UPenn, she worked in investment banking at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, was on the board of the Microfinance Club and was active in other Social Enterprise endeavors.

Dan Florea

Coming soon

Kenan Najafov

Coming soon

Sunny Elebua

Coming soon