Charging Up: Women’s climatetech career moves in venture capital and at Blackstone, SunPower, Uplight and more

Canary Media’s Charging Up column chronicles women’s career advancements in the climatetech sector. Please send feedback and tips to wesoff@​canarymedia.​com.

Career moves

Jean Rogers is now global head of ESG (environmental, social and governance) at Blackstone. Rogers is the founder and former CEO of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and was named by Barron’s as one of the top 20 influencers of sustainable investing in 2018. She was most recently ESG adviser to the energy transition fund at Wincrest Capital.

Suzanne Leta was promoted to senior director and head of policy and strategy at SunPower, a provider of home and commercial solar and energy storage.

Michelle Anastasi, previously with Mersive Technologies, is now chief people officer at Uplight, a software firm helping energy providers reach their decarbonization goals while helping customers trim costs.

Palmetto hired Brooke Daniels in the newly created dual positions of chief business officer and chief of staff to the CEO. Daniels was most recently an associate partner at McKinsey & Company. Palmetto’s software helps residential consumers make and manage the switch to solar and storage.

Vanessa Deutschmann was promoted to senior VP of people and corporate operations at Empower Energies, a clean power development, design, construction, financing and operations management firm. Deutschmann has been working in the solar industry since 2005.

Anna Noucas was promoted to senior director of business development at Sol Systems, a solar energy developer in the Northeast and Midwest.

Hilary Pearson, previously with Exelon, joined grid-optimization startup LineVision as senior director of governmental and regulatory affairs. The company is developing a non-contact sensor platform that monitors the behavior of the transmission system. Pearson says the lack of transmission capacity is one of the main obstacles to a decarbonized future.

***

EnergeiaWorks, this column’s sponsor, has the deep knowledge to locate the industry’s top engineers, scientists, consultants, contractors and executive managers in solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, smart grid, sustainability and other emerging markets for renewable energy.

See EnergeiaWorks’ current job listings here.

***

Jessa Silver was promoted from associate member to full member of technical staff at solid-state battery developer QuantumScape. Prior to QuantumScape, Silver was with long-duration energy storage aspirant Form Energy.

Carrie Bellamy is now director of commercialization at long-duration energy storage startup Malta. She was previously director of policy and strategy at National Grid Renewables.

Jackie Tagle, previously with Urban Grid Solar, is now director of supply chain at BayWa r.e., a global renewable energy developer, wholesaler and service supplier.

Blink Charging, which owns, operates and sells EV charging equipment and services, appointed Amy Dobrikova to the role of VP of fleet solutions. Prior to joining Blink, Dobrikova served as VP of channel sales at Cardone Industries, an aftermarket auto parts manufacturer.

365 Pronto, an operations and maintenance platform for renewable energy assets, hired Keli Parker as COO. Most recently, Parker was with Veritiv Corporation.

Climatetech venture capital and finance

Liz Ramsay Dalton joined Overture, an early-stage VC firm focused on the intersection of climatetech and government, as partner and COO. Dalton is also a senior VP for government strategy, lobbying and communications firm Boundary Stone Partners. She previously served as executive director of the Clean Energy Leadership Institute.

Mia Diawara is now a partner at Lowercarbon Capital. She was previously with ImpactAssets.

Jean Wilson is now operating partner at energy infrastructure investor Sandbrook Capital.

Christina Zimmermann O’Conor was promoted to principal at Congruent Ventures. Canary covered Congruent’s $175 million venture fund in April.

An inspirational woman artist

New Jersey–based artist Bisa Butler’s portrait quilts vividly capture personal and historical narratives of Black life. Trained as a painter at Howard University, Butler turned to textiles while pregnant and after her daughter was born, when the harsh chemicals in oil paints and thinners proved too toxic. ​“There are still a lot of social ills that are affecting my people, so I want to address that,” Butler says. ​“But I also don’t want this paternalistic view, like, ​‘Oh, poor them.’ I’m not interested in that. I’m more interested in saying, ​‘Look what we can do.’ ”