People on the Move: Solaria, Empower Energies, Amprius, and more

Solaria Corporation named Vikas Desai as its new president. Howard Wenger, the current president, will continue with the company as a board member and strategic advisor. Desai served as SVP and GM of SunPower Corp.’s residential and light commercial business unit, which he founded and scaled up to $1 billion in annualized revenues. He also held CEO roles at EchoFirst and Powerside, and served as SVP and GM at the distributed solar divisions of both SunEdison and Flextronics.

Energy storage company Nanoramic Laboratories named Tony Posawatz to its Board of Directors. He is former president and CEO of Fisker Automotive, and former head of EV development of the Chevrolet Volt at General Motors. Posawatz is also a board Director of Lucid Motors.

Builders Private Capital launched a $300 million clean energy investment platform and named three executives to run it. Stephan Feilhauer and Francis O’Sullivan joined the organization as managing directors to oversee this new energy strategy, and Andrea Woodside joined as VP of real assets. Feilhauer has 15 years of experience as an investor and researcher in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He previously was with Macquarie Capital where he oversaw growth equity investments in industrial tech and cleantech. Earlier, he worked in Deutsche Bank’s principal investing, structured credit, and corporate M&A teams in New York and Singapore. O’Sullivan was head of onshore strategy at Ørsted, where he also managed the company’s early-stage and growth equity investment portfolio. Prior to Ørsted, he was director of research for the MIT Energy Initiative and co-director of the MIT Electric Power System Center. Woodside previously led market research and investment management at Imprint, an impact investing division at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. While there, she led more than $1 billion worth of private impact investment transactions within the climate transition theme. In her early career, she worked at two grassroots organizations, The Earth Island Institute and Friends of the Mississippi River.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory named Shirley Meng as chief scientist of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS). In her role, she will help drive energy storage research strategy at Argonne. Meng currently serves as a materials scientist and professor at the University of California, San Diego. Her new role comes with a joint appointment as a professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at The University of Chicago.

Empower Energies named Patrick Corr as its chief strategy officer. He previously served as chief commercial officer at 174 Power Global C&I, and held leadership roles at Tesla, Solar City, and other companies in the renewable energy and telecommunications sectors.

Lithium-ion battery manufacturer Amprius Technologies named Ronnie Tao as VP of business development. Tao brings experience in mobility, robotics, and consumer electronics from previous roles at Sony Electronics, Daimler-Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon, and Highpower International.

Sponsored: Director of Operations, Minneapolis, Construction/Facilities
As Director of Operations you will be responsible for ensuring projects are on time and on budget while managing a team of Project Managers as a key member of the leadership team. You will be a results-oriented individual with a track record of managing the development and construction of successful solar developments and driving exceptional client outcomes. You will lead and manage a team of project managers that drive outstanding outcomes for clients and their solar developments, collaborate with in-house and third-party design, engineering, construction and distributor/OEM partners to ensure project completions according to engineering specifications, on time and on budget, and lead contract negotiations with clients, asset managers, subcontractors, landowners and other parties, as necessary.

Additionally you will develop and implement project execution, safety, quality control and continuous improvement frameworks that reduce operational risk and improve profitability, provide regular project updates to the leadership team with respect to timeline, budget and compliance, promote professional development through ongoing training plans, performance reviews and goal setting, support business development by providing market information on interconnection capacity in operating regions, communicating business opportunities based on market/industry trends and building quality relationships with clients, and work with the leadership team to identify, evaluate and execute investment and expansion opportunities in accordance with the company’s strategic vision.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree or higher in engineering, economics, environmental science, construction management or similar fields.
• Demonstrated success in motivating and managing cross-functional employee groups and external parties to execute project developments.
• Independent and resourceful leader that is proficient in overseeing several complex projects concurrently and accomplishing priorities.
• Track record of excelling in a high-growth and dynamic organization is preferred.
• Strong experience in the development, construction, design, operations, and contract management of solar and/or electrical projects.
• Experience with Procore platform desired.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

More information is available here.

Send your job change announcement to david.wagman@pv-magazine.com.