• Charging Up: Women’s climatetech career moves at Greenpeace, Opus One, Enervee, CleanCapital, Resideo and more
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Clean energy journalism for a cooler tomorrow

Charging Up: Women’s climatetech career moves at Greenpeace, Opus One, Enervee, CleanCapital, Resideo and more

Women rising up the ranks of renewable project developers and financiers is a clear employment trend.
By Eric Wesoff

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A human figure is shown in silhouette along with wind turbines and the words Charging Up

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

Ebony Twilley Martin was promoted to co-executive director of Greenpeace USA, which works extensively on climate and energy issues.

Nicole Sitaraman was promoted to VP of external affairs and policy at Sustainable Capital Advisors, a strategy consulting and financial advisory firm. Sitaraman joined the firm last year from her position as senior manager of public policy at Sunrun.

CleanCapital promoted Julia F. Bell to the role of chief commercial officer. Bell, formerly of global law firm White & Case, joined CleanCapital in 2019 as director of commercial transactions and was promoted last year to head of projects. CleanCapital’s cumulative renewable project acquisitions total more than $850 million, comprising more than 230 megawatts across 19 states.

Beth Crouchet was promoted to utility solutions leader at Resideo Technologies, the Honeywell spinoff focused on low-voltage connected devices that provide residential control, monitoring and alerts.

Sarah Colvin joined Opus One Solutions as VP of customer success and support after nearly five years leading the energy business at ecobee. Opus One is a software engineering company that provides grid management for distributed energy resources including renewable generation, energy storage and responsive demand.

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Erin Sweet was promoted to senior director of development for energy storage at Clearway Energy Group. Clearway provides renewable energy project development, finance, operations and customer service, with a U.S. portfolio ranging from community solar projects to large wind and solar projects.

Caroline Trowbridge, previously with Metrus Energy, is now a project finance analyst at Leeward Renewable Energy. Leeward owns and operates 22 renewable energy facilities across nine states, totaling more than 2 gigawatts of installed capacity.

Dani Marunović joined the Global Reporting Initiative, a provider of sustainability reporting standards, as CFO. Marunović was previously director of finance and operations at Youth Business International.

Anne Arquit Niederberger is now senior vice president of market development at Enervee, where she is responsible for collaboration with utilities, government agencies and retail market actors to expand markets for energy-efficient consumer products. Prior to Enervee, Anne was principal at the international consultancy Policy Solutions.

Olya Irzak, the CEO of Frost Methane Labs, a startup that captures and monetizes planet-warming gases, joined Terraformation’s board. Terraformation aims to exponentially accelerate forest restoration projects. Irzak has spent more than a decade working as a software engineer and technologist at Zola Electric, Google and X (the moonshot factory). She’s also the founder of Diamond List, a vetted collection of 75 promising early-stage climate startups.

Joan Michelson, CEO of Green Connections Media, has relaunched her podcast under the name Electric Ladies. As host of the podcast (formerly known as Green Connections Radio), Michelson interviews women innovators and leaders in energy, climate and corporate responsibility.

Diversity at the DOE

The leadership ranks at the U.S. Department of Energy are more diverse than ever before. DOE appointees are now 58 percent women, 58 percent BIPOC and 21 percent identifying as LGBTQ+.

Upcoming event

SJF Ventures is hosting the online event Future Impact: The Solar Century” on Thursday, September 30 at 4:00 p.m. EST. This conversation will focus on solar energy’s ongoing transition toward becoming the primary source of global energy and how it is generating climate, employment, resilience and community benefits. Panelists include Adja Ba, chief people officer at PosiGen; Emily Burks, executive VP and general counsel at Community Energy; and Kristan Kirsh, VP for global marketing at Nextracker.

An inspirational woman artist

Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532-1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively impoverished family with roots in the nobility. 

Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait, 1554
The painter’s sisters are portrayed in The Chess Game, 1555.

Eric Wesoff is the executive director at Canary Media.