Charging Up: Women’s climatetech career moves at Kevala, Ørsted, Form Energy 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

Greentown Labs, a climatech startup incubator, has added three women to its board of directors: Katherine Hamilton of 38 North Solutions; Dawn James, U.S. director of sustainability and environmental services at Microsoft; and Katie Theoharides, Massachusetts secretary of energy and environmental affairs.

Shelee Kimura, senior VP of customer service and public affairs at Hawaiian Electric, will succeed Scott Seu as the utility’s president, becoming the first female chief executive in its 130-year history. Canary Media’s Julian Spector visited Hawaii recently and reported on how Hawaii and Hawaiian Electric are learning, in real time, what it takes to actually deliver on lofty decarbonization promises.

Afton Horne, formerly with 8minute Solar Energy, is now senior director of development at Ørsted, a developer and operator of offshore and onshore wind farms, solar farms and energy storage facilities. Canary Media’s most recent Chart of the Week illustrates the phenomenal growth ahead for offshore wind. 

Kevala, focused on energy data and analytics, hired Karin Corfee as its VP of advisory and professional services. Corfee, once with Navigant, recently helped develop a CAISO five-year strategic plan and an ESG roadmap for a U.S. utility. Kevala also hired Margot Everett and Trina Horner as directors of advisory and professional services; both come to Kevala from Guidehouse. Kevala recently closed a $21 million Series A funding round led by C5 Impact Partners and Thin Line Capital. 

Altus Power named Julia Sears, previously with TIAA, as its chief digital officer. Altus Power has constructed or acquired more than 200 distributed generation solar facilities totaling more than 265 megawatts across the U.S.

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Molly Bales, previously with Recurrent Energy, is now senior business development manager at long-duration energy storage aspirant Form Energy. The startup’s recently unstealthed iron-air batteries attracted $200 million in funding led by global steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal.

ESS, a manufacturer of long-duration batteries, added Alexi Wellman to the company’s board of directors. Wellman has served on the boards of Werner Enterprises and Bilander Acquisition Corp. and has been the CFO of Altaba since 2017. Canary Media reported on ESS this summer.

Trista Patterson is the new director of gaming sustainability at Microsoft, leading efforts on clean energy and sustainability in the company’s Xbox division. She was previously chief economist and senior advisor at Grid-Arendal, a U.N. Environment Program partner. 

Molly Cox is now project manager, solar independent engineering, at DNV. Cox was previously with Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.

Nonprofit corner

Melissa Miyashiro was promoted to executive director at Hawaii’s Blue Planet Foundation.

Adrianna Quintero, senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion at Energy Foundation, is now on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, which, for the first time ever, will have more women than men members.

Shannon Bouton is now president and CEO of Delterra, a nonprofit working to improve recycling systems in emerging economies with McKinsey & Company as its founding partner. Previously, Bouton led McKinsey.org, the private corporate foundation of McKinsey & Company.

Stephanie Greene was promoted to managing director for the carbon-free buildings program at clean energy think tank RMI. (Canary Media is an independent affiliate of RMI.)

Sarah Busch, senior manager for nonprofit management at Stratagen, is now a board member at the Vehicle-Grid Integration Council.

Paulina Tarrant is now net-zero engagement manager at CDP and the Science Based Targets initiative. Tarrant was previously a research assistant at Greentech Media.

An inspirational woman artist

Rosa Bonheur was a French painter and sculptor who lived from 1822 to 1899. Her work often focused on animals. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ​“This, Bonheur’s best-known painting, shows the horse market held in Paris on the tree-lined Boulevard de l’Hôpital, near the asylum of Salpêtrière, which is visible in the left background. For a year and a half, Bonheur sketched there twice a week, dressing as a man to discourage attention.”