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What is Blocking the Way to Net Zero?

November 30th | 5:30-6:30pm PT

Join WCS for a panel discussion on the challenges that exist technologically, financially and politically in achieving net zero.

According to IRENA’s most recent statistics, we need around 1000 GW/year of renewable energy addition to continue on the 1.5 degree trajectory. We are currently adding around a third of it, or 295 GW every year.

Though there has been great progress in the use of renewable energy, it still falls short of what is necessary. The panel would explore the technological, financial, and political issues that are making the net zero road challenging, as well as the changes that are needed

Ticket Prices

$15 for non-members

Free for members

MODERATOR

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Amanda Pinyan

Amanda is Director, North America of Anthesis. Before joining Anthesis she spent a decade at Cisco, where she established innovative executive coaching and development practices based on individual strengths. She also led employee engagement programs and communications to promote corporate environmental, social, and governance initiatives. Amanda is an expert in designing and managing programs that aim to accelerate ESG transparency and sustainability reporting initiatives, which includes indices, awards, and annual reporting. She was recognized as Duke University’s first graduate of the Adaptive Strategic Execution Program, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from San Jose State University.

SPEAKERS

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Natalie Flores

Natalie is a New York licensed attorney with over 13 years of experience. She has been advising clients on multi-jurisdictional legal issues in Mexico City since 2014. Natalie is the Regional Knowledge Attorney for North and Latin America in the Global Antitrust & Competition Group of Baker McKenzie, where she advises clients on legal trends, developments, and risks.

She previously worked as a special counsel in the clean energy sector, focusing on the renewable energy value chain. Natalie is also a board member of Women in Renewable Energy in Mexico (MERM), and a member of various task forces, including the ICC’s Sustainability Competition Task Force and the ESG Task Force of the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN).

Natalie specializes in antitrust law, including compliance training and programs, merger control, investigations, international cartels, and other competition matters in the Americas region. She collaborates with the Energy, Mining, and Infrastructure Group in the Baker McKenzie office in Mexico City.

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Stefanie Padgett

Stefanie is the Senior Vice President of Utility, Automotive OEM, and EV Fleet at Rhythmos. She leads business development efforts for the company’s analytics platform that enables cost-effective EV adoption.

Stefanie is an expert in renewable energy and distributed infrastructure, and has led three companies into new markets. She secured the largest solar plus storage project contract in the US while working as the VP of Renewables at NAES, developed asset management capabilities for Nautilus Solar, and led sales at First Solar.

Recently, Stefanie led the integration of Stem Inc.’s acquisition of Also Energy, consolidating solar and battery storage operations.

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Skye Lei

Skye is passionate about helping organizations become operationally and financially resilient as they transition to a low-carbon and equitable future. She is currently an Associate Director at Anthesis with over a decade of professional experience in energy and climate strategies, including energy efficiency, renewable energy sourcing, facility capital planning, greenhouse gas emissions accounting, and science-based targets and net zero strategy development. Her clients include government agencies, energy utilities, large public institutions, and Fortune 500 companies. Through her work, Skye has collaborated with large organizations with hundreds of buildings in their operational portfolio in developing enterprise-level sustainability and energy programs. Her interdisciplinary background is key to the successful management of cross-functional projects that enabled her clients to significantly reduce their energy and carbon footprint while improving their operational performance and supply chain resilience.

Beyond her professional work, Skye has actively engaged with grassroots community organizations to support JEDIA programs, particularly focused on the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. She holds an MS in Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, an MBA in Sustainable Management from the Presidio Graduate School, and a Professional Engineer license from the State of California. In her downtime, Skye loves to travel and engage in dialogue with people from different cultures.

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Ramya Winstead

Ramya Winstead, as Prologis Mobility’s Director of Product, leads the commercial structuring, pricing, packaging, and value articulation of Mobility’s offers across Workplace, OnDemand, Depot, and Hub and segments globally. Product, in this context, is the ultimate offer our customers are buying (i.e., Charging-as-a-Service), and the contracting, pricing, guarantees, service agreements, etc. that comprise those offers.

Ms. Winstead is a high-energy executive with proven leadership abilities in business strategy, development of hardware and software products/solutions for infrastructure, power, and energy systems, and managing large cross-functional, multi-vendor, inter-disciplinary teams. In her 15 years of experience, she has demonstrated the ability to create successful business relationships with customers, strategic suppliers, and third-party partners, and deliver to financial targets and performance metrics needed for long-term scaled operability of products and solutions.

Prior to joining Prologis, Ms. Winstead led an interdisciplinary team at Amazon Logistics (AMZL) to build and launch products, operational tools and programmatic mechanisms needed to electrify AMZL delivery stations and scale their EV fleet (Rivian delivery vans). Her team owned the end-to-end execution for hardware and software product development, provided operational product support, performed systems engineering, established industry partnerships, and procured and managed the supply chain for a portfolio of EV charging and infrastructure products. Their work enabled 1,000+ electric delivery vehicles (EDVs) to deliver 5million packages in more than 100 cities across the U.S. in 2022 and eliminate millions of metric tons of carbon from tail-pipe emissions every year.

Additionally, Ms. Winstead played a key Product role at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and led teams of both hardware and software product managers to deliver infrastructure products and solutions for AWS data centers. She also worked at NRG and later Clearway Energy in Asset Management across Solar, Thermal and Fuel Cell asset classes, where she was deeply involved in financial analysis, acquisition, and divestiture assessments, and developing commercial structures.

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