Agenda

Nigeria Bloczynski, Founder and Principal of Prism Risk Management & Consulting, is an expert and proven leader with comprehensive experience in strategic, corporate, credit, market, and commodity risk management in the energy and financial spaces. A master facilitator, she proactively utilizes business savvy, industry knowledge, and best practices to challenge status quo, drive enterprise risk mitigation, and navigate regulatory and organizational boundaries to achieve strategic goals. Nigeria is recognized as a credible and trusted business partner and advisor, influencing, and fostering relationships with key stakeholders, developing, and executing sweeping changes while consistently delivering impactful solutions. Her career has spanned multiple industries, working for an engineering company in the steel space, electric and gas trading companies, financial services corporations to the largest US regional transmission organization. With over 20 years in the energy industry, Nigeria has had a front seat at the table while the energy industry has continued its explosive transformation. She has worn her risk management “hat” in many ways, developing tools to ensure compliance within identified risk parameters, as well as being a business partner to identify innovative ways of optimizing risks as a competitive advantage. She has specific expertise in complex market and credit risk assessments, energy trading risk management, regulatory compliance, policy development, commercial transactions, and advising on Board level matters, enabling her to bring various points of view to the table when developing a solution. Her attention to detail and effectiveness at understanding the unique underlying challenges of each client, results in scalable solutions that resolve issues relatively quickly, ultimately reducing costs and avoiding negative publicity. Nigeria’s professional experience includes 14 years as Chief Risk Officer and senior management team member with energy companies in the natural gas, renewable and electricity space, most recently with PJM Interconnection, North America’s largest US regional transmission organization. Prior responsibilities include working in various risk management roles at financial institutions. merchant generation and energy trading companies. In addition to her career, Nigeria has served on the Board of an independent non-profit corporation, as an Advisory Board member for an energy risk publication, and an advisory committee member for a joint natural gas and electricity enterprise risk management professional committee. Nigeria is also a frequent speaker on various topics of energy risk and volunteer mentor to many students and young professionals. . Nigeria holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Mathematics from Morgan State University.

Nitin Sinha is Senior Director, Market Risk at Direct Energy, and is responsible for Market Risk Coverage, Quantitative Risk and Credit Risk Analytics.

Prior to joining Direct Energy in 2014, Nitin had a similar role covering JP Morgan’s physical commodities desk in Houston.  Previously, he consulted with Energy Merchant and Trading companies as part of PwC’s Financial Risk Management practice covering asset and derivative valuation, financial due diligence and market, credit and operational risk related issues.

Nitin holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur), and a Master of Business Administration from the Washington University in St. Louis.

Ehud I. Ronn is a professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin.  He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1983.

In addition to teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Ronn has held visiting appointments at academic institutions in the U. S., Europe and the Far East.  He has published articles on investments, interest rate instruments and energy derivatives in the academic and practitioner literature.

From 1991 to 1993, Dr. Ronn served as Vice President, Trading Research Group at Merrill Lynch & Co.  Dr. Ronn was the founding director of the University of Texas Center for Energy Finance from 1997 to 2009.  From Jan. 2010 to Feb. 2011, Prof. Ronn was Commodity Market Modeling practice area manager at Morgan Stanley & Co.

In Nov. 2004, Dr. Ronn was selected by Energy Risk to the “Energy Risk Hall of Fame.” 

Shikher Bisaria is a Managing Director at Citigroup Energy and heads the East power trading desk. In this role, he and his team are responsible for Citigroup's trading and market making activities in the Eastern US Power and gas markets including PJM, NYISO, IESO, ISONE and MISO. He has over 16 years of experience in the wholesale power and gas markets and has deep knowledge of physical and financial power and gas trading. He graduated with high honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of business’s MBA program majoring in analytical finance & economics and has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from IIT Kanpur, India. In his spare time, he enjoys playing tennis, road biking and travelling internationally.

Nodal Exchange is a commodities exchange providing participants the ability to trade and central counterparty clear hub, zone and nodal power futures and options contracts in North America achieving over $35 Billion in notional value open interest and 45% market share in monthly futures open interest. The company also offers natural gas, environmental and trucking freight contracts.  Nodal Clear, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nodal Exchange, is registered as a derivatives clearing organization and acts as the central counterparty clearing house for Nodal Exchange contracts.  Nodal Exchange became part of the EEX Group in May 2017.  Mr. Cusenza led Nodal Exchange to its commencement of trading in April of 2009 and the market has seen great growth since its launch. 

Mr. Cusenza has over thirty years of experience in building and managing businesses. He was co-Founder and co-President of 23andMe, a personal genetics company which Time Magazine identified as “The Best Invention of the Year” and which has now achieved “unicorn” status.  He was also the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Alliance Management at Perlegen Sciences. He was part of the Senior Management Team of Capital One Financial during a period of great growth in the 1990s. Prior to Capital One Financial, he was a Vice President and Partner at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman) for nearly a decade focusing on financial services. He also worked for IBM early in his career. Mr. Cusenza holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Dave Crawley is a Professor of Practice at the University of Houston College of Engineering - Technology Division for innovation leadership. He is a Black Belt certified innovation professional (Innovation Engineering) and published analyst with 30 years global experience working with software, engineering, and energy companies to build markets and pioneer technology introductions. Dave brings a portfolio of knowledge from creating emerging markets with PepsiCo where he co-launched Frito-Lay/Russia. Afterward he worked with Y&R Advertising as deputy CEO/Moscow followed by developing SaaS solution models for population-based digital asset management computing with HP global business groups. Complementing his emerging market experience, he served as Vice President Corporate Intelligence for Idoneous Global: a security and intelligence firm founded by Jim Bernazzani former Deputy Director CIA.

Jay is an experienced natural gas trader. Formerly, he was Vice President of energy trading at JPMorgan Bank and prior to that at NRG Energy. He has broad experience in managing a complex portfolio of energy derivatives, physical gas products, interest rate and foreign currency swaps. He was part of the team at JPMorgan to win the ``Natural Gas House Of The Year Award`` by Risk Magazine for 2 years in a row. For several years, Jay traded gas on multiple U.S. pipelines, managed storage, and optimized transport leading to significant profit generation. He founded 'NatGasHub.com' as a unique proposition to apply technology to the process of natural gas logistics. Jay has an MBA from Cornell University, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), lives in Houston, and is passionate about solving the energy problems faced by us today.

Luke Fangman is an enterprise leader for data, analytics, and AI/ML at Microsoft, where he helps organizations solve their toughest problems using the power of the cloud. He has a wide-ranging experience from field engineering in energy to large scale digital transformation across all industries. He is passionate about AI and data strategy, Future of Energy, Offshore Robotics, and Power BI. He holds an MBA from Duke University and a B.S. in civil engineering from Kansas State University. He is also a certified Power BI Data Analyst and an Azure Data Solution Designer. He enjoys volunteering for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and the Special Olympics of North Carolina.

Alexander Schlager is developing standards of AI called AIceberg.  He teaches Artificial Intelligence at University of Houston and is an active sponsor for building a technology simulator for A.I. governance and solutions at UH at Sugar Land campus. He is a transformational technology executive with over 25 years of experience across the IT value chain as the Chief Product Officer, Cybersecurity at Verizon. Schlager’s international experience includes four years as Verizon’s Area Vice President for Central Europe and eight years with T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom) leading global Infrastructure and Computing projects for clients in Japan, Germany, Malaysia, and the UK.

Glenn Labhart has more than 25 years of experience in the design and implementation of

risk management processes and policies and has been a leader in helping the industry define today’s risk environment and plan for the uncertainties of the future.

He is the first energy-industry chief risk officer to receive the Financial Risk Manager of the Year Award from the Global Association of Risk Professionals (“GARP”). Glenn now serves as the Chairman of the Energy Risk Diploma program for GARP.  

In March 2004 Glenn Labhart formed Labhart Risk Advisors Inc., providing expertise in risk management that provides a diverse approach for clients requiring expertise in energy, complex modeling and independent valuation.

Glenn is a frequent lecturer and speaker utilizing his subject matter expertise on a variety of legal matters from his direct experience to provide of industry practices to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, business clients and Dynegy.

From August 1997 to March 2004, Glenn was senior vice president and chief risk officer for Dynegy Inc. During the period at Dynegy, Glenn led the independent valuation of due diligence for all mergers and acquisitions that included European, Australian, Latin American and US based transactions; serving as a Board member for subsidiary companies from Dynegy acquisitions.

Glenn’ s career is supported by a BBA from Abilene Christian University, and the Rice University Executive Management Program, Professional memberships include the United State Energy Economics Association, the International Energy Economics Association, and serves on the Advisory Council for the Master of Energy Business program/University of Tulsa.

Ms Metcalf is a founding member and Managing Partner for EnCap’s Energy Transition Fund. The EETF partnership was formed in early 2019. The fund has made over $2.5B in equity commitments in energy transition portfolio companies over the last five years.

Before joining EnCap, Ms. Metcalf was a senior executive at Pattern Development, a renewable energy and transmission development firm, from 2010 through 2019. While at Pattern, she was responsible for the company’s power marketing, origination and A&D efforts. During her tenure at Pattern Development, the management team successfully developed over 4000MW of wind and solar assets across a global footprint and raised over $8 billion in capital.

Prior to her position at Pattern Development, Ms. Metcalf held senior roles at Barclays Bank and Fortis Bank where she was responsible for power marketing and origination efforts for the banks. She held those roles from 2007 to 2010. From 2003 to 2007, Ms. Metcalf was a senior originator for Florida Power & Light’s unregulated business, where she was responsible for U.S. power market transactions. From 2002 to 2003, Ms. Metcalf was a founding member of Zilkha Renewable Energy which subsequently became Horizon Wind. Ms. Metcalf began her career in 1995 at Enron North America where she held various roles in power trading, power marketing and finance. Ms. Metcalf served as a First Lieutenant in the US Army from 1988 to 1991. She has held board positions at various companies including Chairwoman of the Board of Directors for Triple Oak Power and Jupiter Power, and member of the Board for Broad Reach Power. Arbor Renewable Gas and Linea Energy and a member of the board at Broad Reach Power, Parliament Solar and Solar Proponent.

Ms. Metcalf’s Current Board Positions

Solar Proponent – Board Member

Arbor Renewable Gas – Chairwoman of the Board

Linea Energy – Chairwoman of the Board

Parliament Solar – Chairwoman of the Board

Ms Metcalf holds a BS in Finance from Arizona State University and an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Additionally, she is a CFA charterholder.

Jazib Hasan is a Managing Director at EIG Global Partners, a global leader in private investments in energy and energy-related infrastructure. Mr. Hasan’s primary focus is on Power Generation, Renewables and Energy Transition Infrastructure assets, as well as responsibilities for EIG’s Direct Lending investments across conventional and renewable energy/infrastructure. Mr. Hasan has over 25 years of investment, trading and origination experience at private equity, hedge fund, bank and corporate platforms.

Mr. Hasan was most recently Head of Investments at Modern Energy, a diversified energy transition B-Corp, focused on providing affordable, sustainable energy solutions. Mr. Hasan was Citibank’s Head of Commodities Structured Finance and Credit Solutions, and before that Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Head of Energy Asset Finance Solutions. Prior to BAML, Mr. Hasan was responsible for structured transactions at Shell Energy. Mr. Hasan spent 10 years at Deutsche Bank, in New York and Houston, where he was the founding member of the principal finance and structured credit businesses, including market-leading infrastructure and energy lending businesses. Mr. Hasan’s early career was as a trader at hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

Mr. Hasan holds a MBA (Honors) from The Wharton School, and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Economics (Honors) from Stanford University.

Alexander Pliskin has been with JPMorgan Chase within the global trade organization since January 2020, as head of energy and utilities, trade and working capital finance.

Alex rejoined JP Morgan from BP Energy, where he spent four years as a director in both credit and structured trade finance. Prior to this he worked in the commodity division of the corporate and investment bank division at JP Morgan Chase where he served as a vice president and regional director in managing the firm’s commodity credit risk.  Alex has over 25 years of experience in energy risk management supporting major energy and commodity risk management initiatives at RBS Sempra Commodities, Bank of America, and ANZ Investment Bank to name a few.

Alex graduated with a degree in economics and music/violin performance from Geneseo State University and has a Master’s in business administration from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York with a concentration in finance.

Frederick Day is a Managing Partner at Brookfield in its Infrastructure Group.  In this role, Mr. Day leads the legal activities of the Infrastructure Group in the U.S. and has legal oversight over Brookfield’s infrastructure credit investments and capital markets activities.  Prior to joining Brookfield in 2015, Mr. Day was an associate with a leading law firm.  Mr. Day holds a Juris Doctor degree from the SMU Dedman School of Law, a Master of Business Administration degree from IE Business School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Houston.

Susan M. Shifflett has worked in the Clean Fuel markets for more than 25 years. Currently, Mrs. Shifflett serves as the Executive Director of the Texas Hydrogen Alliance.

Previously, she served as President of the Texas Clean Fuels Alliance, formerly the Texas Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance. Ms. Shifflett focused on developing new and expanding natural gas transportation markets and refueling stations in the State of Texas using industry initiatives, government programs, energy education and community relations. She worked closely with her Alliance members to craft and promote natural gas legislation in Austin and Washington DC.

Her company, S3 Services provides safety training, permitting assistance, and grant writing to private and public companies making the switch to cleaner sustainable fuels.

Additional work experience includes marketing coordinator for the Alternative Fuels Research and Education Division at the Railroad Commission of Texas and the Dallas Fort Worth Clean Cities Coordinator for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

She holds a BS and MS in Environmental Science from Texas Christian University. She currently resides in Burton, Texas with her husband, Ron

Kevin Boudreaux boasts over 20 years of progressive achievements within the energy industry, demonstrating a profound expertise in energy portfolio optimization, clean energy procurement, and multi-market operational procedures spanning from market entry strategies to intricate settlements. In his most recent role, Kevin spearheaded the Sustainability division at Priority Power Management, where he played a pivotal role in aiding major power clients in reducing their carbon footprint while meticulously documenting their successes. His endeavors encompassed initiatives such as onsite solar development, battery storage implementation, and the seamless integration of new generation sources with existing power supplies, coupled with flexible load optimization strategies.

Before joining Priority, Kevin held the reins of the Sustainability practice at MP2 Energy, a subsidiary of Shell Energy North America. Notably, he pioneered the expansion of the first-of-its-kind net-metering concept across competitive service areas in Texas and engineered the pioneering battery storage and electric vehicle rate plan, which incentivized client adoption. His professional journey also includes a tenure at Calpine Energy Services, where he navigated complex processes associated with power generation development and oversaw the launch of retail services catering to the largest industrial customers in Texas and the foremost direct access customer in California.

Kevin's academic background is anchored by a graduate degree in business, complementing his extensive industry experience. Beyond his professional pursuits, he served with distinction in the United States Navy as a member of the Naval Security Group, holding a coveted Top-Secret security clearance