Jussi Heikkinen

Wärtsilä
Director, Growth & Development, Americas

Jussi Heikkinen is the leader of Market Development and Marketing for Wartsila Energy Solutions (former power plant) business in the Americas. He is currently based in Houston, TX, USA.

Mr. Heikkinen has 35 years of professional experience in Wärtsilä Power Plant business in various managerial positions. He has lived in Finland, Sweden and USA. He has developed several new businesses for Wärtsilä through the years and has had a leader role in developing the skill set and approach on modelling power systems and quantifying the value of flexibility in power systems.

Mr Heikkinen holds a MSc degree in Energy and Power Plant technology.

Dan Shelledy

Wärtsilä
Senior Business Development Manager, Energy Solutions

JShelledy is responsible for Wartsila Energy Business sales in the Southeast US. He has more than 30 years experience in the energy industry spanning both US and international markets in power generation, pipelines and mining. He has worked the past nine years for Wärtsilä in Houston, TX. Mr. Shelledy received his B.S. in Mining Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology and is a registered professional engineer.

Kate Sherwood

Wärtsilä
Business Director, Energy Storage

Kate Sherwood is Wärtsilä Energy’s North America business director for energy storage, providing market-leading hardware, software, and services solutions to large-scale project clients. She has over 20 years of general management, sales, and marketing experience, with a proven track record of accelerating growth and profit. Prior to joining Wärtsilä, Ms. Sherwood served as Vice President of Sales-North America at Centrica Business Solutions, P&L leader at 3M, and spent over a decade in the energy storage, solar, & demand response industries, holding leadership roles with Advanced Microgrid Solutions, SolarCity, SunPower, and Voltus. Prior to her work in the energy industry, Ms. Sherwood spent over a decade in finance, marketing, and strategy consulting with the U.S. Department of Justice, Sun Microsystems, and Accenture. Ms. Sherwood holds a MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. cum laude from George Mason University. She is based in Austin, Texas.

Cassandra Heller

Wärtsilä
Business Development Manager, Energy Storage and Optimization, Americas

Cassandra Heller has 15 years of experience in the Energy Industry, focusing on various topics over the years such as thermal power, network distribution management, and offshore oil & gas before joining Wärtsilä 6 years ago as an area Business Development Manager for Central America and the Caribbean, and is now focused on Energy Storage and Optimization of systems at Wärtsilä across all the Americas. In her current role, she supports all Energy Storage projects including Hybrid Systems paired with Engines, Island Systems, Standalone and Renewable paired systems. She helps light the path to a higher penetration of renewable energy while making systems more resilient and reliable in today’s changing markets and climates. She holds a Corporate MBA from Florida International University with undergrad degrees in International Business, and languages.

Jessica Harrison

Midcontinent Independent System Operator
Senior Director of Research and Development, Market and Grid Strategy

Jessica Harrison is the Senior Director of Research and Development (R&D) in the Market and Grid Strategy division of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). In this role, she coordinates MISO’s R&D policies, objectives and initiatives. Her focus includes pursuing R&D initiatives and partnerships, researching emerging technologies and supporting the integration of future grid resources. Ms. Harrison holds dual Master of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Technology and Policy and in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the University of Michigan.

Clif Lange

STEC
Manager of Wholesale Marketing and QSE

Clif Lange holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston – Victoria and has 20 years of experience in the electric industry. He began his career with STEC in February 2000 as a Qualified Scheduling Entity (QSE) Operator where he learned the basics of wholesale market function and resource operation before becoming the Assistant Manager of Wholesale Marketing and QSE in 2006. In 2015, he was promoted to the position of Manager of Wholesale Marketing and QSE. He is responsible for designing and implementing strategies related to wholesale electric markets and he also manages natural gas procurement and hedging strategies. He oversees QSE operations at STEC, which includes both day-ahead and real-time functions, as well as the financial settlement of all wholesale market transactions, natural gas transactions, and purchase power agreements. He is heavily involved in the ERCOT stakeholder process and is currently a standing member of the Wholesale Market Subcommittee and is the vice-chair of the Technical Advisory Committee which advises the ERCOT Board of Directors on matters pertaining to reliability as well as wholesale and retail market operation.

Sushil Purohit

Wärtsilä
President

Sushil Purohit is the President of Wärtsilä & EVP. As a member of the Global Energy Business Management Team, Sushil brings an innovative expertise in assessing profit and loss of new energy infrastructure and services. He will start our event with remarks about the resilience and sustainability built into the power of Wärtsilä’s smart technologies and complete lifecycle solutions.

Yayoi Sekine

BNEF
Head of Decentralized Energy

Jon Rodriguez

Wärtsilä
Energy Business Director, Engine Power Plants