Dennis V. Arriola
Chief Executive Officer of AVANGRID, Inc.
Dennis V. Arriola is Chief Executive Officer of AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading, sustainable energy company with approximately $36 billion in assets and operations in 24 U.S. states.
Mr. Arriola was appointed to the position of CEO of AVANGRID in July 2020 from Sempra Energy where he was Executive Vice President and Group President and Chief Sustainability Officer. Throughout his more than 25-year career in the energy sector, he has held a variety of leadership positions in gas and electric utilities as well as renewables, including Chairman and CEO of Southern California Gas Co., and Chief Financial Officer of SunPower Corp., San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co.
Mr. Arriola holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University.
He serves as a board Member of Auto Club Enterprises.
With headquarters in Orange, Connecticut, AVANGRID has two primary lines of business: Avangrid Networks and Avangrid Renewables. Avangrid Networks owns eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England. Avangrid Renewables is among the top three wind operators in the United States and owns and operates 7.5 gigawatts of renewables capacity, primarily through wind power, with a presence in 22 U.S. states. AVANGRID employs approximately 6,600 people.
Gil C. Quiniones
President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Power Authority (NYPA)
Mr. Quiniones is responsible for developing and implementing the statewide utility’s strategic vision and mission and for supervising its operations, legal and financial matters and relationships with external stakeholders.
Under his leadership, NYPA is playing a key role in Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Green New Deal, the nation’s leading clean energy and jobs agenda. This landmark initiative places New York State on a path to economy-wide carbon neutrality. Mr. Quiniones, a well-known thought leader in the electric utility industry, has been talking about evolution of the post-COVID 19 energy marketplace and workplace, and how the challenges we face in the pandemic are similar to those that we are confronting with climate change.
Mr. Quiniones recently announced NPYA’s commitment to additionally diversity our workforce by doubling its investments in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Environmental Justice, and Minority/Women-owned businesses from $5M to $10M and became the first energy company in the nation to partner with the American Association of Blacks in Energy to increase African American representation in the energy industry.
Mr. Quiniones is Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Alliance to Save Energy and serves on the Boards of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the Large Public Power Council. He is also NYPA’s principal representative to the American Public Power Association.
Elliot Mainzer
President and Chief Executive Officer of CAISO
Elliot Mainzer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the California Independent System Operator (ISO). The ISO is responsible for managing the flow of electricity that serves 80 percent of California and a small portion of Nevada. The CAISO also runs a real-time energy market for utilities in eight western US states and conducts reliability coordinator services for most balancing authorities in the West. Mr. Mainzer is committed to using leading-edge policies and new technologies to accelerate California’s drive towards the reliable decarbonization of its electric power grid. He started in his new role at the ISO on September 30, 2020 following a successful 18-year career at the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) where he was at the forefront of transformational changes in the western electricity market. While serving as BPA’s administrator and CEO from 2013-2020, Mr. Mainzer effectively navigated the agency through a period of tremendous industry change and economic headwinds by improving the agency’s long-term cost competitiveness and financial resiliency, modernizing assets and system operations, and positioning BPA as a more responsive and agile business partner. In recent years, Mr. Mainzer has co-chaired the Western Electric Industry Leaders Group to support greater western market and policy coordination on such topics as resource adequacy, transmission development, and carbon accounting. He has also served as the Chair of the U.S. Entity for the Columbia River Treaty with Canada and on the boards of the Electric Power Research Institute, and the Utility Wind Integration Group. A native of San Francisco, Mr. Mainzer has an undergraduate degree in geography from U.C. Berkeley, and master’s degrees in Business Administration and Environmental Studies from Yale University. Mainzer and his wife Margaret have twin boys. He is also an amateur jazz saxophonist and dedicated student of jazz theory and history.