Nodal Trader Conference

Commissioner Allison Clements has two decades of public and private sector experience in energy regulation and policy, representing utilities, independent power producers, developers and lenders, nonprofits and philanthropies on grid policy issues. Commissioner Clements is the founder and president of Goodgrid, LLC, an energy policy and strategy consulting firm. Previously she spent two years as director of the energy markets program at Energy Foundation. Prior to her time at Energy Foundation and Goodgrid, Commissioner Clements worked for a decade at Natural Resources Defense Council in New York, NY, as the organization’s corporate counsel and then as director of the Sustainable FERC Project. Before that, she spent several years in private legal practice, with the energy regulatory group at Troutman Sanders LLP (now Troutman Pepper) and then with the project finance and infrastructure group at Chadbourne & Parke LLP (now Norton Rose Fulbright). She has served as a federal energy expert in several capacities, including as a member of a National Academies of Sciences committee on grid resilience, as co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s electric grid initiative, and as a clinical visiting lecturer at Yale Law School. Commissioner Clements grew up in Dayton, Ohio. She has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctorate from The George Washington University Law School.

Ms. Mersinger was nominated by President Biden to serve as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. She was sworn into office on March 30, 2022. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Mersinger served as the Chief of Staff to CFTC Commissioner Dawn D. Stump. She also served as the Director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under former Chairman Heath Tarbert.

Ms. Mersinger has 20 years of Capitol Hill and government relations experience. Prior to joining the CFTC, she was Senior Vice President at Smith-Free Group, a leading government affairs practice, where she worked on financial services issues including advocating for large fintech organizations. She completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota and her law degree from the Catholic University’s Columbus School of law.

Dr. Bautista has been working at CAISO since 2007 in the groups of Market Performance and Congestion Revenue Rights. He has worked on the analysis of the various CAISO markets, on development and implementation of the market performance metrics of the new CAISO's markets, and on the development and implementation of policies for CRRs. He worked in the Technology Division testing the software application of the day-ahead, real-time and CRR markets, and providing market support in the control room. Currently he is in charge of the group that validates the correctness of the market outcomes and carries out root-cause analysis. Dr. Bautista received a Ph. D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Afterwards, he was a Post-doctoral fellow and then a faculty member in the Department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of the book, "Competition in Electricity Markets: Modelling and Economics" (2010), as well as numerous other publications on electricity markets.

Mr. Bobesink focuses on the development and operation of modeling software for the North American Power Analytics team. As a member of the North American Power Analytics team, he works with power modeling simulations to develop long-term power sector outlooks. He has conducted research on numerous aspects of the energy sector, such as economic retirements of coal plants and the increasing importance of hourly price shapes in the electricity market. In addition to his work in North America, Drew has analyzed power systems in Africa and the Middle East, including Rwanda and Oman. His previous research experience includes quantifying the importance of considering future uncertainty in power simulations for both risk-neutral and risk-averse decision makers. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Bowring is the President of Monitoring Analytics. Since 1999, he has been the Independent Market Monitor for PJM, responsible for all market monitoring activities of PJM Interconnection. He has extensive experience in applied energy and regulatory economics. He has taught economics as a member of the faculty at Bucknell University and Villanova University. He has served as senior staff economist for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and as Chief Economist for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate's Division of Rate Counsel. He has also worked as an independent consulting economist. Dr. Bowring has a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts.

Mr. Bruns is a senior power analyst at Enverus. Before joining Enverus, he traded physical and financial power for nearly a decade at Direct Energy. Changing focus, he moved into the fundamental analysis group at Direct where he focused on developing congestion models and provided traders with short- and long-term price views. In his spare time, Scott has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Houston.

Mr. Bryson is responsible for PJM’s Operations Division, overseeing 24/7 transmission operations for real-time systems. This includes scheduling, transmission dispatch, generation dispatch, reliability coordination, training and all engineering analysis required to run the system and support the critical energy management systems. He has nearly 10 years of military experience as a pilot. His responsibilities in the United States Army included operations planning and support, supervision and training of pilots and mechanics, and training and maintenance of tactical computer systems. He was awarded the Bronze Star for Combat Service in Desert Storm. Mr. Bryson earned a Bachelor of Science in general engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, focusing on computer science and electrical engineering, and has a Master of Business Administration from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Bryson also earned a graduate certificate in power engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Mr. Cusenza has over thirty years of experience in building and managing businesses. He has been Chief Executive Officer since January 2008 and led Nodal Exchange to its commencement of trading in April of 2009. Prior to Nodal Exchange, he was a co-Founder and co-President of 23andMe, a personal genetics company, and 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, as the Managing Director of Value-Added Alliances and Vice President Marketing & Analysis. 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 an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Ms. Gasca manages Natural Gas, Power, LNG, and Energy Transition with Utility Clients across the United States and Canada. Prior to joining the Commercial team, Amy was the Head of Global Power Pricing, overseeing S&P Global Platts’ indices for Power across the world, including electricity source by gen fuels, renewable and content related to Power prices. Her role also included driving the development of power indexes and client engagement Globally. Amy is an Energy veteran professional with over 30 years of tenure with previous working among various firms such as Shell, BP, Peoples Gas & Coke Company, Constellation New Energy, and Just Energy with roles as a Crude Oil trader, Power and Natural Gas Originator and Trader and a retail energy executive. Amy has a Master’s in Econometrics and an MBA from Loyola University Chicago and a Bachelor’ in Economics and Mathematics from Northern Illinois University. Amy is a certified expert in CCUS and Hydrogen commercialization. Amy is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston Bauer School of Business teaching Power Markets and Trading.

Mr. Hartman is director of Energy and Environmental Policy at the R Street Institute. He leads a team that brings a pragmatic and analytically sound pro-market perspective to energy and environmental policy. He rejoined R Street in 2020 after serving as the president and CEO of the Electricity Consumers Resource Council (ELCON), the national association of large industrial users of electricity. He represented large consumers on the Members Representatives Committee of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation from 2019-2020. Before ELCON, he established R Street’s electricity policy program in 2016 based on principles of market competition, consumer choice and good governance. He has previously worked for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and various energy and environmental policy nonprofit organizations. He received a BS in economics and BA in political science and environmental studies from Iowa State University, and holds an MPA and an MS in environmental science from Indiana University.

Mr. Hyde is Meteorologist and Sales Director, for WeatherDesk, at Maxar (formerly MDA and Radiant Solutions) and resides outside Washington, D.C. He has been employed with Maxar for twenty-five years. He heads the global WeatherDesk sales group that focuses on energy and agricultural markets by letting current clients know about new products and finding perspective energy and agricultural customers. Many customers that Chris signed up in the late 1990s are still with Maxar today. He is invited to speak at conferences, worldwide, 15-20 times a year. From 2015-2020, he was on the Board of Directors for WRMA (Weather Risk Management Association). He received his BS in Meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University in 1998. Mr. Hyde has training in radio and television communication as well.

Mr. Irvin, a co-leader of Sidley’s global Energy practice area team, represents clients on a variety of regulatory, enforcement, compliance and transactional matters involving the U.S. wholesale electricity and natural gas markets. He has extensive experience representing clients in regulatory and investigations proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and multiple state energy regulatory agencies, which includes handling FERC enforcement matters and self-reports. He regularly advises energy traders and marketers on physical and financial wholesale power and gas transactions, renewable energy credits, carbon emissions trading, mergers and asset acquisition approvals, regional energy market rules and tariff requirements, power purchase and sale agreements, and issues related to the design and operation of wholesale energy and capacity markets. He has been recognized as one of the leading lawyers in his field, including being selected by the National Law Journal’s annual list of Energy and Environmental Trailblazers. Mr. Irvin has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University and a JD (magna cum laude) from Syracuse University College of Law.

Mr. Larkey currently serves as Vice President, Power Marketing for National Grid Renewables. He joined the National Grid Renewables executive team in 2016 and previously served as the company’s Vice President, Origination. To support the growth of National Grid Renewables, in April 2021, John was asked to take on the role of Vice President, Power Marketing to lead the operating company’s growth as an Independent Power Producer (IPP) and establish the company’s commercial team and related trading and market activities, functions, and processes. Prior to joining the National Grid Renewables executive team, he most recently served as Vice President of Power Marketing for Recurrent Energy, where he led Recurrent’s origination and structuring team’s growth with new customers, markets and products. He received a MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and a BSME from the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering.

Mr. Medovoy joined the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2009 as an attorney in the Office of Enforcement, Division of Investigations (DOI), and currently serves as the Deputy Director of DOI. He also has served as a branch chief in DOI. Jeremy oversees and conducts investigations into potential violations of the statutes, rules, and regulations administered by the Commission. He has extensive experience conducting investigations concerning market manipulation, reliability, and tariff violations. He has also served as the Commission’s advisory staff on multiple Order to Show Cause proceedings concerning market manipulation, and served as the Commission’s Rule 30(b)(6) witness in FERC v. Silkman, a litigated matter in the United States District Court for the District of Maine. Before joining FERC, he practiced law at McDermott Will & Emery LLP where he represented clients in complex commercial litigation and government investigations. Jeremy was also a law clerk to Judge Brook Hedge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He graduated from The George Washington University Law School and the University of California, Davis.

Ms. Milton is a director at Potomac Economics, the Independent Market Monitor (MMM() for MISO, ISO-NE, NYISO, and ERCOT. She has more than 13 years of industy experience in electricity markets, including extensive experience in both electricity market designa nd market monitoring. She oversees the production of the annual and quarterly IMM State of the Market reports and daily monitoring activities for the MISO IMM team. She previously worked in FERC’s Office of Enforcement and on long-term electricity market forecasting at the US Energy Information Administration. She received an M.A. in Economics and a B.I.S. in Managerial Economics from George Mason Univeristy, after serving six years in the US Navy as a nuclear propulsion plant operator.

Mr. Moore is vice president of climate and energy at Connected DMV. Previously he was a vice president at WGL Energy Services and a senior manager at Accenture. He has an eMBA from Northwestern University and VA from Middlebury College.

Sai Nizampatnam, Associate Director with the North American power consulting team at S&P Global Commodity Insights, specializes in nodal electricity markets and transmission analysis. Mr. Nizampatnam focuses on consulting projects related to price forecasting, basis risk, renewable integration, energy storage, contingency analysis, and congestion studies. He also works with North American power research team. For more than seven years, he has built value for customers through his extensive modeling and simulation experience with models like AURORA, PLEXOS, GE-PSLF etc. Prior to joining S&P, Mr. Nizampatnam was senior energy market analyst at Energy Exemplar (and predecessor EPIS), where he developed and calibrated nodal data sets; led the nodal support; and provided technical expertise to the ISOs, renewable developers, utilities, and other transmission entities. During undergraduate and graduate school, he was an intern at ICF and worked on several transmission consulting projects. He holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Arizona State University.

Mr. Pickens is a specialist in North American power market fundamentals. He has nearly 20 years of energy industry experience, with particular expertise in power market analytics, regional supply and demand, wholesale power pricing, industry structure, and market policy in the North American regional power markets. At S&P Global, he focuses on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Mid-Continent power markets, providing quarterly outlooks and advising clients on regional dynamics. He holds a BA from The College of William and Mary and an MBA from Otterbein University.

Mr. Schneider, who has been working for EEX Group for 15 years, joined Nodal Exchange in 2019 as Managing Director, Strategy. In his role he is responsible for the medium to long term strategic development of Nodal Exchange. He also serves as Director Group Strategy for European Energy Exchange (EEX), managing a global team of product experts and project managers and aiming to transform EEX Group into a global commodity exchange. In former roles he was in charge of product design and business development for Power Derivatives and Environmental Markets in Europe and was instrumental in creating the Global Commodities business with EEX Asia. He established and led the corporate Project Management Office (PMO) and served as project portfolio manager while working as Head of Projects for European Commodity Clearing (ECC). Mr. Schneider graduated with a diploma in Business Informatics from Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. He completed the executive education program at the European Business School as Qualified Portfolio Manager for Financial Markets and received a PMP certificate from the Project Management Institute.

Mr. Vallee is a decision support meteorologist at Atmospheric G2. His previous experience includes a meteorologist at Accuweather and Empire Weather Consulting. He has a BA in Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology from Lyndon State College.

Mr. Vandenberg currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Office of Electric Reliability. Prior to his current position, he served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation from 2019 to 2022 and as the Technical Advisor to Chairman Neil Chatterjee from 2017 to 2019 with primary responsibility for wholesale electric market design, electric reliability, and cybersecurity issues. Prior to joining Chairman Chatterjee, Mr. Vandenberg served in various positions throughout the Commission in the Office of Energy Market Regulation, the Office of Electric Reliability, and as an Acting Advisor to Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur. Mr. Vandenberg joined FERC in 2009 as an Electrical Engineer in the Office of Electric Reliability. Mr. Vandenberg earned a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and Master's Degree in Business Administration from Ohio University.