Letha Tawney is an expert on electricity markets, utility business models, state regulation, clean energy deployment and large customer buying strategies (commercial and industrial).

As a Commissioner on the Oregon Public Utility Commission, she represents Oregon on the Western Energy Imbalance Market Body of State Regulators and is deeply involved with efforts to expand regional cooperation. She is focused on proactively adapting regulation and the grid to the rapidly changing economics of energy so consumers and communities reap the benefits and frontline communities are not left behind.

Through Spring of 2018, she led WRI's Electricity Initiative in the U.S., developing new business and regulatory models for companies in the power sector. The initiative assisted utilities, regulators, entrepreneurs, and customers with innovative approaches to purchasing, regulating and planning for low-carbon energy. Letha has collaborated with large buyers such as Walmart, Facebook, Yahoo and General Motors, as well as clean energy advocates, utilities and consumer advocates.

Previously, Letha led research on renewable energy technology policy, including subsidy reform and best practices to accelerate innovation and build competitive domestic industries. With over ten years of experience in information technology prior to coming to clean energy. Letha deeply understands manufacturers' efforts to innovate for a competitive edge while reducing costs.

Letha holds a Master’s of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. She has written and co-authored many publications on accelerating innovation in clean energy technology and reaping the economic benefits of the emerging industries.

Emily Sanford Fisher is Executive Vice President, Clean Energy, and General Counsel & Corporate Secretary for the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) in Washington, D.C. EEI is the trade association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Emily oversees and coordinates clean energy policy engagement across EEI and across the federal government. She also is responsible for managing EEI’s litigation and legal affairs, covering a wide range of energy and environment regulatory and policy issues, at the state and federal level. Both the Office of the General Counsel and the Environment Department at EEI report to her.  Prior to joining EEI in 2008, Emily was a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. She served at the U.S. Embassies in Bangkok, Thailand and Bogotá, Colombia. She also worked at the law firms Dewey Ballantine llp and Dickstein Shapiro llp in Washington, D.C., representing investor-owned electric companies and independent power producers in a range of regulatory proceedings and transactions.   Emily received a B.A. in international affairs with a concentration in economics from the George Washington University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was the Administrative Editor of The Georgetown Environmental Law Review. She is admitted to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She was 2014-2017 Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Ecosystems and is currently one of that group’s Vice Chairs for Deep Decarbonization. She serves on the Board of the Energy Bar Association and was appointed to the Energy Systems Integration Group’s Advisory Council in 2019.  Emily lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and son. A proud Washingtonian, she serves on the Advisory Board of CityYearDC, a national service program that brings educational support to D.C. public schools. 

Michael Wara is a lawyer and scholar focused on climate and energy policy.

Wara is Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and a senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment as well as Senior Director for Policy at the Sustainability Accelerator within the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Wara organizes and manages cross-functional teams of post docs, legal fellows and graduate students that provide fact-based, bipartisan, technical and legal assistance to policymakers, environmental justice advocates, and tribes engaged in the development of novel climate and energy law and regulation. He also facilitates the connection of Stanford faculty with cutting edge policy debates on climate, energy and climate impacts, leveraging Stanford’s energy, climate and natural resource expertise to craft real world solutions to these challenges.

Wara’s legal and policy scholarship focuses on wildfire, climate mitigation, energy innovation, and regulated industries. He collaborates with economists, engineers and scientists in research on the design and evaluation of technical and regulatory solutions to society's climate and energy challenges.

Wara has served as a Wildfire Commissioner for the California, as a member of the California Catastrophe Council, the oversight body of the California Wildfire Fund, as a consultant to the Senate pro Tem on wildfire issues, and as a consultant to CPUC and OEIS on utility wildfire risk management. Wara has served on multiple National Academy of Sciences and California Council on Science and Technology reports. He is also a member of the Tamalpais Design Review Board.

Prior to joining Woods, Wara was an associate professor at Stanford Law School and an associate in Holland & Knight’s government practice. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Robert Piconi is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Energy Vault, responsible for the overall vision, strategic direction and operational performance of the organization.
 

Robert’s experience includes prior executive leadership roles in Fortune 100 public companies across various industries including Diversified Energy (Amoco/British Petroleum), Telecommunications (Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Alcatel), and Security/Network Management Software (Danaher Corporation). Within the private sector, he also founded and managed several innovative healthcare service and diagnostic imaging companies within the European market which were later acquired by private equity funds and/or large industry conglomerates.
 

In 2020, Mr. Piconi was one of 15 global leaders named by the World Economic Forum as “SDG Champion” for his work advancing sustainability, decarbonization and the circular economy.

Mr. Piconi received a Master’s degree from Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management) and undergraduate BS/BBA degrees from the University of Notre Dame.