Our management team is composed of industry veterans, seasoned technologists and direct marketing experts.
Daniel Yates, CEO, Founder
As CEO, Yates is responsible for the vision, strategy, and leadership of OPOWER. Before this venture, Dan was founder and CEO of Edusoft, an educational software company that provided assessment platforms to US public school districts. Dan sold the 150-person, $20M revenue company to Boston-based publisher Houghton Mifflin in 2004.
After his departure from Houghton Mifflin, Dan embarked on a year-long adventure with his wife, driving from the Arctic Sea in Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Over the course of this trip, Dan became aware of the shocking degradation of the environment, and he subsequently resolved to dedicate his life to sustaining what’s left of our beautiful natural world.
In 2009, Dan was named a "Tech Titan" by Washingtonian magazine and was a finalist for the Ernst and Young 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Dan received his B.A. in Computer Science, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard University.
Alex Laskey, President, Founder
As President and Founder, Alex is OPOWER’s public face, responsible for engaging utility and government partners in OPOWER’s vision and products. He is highly sought-after as a speaker at energy-related conferences and fora throughout the country and abroad. In his role as OPOWER’s President, Alex was invited to the White House to meet with President Obama and discuss innovation and job creation in the green economy.
Prior to OPOWER, Alex enjoyed a career in politics and policy serving as a campaign manager, strategist and public opinion analyst for several candidates nationwide. Alex provided strategic consulting on several statewide ballot measures for The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, and The League of Conservation Voters. Alex has worked for the White House and on a presidential campaign.
Before turning to politics and policy, Alex produced the award-winning feature film, Assisted Living, and worked as the director of new business and strategy for The Romann Group, a New York-based advertising agency.
Alex received his B.A. in History of Science from Harvard University.
Wellford Dillard, VP of Finance
Wellford provides strategic management of OPOWER’s finance, recruiting, HR, and operations groups. Before this position, Wellford served as the Chief Financial Officer of Acumen Solutions, where his leadership played a significant role in driving organic revenue growth of more than 120%. Prior to joining Acumen Solutions, Wellford served as the Chief Financial Officer at TMA Resources, the leading provider of association management software to the nonprofit sector. Earlier still, Wellford was a VP at WWC Capital Group, where he provided merger and acquisition advisory and equity placement services to software and IT services firms. Wellford’s career began as a financial analyst at Ernst & Young and an equity research associate at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group.
Wellford received his B.A. from the University of Memphis and his M.B.A. from the University of Maryland. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the School for Ethics and Global Leadership in Washington, D.C.
Ben Foster, VP of Product
Ben manages the creation, design, and delivery of OPOWER’s products, ensuring that the company continues to build the industry’s leading suite of energy information services. He is responsible for managing the company’s products from a variety of perspectives, including features and functionality, user experience, and overall roadmap.
Prior to OPOWER, Ben was Vice President of Product Management for Adchemy, a leader in digital advertising technology. There he was responsible for the company’s entire product suite supporting lead generation and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. Ben defined the company’s product strategy and roadmap, collaborating with engineering and research teams to construct the industry’s first end-to-end modular online ad optimization platform. Before joining Adchemy Ben led dozens of consumer-oriented product management efforts spanning disciplines of marketing, merchandising, search, structured data, and technology integration. He has also held various product management positions at companies such as eBay, Webvan, ThoughtWorks, and Barra.
Ben was a top scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he holds a B.A degree in Statistics.
Jeremy Kirsch, VP of Client Solutions
Jeremy has been leading high-performance teams, working with customers and partners, and building businesses for over 12 years. Prior to joining OPOWER, Jeremy was an executive in the Viisage Secure Credentialing business at L-1 Identity Solutions (NYSE:ID). While at Viisage, Jeremy held a series of positions including VP Sales and Business Development and VP Marketing and Strategy. Jeremy’s team was critical in the division's rapid growth from $67 million to more than $100 million in annual revenue through expanded direct sales.
Jeremy has also held a leadership role at Art Technology Group (NASD: ARTG) and was a founder of InvestTree.com. Both companies developed Jeremy’s experience in bringing new products and services to the market. Earlier in his career, Jeremy was a Special Operations Officer in the U.S. Navy, where he served as a member of elite Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two. He completed his naval service with the rank of Lieutenant.
Jeremy received his B.A. in Economics from Stanford University and his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Marc Solomon, VP of Consumer Marketing and Analytics
Marc brings extensive direct marketing experience from Capital One, where, as VP of Enterprise Marketing Strategy, he focused on building deeper customer relationships through cross-sell and Internet marketing strategies. Prior to this role, Marc was VP of Upmarket Card Marketing Strategy and was responsible for direct marketing programs to acquire new customers. He managed a $250MM+ marketing budget and a team of 45 that developed targeted marketing campaigns. Marc also led the development of Capital One’s first credit-card loyalty miles and cash programs.
Earlier in his career, Solomon was an Associate at Booz-Allen & Hamilton in the Energy and Chemicals Group, where he advised major electric utilities.
Marc received his B.S.E.in Operations Research, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and his M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Jeff Barrett, Sr. Director of Engineering
Jeff Barrett has over fifteen years of technology leadership experience including key roles within start-up, turnaround, and established environments. As OPOWER’s Senior Director of Engineering, Jeff Barrett manages the technical vision and delivery of OPOWER's core Software as a Service (SaaS) product.
Prior to joining OPOWER, Jeff was the Technical Director at Vanno, The Company Reputation Index. While there he worked closely with the two founders to turn a product vision into a polished, production SaaS that tracked 5,500 companies across 25 aspects of corporate reputation. Previously, he was Director of Engineering at Finaplex (acquired by Broadridge), where he was responsible for the delivery of a suite of SaaS Wealth Management applications. While at Finaplex he managed a large, multi-national team delivering solutions to clients like The Royal Bank of Canada and First Union.
Jeff holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Ogi Kavazovic, Sr. Director of Marketing and Strategy
Ogi Kavazovic is responsible for developing and coordinating the company's overall marketing approach. He works closely with the sales and product teams to help refine the company's strategic positioning.
Prior to joining OPOWER, Ogi was a senior management consultant at Katzenbach Partners, where he had extensive experience in corporate strategy development for clients in the utility sector, including working with one of the nation’s leading competitive utilities to develop a Smart Energy business plan.
Ogi started his career as a software engineer, developing risk and asset management systems for major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Ogi was also one of the lead architects of a "smart field" data management platform for Schlumberger Information Systems, the foundation of which are incorporated into Smart Grid data management systems today.
Ogi received his B.A. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Harvard University.
Michael Sachse, Sr. Director of Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel
Michael Sachse is the primary liaison for OPOWER and public partners. Michael represents OPOWER in front of public utilities commissions, governors, mayors, and state legislators, and also oversees OPOWER’s legal work. Michael’s efforts have been instrumental in developing public-private partnerships for OPOWER, including helping our utility partners use stimulus funding for their efficiency programs.
Prior to joining OPOWER, Michael was a litigator at leading New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and law clerk to Chief Judge Edward Korman in the Eastern District of New York. In 2008, Michael served as Communications Director for the campaign of now Congressman Jim Himes.
Michael received his B.A.in History, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Amherst College and his law degree from Harvard Law School.
Jeff Kolesky, Chief Software Architect
Jeff has been building software products professionally for eight years. His career spans from building web applications for startups during the dot-com boom to architecting a massive educational testing platform.
Prior to joining OPOWER, Jeff worked at Fanlib, serving as the lead engineer behind Fanlib’s foundational search technology. As the Director of Engineering at Stylehive, Jeff led a team of four engineers through the initial launch and scale-out of the product, managing the project along with contributing to the development process.
Before Stylehive, Jeff worked with Yates as the chief architect of Edusoft, overseeing the scale up from zero to three million students’ worth of data. Jeff started his career at Scient, where he designed and developed large-scale transaction-based web sites to facilitate eBusiness for dot-com startups and enterprise spin-offs.
Jeff received a double B.S.E degree in electrical engineering and computer science, magna cum laude, in from Duke University.
Anh Pham, Director of Program Management
Anh brings over ten years of experience managing and implementing software for both client/server and web solutions. At OPOWER, Anh is responsible for the project scheduling, quality assurance, and release management for all new software development in the company.
Prior to working at OPOWER, Anh was a Senior Program Manager for Ticketmaster.com, directly managing over 100 domestic and international projects to successful completion. Projects included major integration with iTunes, American Express, and Major League Baseball. Earlier in her career, Anh worked at Deloitte & Touche and eLoyalty as an IT consultant who implemented customer relationships management solutions for Fortune 1000 companies.
Anh holds a Certificate in Project Management and a B.S. Mathematics/Applied Science, cum laude, from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Kyle Yost, Director of Client Operations and Integration Services
Kyle’s expertise is in data warehousing, business intelligence, and application development. Before OPOWER, Kyle worked at MicroStrategy, where he was an architect responsible for the design and development of MicroStrategy’s business intelligence enterprise software, a suite of products that is currently responsible for over $150 million in annual sales. In addition to designing industry-leading business intelligence software, Yost has been hired as an expert consultant by firms such as Catalina Marketing and the US Postal Service to assist in the design and development of very large-scale data.
Kyle received his B.A.in Computer Science and Chemistry, summa cum laude, from Amherst College.
Dr. Robert Cialdini, Chief Scientist
Professor Cialdini works exclusively with OPOWER to define, test, and optimize messaging to increase conservation and participation in residential energy conservation programs.
Extensive scholarly training in the psychology of influence, together with over 30 years of research into the subject, has earned Dr. Cialdini an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation. Dr. Cialdini has spent much of the last decade studying conservation and efficiency.
In the field of influence and persuasion, Dr. Cialdini is the most cited social psychologist in the world today. His many books, including Influence: Science and Practice, are the fruits of years of studying the reasons that people comply with requests in business settings. Worldwide, Influence has sold over 1 million copies.
Dr. Cialdini received his Ph.D from the University of North Carolina and his post doctoral training from Columbia University. He has held Visiting Scholar Appointments at Ohio State University, the University of California, the Annenberg School of Communications, and the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University. Currently, Dr. Cialdini holds dual appointments at Arizona State University. He is a W.P. Carey Distinguished Professor of Marketing and Regents Professor of Psychology, where he has also been named Distinguished Graduate Research Professor.