Our Board

Susanne Nies

Chair

Susanne Nies

Chair

Susanne Nies is General Manager of Germany at Smart Wires. Based in Berlin, she is responsible for business development throughout Europe, with a strong focus on Germany. She is a highly respected leader in the European energy industry, bringing with her a vast amount of experience in market strategy, regulatory and policy development and stakeholder engagement. Prior to joining Smart Wires, Susanne worked at ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators) where she led the Strategy, Research and Communication team. Her responsibilities included ensuring broad strategic alignment of European Transmission System Operators (TSOs), leading the regulatory benchmarking of TSOs, developing the TSO-DSO (Distribution System Operator) interaction strategy and managing stakeholder relationships. Susanne has also worked for EURELECTRIC (European power sector association) where she headed the DSOs department, Energy Policy department and Power Generation department; for the French Think Tank IFRI, based in Paris; in French and German universities; and the German Heinrich Boell Foundation.

Frederic Vassort

Member of the Board

Frederic Vassort

Member of the Board

Frederic Vassort is the CEO of Ampacimon, which he joined in 2013. With over 25 years’ experience in general management of industrial, innovation-driven companies, he has been particularly active in the Power industry since the early days of his career, starting with Schlumberger (now Itron), and later Electrabel (Engie). He also spent eight years with industrial conglomerate Danaher, where he led several of Danaher’s sensors and controls businesses worldwide. An electrical engineer by training, Frederic also earned an MBA at Insead in France and Singapore. Frederic is a French national with a strong international background, including postings in Asia, Germany, the UK, and now Belgium which he has called home for the past 14 years.

Marcos Byrne

Renewables Policy Director

Marcos Byrne

Renewables Policy Director

Marcos Byrne is an Energy Market and Policy Analyst at SuperNode. Marcos comes from a background in developing renewable energy with Mainstream Renewable Power, where he gained experience in developing onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar projects. He was further involved in future market trends, researching the adoption of novel processes for wind farm construction and operation, and the development of future electricity scenarios for Europe. Marcos has a background in engineering with a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from University College Dublin. He has an interest in researching future trends in the energy industry along with pushing the transition towards clean energy and a sustainable future.

Alex Houghtaling

Member of the Board

Alex Houghtaling

Member of the Board

Alex Houghtaling is the Vice President of Sales at LineVision. He has spent his career helping large commercial organizations and global utilities succeed with demand-side management programs, energy efficiency technology, next-generation energy procurement, and advanced overhead line monitoring. Solving each of those challenges has required the adoption of new technologies and new mindsets, "the twins of innovation," each of which will be a significant factor in currENT's ability to optimise and maximise the use of the existing electric grid.

Kristy Louise Rhades

Policy Assistant

Kristy Louise Rhades

Policy Assistant

Kristy Louise Rhades is currENT’s Policy Assistant. Her responsibilities lie in the support for writing policy papers, responding to consultations from the European Commission, ENTSO-E, ACER and relevant policy areas such as TEN-E and the European Green Deal; monitoring currENT’s and key stakeholders’ social media pages, website and newsletter; and coordinating currENT’s participation in events, organising internal meetings and webinars. Prior to joining currENT, she completed a BA in International Business in Germany and MA in European Studies from Lund University in Sweden, with several years of experience through the climate movement, ENTSO-E and parliamentary internships. Her research interests include low-carbon economies, renewable energy communities, and youth engagement in climate action. Her award-winning Master thesis incorporates European welfare states, post-growth and the European Green Deal.

Christian Kjaer

Vice-Chair

Christian Kjaer

Vice-Chair

Christian Kjaer is Chief Regulatory Affairs Officer at SuperNode Ltd in Dublin, Ireland. SuperNode Ltd. is a cutting-edge global technology development company that designs and delivers terrestrial and sub-sea superconductor-based technology for bulk power transmission. Christian has been involved in renewable energy for more than 20 years. He was CEO of the European wind energy sector’s lobby group WindEurope in Brussels for seven years between 2006 and 2013 and the organisation’s policy director for four years prior to that. Christian has been Head of Unit in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi, senior adviser at the Nordic Council of Ministers’ energy unit, Nordic Energy Research in Oslo and CEO of Danish wind energy association, WindDenmark.

Rena Kuwahata

Policy Director

Rena Kuwahata

Policy Director

Rena Kuwahata is the Business Development Manager at Ampacimon. She has more than 15 years of experience in power grids: modeling, simulating operation and security, designing and carrying out market impact, flexibility and renewables integration impact studies, and reviewing the rules and regulation affecting the operation and planning of power grids. Rena has acquired this experience through working at utilities and advisory companies like the Elia Group, Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), Ecofys, and Energynautics.

Matej Kovač

Member of the Board

Matej Kovač

Member of the Board

Mr. Kovač is CEO of OTLM, a Slovenian company providing overhead line management, assisting utilities to implement smart grid model, managing energy flow and maintenance. He has 20 years of international experience in various fields such as energy management, substations and mobile maintenance. Mr. Kovač published numerous articles for CIGRE and other industry committees.

Michael De Vivo

Member of the Board

Michael De Vivo

Member of the Board

Michael holds a Master of Science in Engineering, specialised in electrical grids, monitoring and control systems from the Swiss HEIG-VD university. Experienced in research, analysis, development and implementation of power electronics systems for the control of renewable energies, he founded depsys in 2012, where he operates as CEO and member of the Board. The company has won multiple start-up contests and industry awards. Profoundly animated by the ambition to simplify the energy transition, he advocates for an acceleration of the digitalisation of distribution system operators.

Anders Skånlund

Vice-Chair

Anders Skånlund

Vice-Chair

Anders Skanlund has been in the power industry for more than 20 years. He holds an MSc in civil engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim and an MBA from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. After his studies, he spend 10 years in various management positions in Norsk Hydro related to business development, strategy, trading, and portfolio management. He has worked 5 years as partner and strategy consultant with Thema Consulting Group, 9 years with Statnett as head of market design and as senior advisor in its European affairs department, and is now chief commercial officer for Heimdall Power. His work has focused on power markets, business development and strategy, and European and regional integration and cooperation.

Grace McLoughlin

Regulatory Affairs Director

Grace McLoughlin

Regulatory Affairs Director

Grace McLoughlin works with Smart Wires as a Strategy Analyst. Based in Dublin, she works in the areas of business development, project execution, and regulation. She has a strong interest in energy policy and regulation, believing that it can become an enabler of the energy transition by supporting the use of flexible modular solutions. Grace holds a Bachelor of Commerce International from University College Dublin.

Norbert Juschicz

Member of the Board

Norbert Juschicz

Member of the Board

Norbert Juschicz is the CEO and Co-Founder of Greenwood-Power. After studying at the university of applied sciences, he started to collect experience in the field of automatization, electronics and electrical engineering. After 8 years as product manager and developer at a big manufacturer for instrument transformers for medium and low voltage, he started the fast growing company GWP, together with Willibald Bacher CTO and Co-Founder. GWP is focusing on a specific point of the Smart Grid, the very first part of a long chain of transducers and devices up to the digital data in the Cloud. This transformers has to be small, powerless, passive, multicompatible, robust and cheap. As the CEO of GWP, he is focusing on the customer needs and is in close contact to every partner/customer in the huge area of energy grids around the world.

Mike Ross

Member of the Board

Mike Ross

Member of the Board

Mike Ross is the Managing Director of Superconductor Power Products at AMSC. Mr. Ross has been with the AMSC team for twenty years. He joined AMSC as a Transmission and Distribution Planning Engineer, designing technical solutions and applications for utilities and industry utilizing AMSC Power Electronic and High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) products. Later, he became the Director of AMSC’s FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) Product Line and then the Managing Director of AMSC’s Distribution Power Products. Today he works with electric utilities to find optimized solutions utilizing AMSC’s Superconductor based solutions to ensure that the products are ideally designed for our customers. Prior to joining AMSC, Mr. Ross worked in the transmission planning department for Xcel Energy (formally Northern States Power). Mr. Ross received a BSEE degree from North Dakota State University in 2000 and has performed post graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mr. Ross is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Wisconsin and a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers and CIGRE.

Our Board

Susanne Nies

Frederic Vassort

Marcos Byrne

Alex Houghtaling

Kristy Louise Rhades

Christian Kjaer

Rena Kuwahata

Matej Kovač

Michael De Vivo

Anders Skånlund

Grace McLoughlin

Norbert Juschicz

Mike Ross

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