Women in Wind Q&A’s

This page will be continuously updated with new Q&A’s

The Women in Wind Global Leadership Program sat down with this year’s mentors and participants, to chat about their pathways to renewable energy and issues facing women in the wind sector. 

Read their stories below:

• Meet Natalia Zacur – an electrical engineer and graduated from Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is currently pursuing a master degree in Renewable Energy and specializing in Wind Energy at Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN). She works as an electrical designer for high voltage substations at TECMAS.
• Meet Isabel Rodriguez de Rivera – an Investment Director at Glennmont Partners. She has more than 10 years of experience in renewable energy transactions in Europe and emerging markets. In this time she led the origination, investment and financing of solar and wind energy projects globally.
• Meet Li-Mien Lin – a strategic purchaser at MHI Vestas. Before joining MHI Vestas, Li-Mien has six years working experience in NPI sourcing, general procurement, supply chain management, business development and customer service with a combined Chinese, Taiwanese and German background of working experiences and cross-cultural environments.
• Meet Karen Conover – a Vice President of DNV GL Energy, a global risk management company with multiple renewable energy advisory and certification offices in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. She is the founder and former CEO of Global Energy Concepts (GEC), a leading consulting engineering company that specialized in the analysis, design, evaluation, testing, and management of wind energy systems and projects, prior to its acquisition by DNV in 2008.
• Meet Lourdes Alonso Serna – a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester in the UK and an associate lecturer at Universidad del Mar in Mexico. Her doctoral research looks at the negotiation and conflicts between different sectors of local communities with energy developers in Mexico. 
• Meet Kasia Lindegaard – the Head of Marketing & New Product Concepts at SCADA International, where she is responsible for global marketing and communication strategies including branding and implementation and development of new product concept across multiple renewable sources as wind, solar PV and hydro.
• Meet Aura Andreina Andueza Peña – a Human Resources Business Partner at EDPR Offshore. At EDPR Offshore, she has the responsibility of supporting the development of new offshore wind projects, working alongside local teams for all HR policies and needs in growing wind markets in Europe and Asia.
• Meet Judit Szasz – the Senior Project Manager in SGRE Offshore. Judit has extensive experience in Project Management as Project Manager, Senior Project Manager and Department Head. Judit – together with her dedicated team of individual contributors and managers – led complex telecom and renewables projects across the globe, mainly in Europe, Africa and Asia.
• Meet Mahalakshmi Gunasekaran – a data warehousing specialist with the product lifecycle management (PLM) department, Vestas R&D. Mahalakshmi works on integrating data from multiple systems to derive data insights used for analysis, decision-making and performance monitoring in change management and material master data management.
• Meet Amanda Niklaus – a PPA Transaction Manager at Pexapark. She has six years of experience as an energy consultant, energy analyst and economist with expertise in power markets and trading strategies for new energy types in Australia. Amanda provided power market and energy risk management training to over 800 energy stakeholders throughout Europe, Australia and Asia.
• Meet Maria Concepcion Simundac Delos Santos – a lawyer specializing in Corporate/Mergers & Acquisitions, Power & Energy, Construction & Real Estate Transactions and Infrastructure. She is a Partner of Villaraza & Angangco, a full-service law firm based in Manila, Philippines. She advises on development, foreign investments, transaction structuring, regulatory compliance, financing and EPC of renewable energy projects in the Philippines.
• Meet Laksita Gayuhaningtyas – a Project Manager Development Wind at Akuo Energy, and a renewable energy practitioner with more than six years’ experience in the field. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia, and a Master’s in Sustainable Energy Technology from Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. She is based in Jakarta, Indonesia.
• Meet Juliana Kainga – a Senior Business Development Manager at Enel Green Power, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She holds a Bachelor’s in Telecommunication Engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. She has worked in energy for over 7 years with her first role being in wind energy for a 100MW project in Kenya working for GE Energy.
• Meet Pavina Adunratanasee – who is passionate about accelerating the clean energy transition across global energy systems. Most recently, she worked in the project finance team at Neoen Australia, a global independent power producer of utility-scale solar, wind, and storage assets. Prior to this, she worked at Siemens Financial Services where she advised independent power producers and was responsible for structuring financing solutions for onshore wind projects in the Asia-Pacific region. She holds a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University (USA) and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northeastern University (USA).
• Meet Kelly Grace Alcock – an Environmentalist and Sustainable Development Practitioner located in Cape Town, South Africa. She is currently completing her Postgraduate Diploma as part of her MPhil Sustainable Development degree at Stellenbosch University. Her experience within the Wind Sector covers feasibility for wind and solar project development and permitting for the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP). She is employed by Oxfam South Africa as part of the Global Impact Programme focusing on South Africa’s role in international financial institutions, promoting civic space, engagement, addressing issues of accountability, transparency and mainstreaming women’s rights and women’s economic empowerment.

What is the Women in Wind Global Leadership Program?

• A dedicated program of training and mentoring for women in the wind industry, aimed at providing its participants with global perspectives, high-level experience and the network to advance to leadership positions;
• A network of mentors among leading women in the wind industry;
• A comprehensive education program that can be expanded upon year-on-year to consistently incorporate the latest technology developments and best practices from the industry, covering the areas of policy and advocacy, project management, project financing, turbine engineering and more;
• A platform to assist leading companies in the sector in identifying talent and reaching new gender equality benchmarks, allowing them to fully leverage their human resources; and,
• A growing network of alumni who can serve as mentors for the next generation of women entering the industry over the next decade, as wind becomes one of the world’s dominant energy sources.