For entrepreneurs with a provocative vision for energy & IT; NGP is the only utility venture & innovation fund that taps into the global network of National Grid, accelerating companies with investment, innovation, incubation & biz dev; realizing the full potential of energy.

National Grid Partners

President

Investments

Innovation and Venture Acceleration

Business Development

Marketing

Advisory & Administrative

Corporate Functions

Experience, vision, passion. A team steeped in the utility industry - with decades of Silicon Valley startup experience. 

Our Team

Steve is President of National Grid Partners. An economist by training, Steve has extensive experience in the energy and financial services industry.  He spent more than a decade at Lloyds Banking Group on the Retail Executive Committee overseeing innovation and working with fintechs.  Prior to that, he served on the Board on the British Energy regulator Ofgem running both the markets and networks divisions and delivering major industry and regulatory reform.  Steve has also been an angel investor in energy startups in the UK.  In addition to leading National Grid Partners, Steve runs Strategy and Innovation for National Grid. 

Steve Smith

The president of National Grid Partners and head of National Grid's Strategy and Innovation function talks about his career guiding legacy industries through disruptive change -- and why his heart's "always been in energy."

Meet Steve Smith of National Grid Partners

Pradeep is Head of Investments at National Grid Partners. Pradeep has led investments in Autogrid (acquired by Siemens), 1 Touch, Edcast (acquired by Cornerstone), Incorta, TS Conductor and Viridi Parente. In addition, Pradeep also leads fund investments and is on the LPAC of IQ Capital (UK) and Jerusalem Venture Partners (Israel).

Before joining National Grid Partners, Pradeep spent 13 years at Intel Capital in both Silicon Valley and India. During his time there he led 16 investments which resulted in 2 IPOs and 8 M&A exits with 3 Unicorns in the portfolio. Prior to Intel Capital, Pradeep spent 12 years in Silicon Valley in technology/product marketing roles at startups including Inference, BroadVision, Healtheon, and as an entrepreneur starting Yopa, a mobile middleware software company (acquired by XDrive/AOL).

Pradeep has an M.S.E.E. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a BE (EE) from the University of Bombay, and is a Kauffman Fellow.

Pradeep Tagare

Head of Investments

Pradeep Tagare, National Grid Partners

Andre is  Vice President, Investments at National Grid Partners where he is instrumental in delivering both strategic and financial returns. Andre has overseen investments in Dragos, AiDash, Aperio Systems, Cogniac, Finite State, Spark Cognition, Sitetracker, Copperleaf Technologies (CPLF.TO), RiskIQ (acquired by MSFT) and Aporeto (acquired by PANW). 

Andre has more than 30 years of venture capital, business development, operating and technical experience spanning a wide range of areas, including enterprise software & services, SaaS/cloud, Data Analytics/AI, IT & network infrastructure, IoT/connected, digital utility/smart grid; wireless and security.

Andre was previously a Senior Vice President of D. E. Shaw & Co., a global investment and technology development firm, and a Partner at D. E. Shaw’s venture capital unit.  Prior to his time at  D. E. Shaw, Andre was a Managing Director of NeoCarta Ventures, a venture capital investment firm. In addition, Andre served as Senior Manager of Strategic Investments at Intel Capital, the venture capital unit of Intel Corporation. He has also held roles in engineering, operations and product marketing.  Select investments prior to NGP include PGP (Acquired by Symantec), PanTerra Networks, Asetek (IPO), Cavium Networks (IPO), Meru Networks (IPO), Red Hat (IPO), VA Linux (IPO) and WebLogic (acquired by BEA).

Andre Turenne

Vice President

National Grid Partners  - Andre Turenne

Ian Cooper is Managing Director and Head of Investments Europe for National Grid Partners  with over three decades of venture capital, investment banking and operating experience in technology companies.

Ian has a deep technical understanding of enterprise software and still enjoys writing code in his spare time, focusing mostly on embedded and Linux software. Ian’s combination of venture capital experience, technical smarts and startup experience imbues him with a passion for deep tech and a strong appreciation of the challenges founders face on their journey to building a successful scale-up.

Prior to his time at NGP, Ian was Chief Operating Officer at Ardent Capital, where he oversaw investments into early-stage South-East Asian companies and Investment Director with Intel Capital, focusing on European investments.

Before embarking on a career in venture capital, Ian worked in corporate finance with Paris-based investment bank Bryan Garnier and Associates, was Founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup Cequrux, and worked as a consultant at IBM.

Ian holds an MBA from HEC Paris and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town.

Ian Cooper

Managing Director

NGP - Ian Cooper

Kristian is Director, Investments at National Grid Partners investing in energy and climate-related startups. Kristian is also responsible for the National Grid Partners fund portfolio, where he drives financial and strategic value via co-investments and portfolio company-business unit engagements. Kristian has 15+ years’ experience working at the interface of energy technology, markets and innovation. Before working at NGP, Kristian was a senior member of the power practice at IHS Markit (now a part of S&P Global), a research and advisory firm. He led techno-economic, market fundamentals and policy analyses on a range of topics spanning generating technology cost and performance to electricity demand forecasting.

Kristian holds a BS in Physics from Bates College, MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Technology & Policy from MIT, and currently serves as a Kauffman Fellow.

Kristian Bodek

Director

Raghu is Director, Investments at National Grid Partners. Raghu focuses on investing in early stage companies in the broad enterprise and energy infrastructure SW vertical. Raghu has 20+ years of experience with technology, capital markets, and IP/innovation. During his time at NGP he has invested in founder-centric, technology differentiated startups like AccuKnox, Sync Computing, Leap.energy, Baffle.io, and AptEdge.

Before working at National Grid Partners, Raghu worked at SRI Ventures and GE Ventures investing in deep tech and industrial infrastructure (SW, HW, and telecom). He also brings extensive experience in the hardware and software design space having worked in various roles including, semiconductor fabrication, chip design, systems architecture, strategy, and marketing (Texas Instruments, Intel, Cadence Design Systems).

Raghu received an MBA in Finance and Investments from Southern Methodist University and an MS in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University, and currently serves as a Kauffman Fellow. You can often catch him honing his mean backhand at a badminton court, with fellow investors and founders.

Raghuram Madabushi

Gerard is Vice President, Innovation & Venture Acceleration at National Grid Partners.  Gerard has overseen the delivery of innovation projects to the wider business with the potential to generate over $1B of profits in the next 10 years.

Gerard is passionate about sustainability and is motivated to be part of the drive to Net Zero by helping develop the innovative technologies and impactful business models to help us get there. With more than a decade of experience in the energy sector Gerard has led multi-disciplinary teams in both startup and corporate environments. Before joining National Grid Partners, Gerard was CEO of Upya Technologies, helping last-mile distributors digitalize their operations and build scalable, sustainable businesses in frontier markets in more than 20 countries across Africa and Asia.

Gerard is a Chartered Engineer, holding an MBA from INSEAD and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Limerick, Ireland.

Gerard Kelly

Sander is Director of Innovation for National Grid Partners. Sander has designed the group’s unique approach to innovation and led a team of managers to deliver scalable and transformative projects to meet National Grid’s business priorities. Sander brings nearly 20 years of experience identifying transformative opportunities within international energy and industrial companies, connecting emerging technology with commercial markets. He has served as chief strategist, advocate and project director for technology development projects in diverse areas such as next-generation solar and wind, long-duration energy storage, robotics, data analytics, geothermal energy, hybrid renewables, agrivoltaics, and marine energy. Before his work at National Grid, Sander held a number of innovation roles within the Italian utility Enel, working with local and global  business units to drive the company’s progress towards carbon neutrality and sustainability goals. 

Sander has an M.A. in Energy Policy and International Finance from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. in History from Columbia University.

Sander Cohan

Ishneet is a Director of Innovation at National Grid Partners. During her time at NGP, she has worked across both the Business Development and the Innovation functions, giving her an in-depth understanding of how to drive innovation to solve real business needs. While in Business Development, Ishneet delivered end-to-end engagements between National Grid and multiple startups, from designing proofs-of-concept to defining KPIs and furthering alignment between the business and the startups.

Ishneet has directed many initiatives at NGP, including breaking down information silos and leading Group Innovation Reporting to quantify the financial and non-financial impact of innovation on National Grid. She is also credited with embedding value from innovation projects into financial forecasts and with encouraging collaborations and scaleup of successful projects by sharing best practices across teams.

Previously, Ishneet worked at McKinsey & Company focusing on risk management, anti-money laundering and due diligence for the banking sector. Ishneet holds an M.S. in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University.

Ishneet Kaur

Ayman has always been passionate about taking new products to market. He currently works with startups on customer discovery, go-to-market strategies, and business development, as well as advises large corporations on how to leverage external innovation for growth.

Ayman spent more than 10 years at Siemens Technology-To-Business Center, where he identified and funded external innovations synergistic with Siemens' business, and brought them into the portfolio through spin-ins, acquisitions, or partnerships. He covered a variety of topics related to the digital factory, the smart grid, and clean energy.

Before joining Siemens, Ayman was an entrepreneur. He co-founded Odyssia Systems, which he led and sold to Extreme Networks. Odyssia addressed the metro Ethernet market. He also co-founded Diva Communications, a provider of wireless local loop solutions, which was sold to Innomedia. Prior to that, at Teknekron Communications Systems, Ayman was responsible for signing up key customers for the network management software business.

Ayman received his Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley, and his Bachelor of Engineering in EE from the American University of Beirut. He is fluent in Arabic and French, and is co-inventor on 10 patents.

Ayman Fawaz

Aaron is Director, Innovation at National Grid Partners.  He has spent 15 years in the energy industry, with stints at PG&E, Puget Sound Energy, ENGIE, and multiple energy startups that have exited or are in pre-exit growth phase. 

Aaron has worked in energy efficiency and utility scale renewables as well as in distributed generation, storage, and EV charging. His experience spans many disciplines including market development, solution development, business development, strategy, project development, program management, customer success, and operations.

Aaron holds a dual BA in Film and Political Science from Syracuse University and an MBA from The Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. When he’s not working, you can find him playing basketball, coaching his sons’ tee-ball and soccer teams, hiking, camping, or playing tennis or pickle ball. He also loves traveling, cooking, and doing home renovation projects.

Aaron Panzer

Xena is Principal Analyst, Venture Acceleration at National Grid Partners and focuses on the NextGrid Alliance Corporate Venture Capital working group.

Before joining NGP, she gained experience at National Grid working in Resource Planning; Offshore Wind (Joint Venture with RWE); and Gas Operations. Her expertise is in business development, stakeholder management, performance improvement, data analysis and strategic planning.

Xena is passionate about clean energy, and her goal is to enable customers to benefit from it by leveraging technology while maintaining affordability and reliability.

Prior to her work at National Grid, Xena held a number of roles in Banking, Consulting, Fin-Tech, and VC/PE in China.

Xena holds a Master's in International Economics and Finance from Brandeis International Business School and a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from Beihang University (BUAA), China.

Xena Li

Principal Analyst

Crispin is a Venture Fellow at NGP.  Crispin manages the NextGrid Alliance initiative, a global consortium of innovation focused utilities. In addition he produces reporting and analytics, including ESG metrics, for senior executive consumption and advises the Venture Acceleration function.

Before joining National Grid Partners, Crispin worked as a Sustainability Consultant with various UN agencies, including UNICEF and UNDESA. He analyzed and advised senior leaders on impact assessments for various initiatives including sustainable development, poverty reduction and incorporating marginalized populations. He also co-authored sections of the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2016.

Crispin holds a MS in Sustainability Management from Columbia University and BA in Philosophy and Sociology from the University of Sussex. He is bilingual (French), loves to travel and is committed to ensuring an equitable, sustainable clean energy future for all through disruptive innovation.

Crispin Maconick

Venture Fellow

Elizabeth is an accomplished data science professional. Elizabeth is  part of the Venture Acceleration team at National Grid Partners. She works with leading startups to understand and resolve challenges from scaling heat pump adoption, to helping set up Future Forum (a community dedicated to bringing startup culture and disruptive innovation to National Grid’s core business teams). In addition, Elizabeth utilizes  her experience with call center technology and advanced analytics to execute POCs and increase exposure for NGP’s portfolio companies. Before joining National Grid Partners, Elizabeth spent 12 years at National Grid in various positions across the organization with a focus on forecasting, variance analysis, and optimization.  Prior to joining National Grid, she was a consultant for ADP and Broadridge where she implemented optimal cost solutions for print productions. Elizabeth has taught undergraduate mathematics at various colleges and universities as an adjunct professor and completed a fellowship with the National Science Foundation. Elizabeth has a PhD in Applied Mathematics with a focus on Operations Research.

Elizabeth Ramachandran

Chris directs UK/US Innovation Management. In this role, Chris supports the delivery of the Group Innovation Strategy, telling the story of how innovation outputs deliver impact for National Grid and its customers. Chris is a well-respected industry specialist with more than 12 years’ experience delivering and managing £multi-million research and innovation programs and projects that pave the way to net zero. An active leader in the UK energy sector, Chris has been involved in national and international committees, developing future standards for an evolving technical landscape while heading up BRE Group’s National Solar Centre. Prior to joining National Grid, Chris managed Ofgem’s £450m Strategic Innovation Fund and led a multi-disciplinary team for UKRI, the UK Government’s Research and Innovation agency. 

Chris is a member of the UK’s Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), with a masters in Renewable Energy from the University of East London and a degree in Electrical Engineering from Plymouth University.

Chris Coonick

Maria is a Manager in the Innovation team at National Grid Partners. Maria leads and supports projects targeting solutions for carbon capture and abatement, decarbonization of heat, residential energy efficiency, management of distributed energy resources and subsea cable risk.

With experience leading innovation projects and designing corporate innovation strategies, Maria has helped multidisciplinary teams across industries explore, test, and create value through innovation. She is passionate about purpose-driven innovation and has experience building and scaling ventures: from a local marketplace and social network connecting expeditioners with tour guides and sustainable touristic experiences in Guatemala to a beauty-tech start-up that diagnoses skin conditions with the help of machine learning and AI.

Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree on Innovation, she enjoys spending her free time collecting LPs, playing music, reading about behavioral economics, traveling, and being outdoors with her friends and family.

Maria Fernanda Juarez

Manager

Nick Rancis is a Manager in Innovation at National Grid Partners. Nick focuses on early-stage disruptive and transformative initiatives to address National Grid’s decarbonization ambition and drive value to National Grid’s bottom line.

Nick has over a decade of experience in corporate innovation and venture creation, bringing new and often difficult energy-related technologies into the marketplace. Before joining National Grid Partners, Nick served as Director of Commercial Operations at Ginkgo Bioworks, managing Ginkgo’s spin-off companies in the energy and sustainability sectors. Before his time at Ginkgo Bioworks, Nick served as Director and Lead of Fraunhofer USA’s open innovation, startup validation, and scouting platform. While there he focused on incubating and evaluating dozens of early-stage energy technologies in partnership with Fortune 500 corporate clients including Shell, Exxon, PG&E, NYSERDA, and Toyota. Nick began his career as a co-founder of two venture funded cleantech companies focused in the water, mining and energy sectors.

Over his career, Nick has mentored teams and startups from accelerators, NGOs, and national labs such as the National Science Foundation (I-CORPS); U.S. Department of Energy; Cleantech Open; and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Nick holds a BS in Microbiology from Colorado State University, an MBA from Babson College, and seven patents. He lives in Marblehead, MA, with his wife and daughter.

Nick Rancis

April Chen is Innovation Manager at National Grid Partners.  April is passionate about solving important challenges in the energy sector and brings a breadth of experience from her time working in consulting. This includes advising network companies, regulators and government bodies on price control regulation, innovation strategy and policy. She has also gained experience as a data and analytics consultant, developing and implementing innovative digital solutions to transform organisations.

April is the co-founder of DevUp Volunteering, a non-profit whose mission is to make technology more accessible and remove barriers to technology for people and organizations.

She spends her free time in nature, either hiking or rock-climbing.

April Chen

Marc is a Manager in the Innovation team at National Grid Partners.  Marc has developed several high impact projects spanning from carbon sequestration to DERs. He has worked closely with various business partners, led workshops and designed pilots with dozens of internal and external stakeholders. Marc is passionate about leveraging the power of innovation and technology to solve the world’s sustainability challenges. He is an advocate for design thinking and for taking a creative, customer-centric approach to innovation. He has led projects applying the design-thinking methodology and created training sessions for employee development programs. His prior work experiences include Liberty Mutual’s Corporate Strategy & Research team and Citizens Bank’s Operational Excellence team, where he tackled consulting projects across the enterprises.

Marc is a Swiss native and fluent in German and Mandarin Chinese. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, skiing and hiking.

Marc Gut

Brett is Vice President, Business Development at National Grid Partners. Brett’s wide experience of both field execution and operational management bridges gaps between venture and utility cultures, playing a key role in getting operational technology tested and deployed. Before joining NGP, Brett spent over a decade at National Grid. In roles such as Director of Business Systems & Compliance he led the team responsible for deploying the strategic roadmap for enterprise-wide construction and project management systems. In addition, Brett held positions in the Office of the COO for electric and gas operations; Safety, Health & Environment; and Capital Delivery.

 He holds an MBA from Suffolk University and a BS in Marketing & Business from Syracuse University. He lives in Melrose, MA with his wife and their two children.

Brett Chandler

Brett Chandler, VP of Business Development at venture investor National Grid Partners, explains the key role his team plays helping energy utilities "learn to speak startup" (and vice versa).

Connecting startups to the energy ecosystem

Daniel is  Director, Business Development at NGP. Daniel is the recipient of  the inaugural president’s award for strategic contributions to National Grid’s core businesses.  Before joining National Grid Partners, Daniel was the founder of Thimbleberry Research L.L.C., a professional services firm with several large clients. Previously, Daniel was a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group and spent a decade at Intel Capital, where he led finance activities for the Enterprise and New Devices investment sectors.  He began his career at the investment bank D.A. Davidson & Co.

Daniel is a CFA charter holder, a licensed CPA, and a Certified Management Accountant. He has an MBA with distinction from Cornell University and graduated magna cum laude from the College of Idaho. He also completed the Private Equity & Venture Capital executive education program at Harvard Business School.

Daniel White

Eliza is Director, Business Development at NGP. Eliza supports New England and Future of Electric stakeholders by connecting them with innovative startups in areas including DERMS, predictive maintenance, grid enhancing technologies, data science and security, and energy modeling.  Before this Eliza was Director of M&A Project Management at National Grid Ventures where she led project management for renewable energy transactions including the acquisition of Geronimo Energy in 2019 and an offshore wind JV partnership with RWE in 2021. Eliza has spent almost a decade at National Grid across a variety of areas including the Customer Organization, New Energy Solutions and Global Procurement. During this time, she led partnerships and procurement for demand management, AMI, and solar programs, among others. Eliza has experience engaging stakeholders and guiding initiatives from program design and regulatory approvals to sourcing strategy and implementation. Prior to National Grid, Eliza was an EH&S Leadership Associate at United Technologies Corporation focusing on global sustainability and field safety.

Eliza has a Master of Environmental Management with a concentration in energy from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

Eliza Tortorella

Luke is Director, Business Development at National Grid Partners. Prior to joining in December 2022, Luke worked at National Grid’s System Operator business in the UK. As Interconnector Manager, he led the team responsible for developing innovative ways to deploy the 20GW of new interconnectors planned by 2040.

Luke began his career with National Grid in 2001 and has held senior project and leadership roles within Electricity System Operation, Procurement, and Gas Transmission. He holds an BA Hons in Economics from the University of Leicester, as well as being Prince2 qualified. He lives in Warwick with his wife and their two children.

Luke Wainwright

Xiaolong is a Director, Business Development at National Grid Partners. Prior to taking this role,   Xiaolong supported the innovation activities across the group as Venture Fellow. He launched and ran Future Forum which works to embed the innovation and entrepreneurial culture within National Grid and was part of the team developing the NextGrid Allliance. Before his time at National Grid Partners, Xiaolong worked at National Grid in various positions specializing in power system design & operation, renewable energy integration, UK electricity regulation, and corporate strategy development and delivery.

He holds PhD and BEng (Hons) degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Manchester (UK). He is a Charted Engineer registered with IET and Engineering Council UK. He is also an Executive Member of CIGRE UK National Committee.

Xiaolong Hu

Joshua is Chief of Staff, National Grid Partners and Executive Advisor to Steve Smith, President of National Grid Partners.  

Joshua joined National Grid in 2015 as a commercial negotiator and went on to lead teams in Markets, Operational Strategy and Customer Success. He previously held seats on the Senior Advisory Group for Prisma GmbH based in Germany, and the Uniform Network Code Panel, which oversee changes to UK gas transportation arrangements including trading. 

From 2022-2023, he led the UK Gas Transporters Taskforce to source gas transmission and distribution equipment from UK suppliers and distribute it to parts of Europe that have been affected by conflict, and in February 2023 he led the Commercial Markets Team through the £4.2bn sale of Gas Transmission from the National Grid Portfolio. 

Joshua is a Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and holds a degree in Engineering and Business from the University of Warwick.

Our Team

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