Honoring Mayor Sylvester Turner
ALLY Energy is honored to present a GRIT Award to Mayor Sylvester Turner for his work in bringing together diverse public and private stakeholders together to create a plan for climate resilience and the energy transition.
Join us as we celebrate Mayor Turner and host the United States Department of Energy, Economic Impact Office for a visit to see the energy capital and what Houston is doing to drive resilience and a just energy transition.
SPEAKERS
Join us for a celebration of the City of Houston's Climate Action Plan and progress on the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Harvey. Hear from the US Department of Energy and industry leaders on what makes a resilience and just transition for the energy capital of Houston.

Catherine Flowers
Co Founder, Energy Well Texas & Equity ConsultantCatherine Flowers has spent 20 years working at the nexus of civic engagement, community development, equity, and climate advocacy.
She Co-Founded Energy Well Texas, a new kind of electric company and serves as the finance chair for the Clean Energy Fund of Texas (the state’s first Green Bank).
Catherine lived in Louisiana for many years when Hurricane Katrina hit, and she subsequently moved her family to Houston. She was hired by the City of Houston to develop the Department of Neighborhoods, whose mission is to improve the quality of life in Houston through people-focused programs and strong community partnerships.
As a consultant, she’s managed national social campaigns, and partnered with elected officials, municipalities, and community organizations. She has held numerous roles on local boards & commissions and executive positions including VP of Capital One Bank where she expanded the affordable housing inventory and mentored Community Development Corporations.
As CEO of Bread of Life, she expanded its services to meet the diverse needs of Harris County and served over 100,000 families after Hurricane Harvey. She is also the founder of Altruistic Endeavors NGO, a disaster relief organization that responds to life disasters. The NGO also operates apiary and urban farms.
Catherine has studied at the University of St Thomas, William Carey, and recently enrolled in a Ph.D. program with a focus on community engagement.

Sonrisa Lucero
Special Advisor, US Department of EnergySonrisa Lucero is Special Advisor for Stakeholder Engagement in the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity.
Sonrisa Lucero was most recently the Equitable Buildings Decarbonization Manager at RMI where she led the efforts to integrate equity into carbon-free buildings policy and advocacy. Previously she worked to advance equitable sustainability and climate policy at the City and County of Denver in the Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency.
A lifelong activist for social justice, Sonrisa is skilled at building coalitions and guiding diverse stakeholders to equitably advance sustainability and combat climate change.
Sonrisa was born and raised in Denver, CO and graduated from Stanford University with an Individually Designed Major, Environmental Systems Engineering.

Gretchen Watkins
President, Shell USA, Inc.As President of Shell USA, Inc., Gretchen Watkins oversees the strategic integration of all Shell businesses in the United States and leads the US Country Coordination Team. Since being named to this post in 2018, she has become the company’s leading voice across a wide range of energy-related policy and societal issues.
From May 2018-June 2021, Gretchen also served as Executive Vice President of Shell’s Global Shales business, overseeing the exploration, development, and production of Shell’s Upstream shale oil and gas portfolio, which included assets in the US, Canada, and Argentina.
Gretchen came to Shell because she admired the company’s forward-looking approach to the global energy transition. Over the last four years, she has advanced those efforts, promoting Shell’s Powering Progress strategy through investments in lower-carbon energy businesses while reducing the carbon intensity of the company’s US portfolio.
Before joining Shell, Gretchen served as the Chief Executive Officer of Maersk Oil. Under her leadership, the company delivered above-target operational and financial results, enabling a safe and successful enterprise sale of Maersk Oil to Total in 2017.
Gretchen began her career as a Facilities Engineer for Amoco in the Gulf of Mexico. She then worked as a Trading Manager for Amoco and BP before commencing an international career that has included a variety of senior executive roles at BP, Marathon Oil, and Maersk. She has led joint ventures and negotiated contracts with countries and companies across the upstream, midstream, and downstream businesses.
Gretchen is a passionate advocate for social and environmental justice. As co-Chair of the Greater Houston Partnership’s Racial Equity Committee, she helped craft a set of guiding principles enabling the region’s business community to address bias, strengthen underserved communities, promote inclusion and remove barriers to achievement.
Gretchen graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and has had executive education at Cambridge and Stanford Universities.

John Berger
CEO and Founder, Sunnova EnergyMr. Berger founded Sunnova in 2012 and has since then served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chairman of the Board. With more than two decades of experience in the electric power industry, Mr. Berger is an energy entrepreneur who has always supported free market competition, consumer choice, and the advancement of energy technology to power energy independence. Before Sunnova, Mr. Berger served as Founder and Chief Executive Officer at SunCap Financial, a residential solar service provider. He also founded Standard Renewable Energy, a provider, and installer of renewable energy and energy-efficient products and services. Mr. Berger received his Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and graduated cum laude from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering.
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ALLY Energy hosts an annual lunch reception for members and guests. This year's lunch will celebrate the 5th Anniversary of Harvey and honor Mayor Sylvester Turner, and host a delegation from the United States Department of Energy, Office of Economic Opportunity and Diversity.
Junior League of Houston, Inc
10:30 AM Registration opens
11:30 AM Opening / Welcome
11:40 AM Honorary GRIT Award: Sylvester Turner, Mayor of Houston
11:50 PM The Rational Middle
12:00 PM Lunch
12:30 PM Fireside Chat: A Resilient and Just Energy Transition
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Sonrisa Lucero, Special Advisor, US Department of Energy, Office of Economic Impact and Diversity
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Gretchen Watkins, President and Country Chair, Shell USA
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John Berger, Chairman, President and CEO, Sunnova Energy
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Catherine Flowers, Co-Founder, Energy Well Texas & Equity Advocate
1:15 PM - Closing
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Houston is home to many energy companies, both large and small. It's the energy capital of the world with infrastructure and a workforce that power Americans and beyond. Learn more about the energy transition by visiting the following resources:
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A limited number of tables and tickets remain and first come first served. We expect to sell out.
If you were invited, please use the sponsor code sent to you via email.
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ALLY Energy wishes to thank the host committee for its efforts to help bring together a visit for the US Department of Energy.
- Catherine Flowers, Co-Founder, Energy Well Texas & Equity Advocate
- Priya Zachariah, Chief Resilience and Sustainability Officer, City of Houston
- Peter Beard, SVP of Regional Workforce Development and Upskill Houston, Greater Houston Partnership
- Lara Cottingham, Chief of Staff, Greentown Labs
- Juliana Garaizar, Head of Houston Lab and VP of Innovation, Greentown Labs
- Barbara Burger, Corporate Graduate, Energy Director, Advisor and Innovator
- Kay McCall, Chairman of the Board, REAL Houston, Board Director, EDPR and Flexitallic
- Stephen Brown, Founder, Clean Energy Fund of Texas, Inc
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Need help?
- If you have any questions, please contact Kim Hotman Harris by logging a ticket with customer support.
- Use the chatbot on the right-hand of your screen 8 AM-5 PM Central Time or call our office at 281-741-5482
HOST
Katie Mehnert, CEO & Founder, ALLY Energy
- US Department of Energy Ambassador: Equity in Energy
- National Petroleum Council Representative to the US Department of Energy
- Fellow, Energy Institute
- Advisor, Clean Energy for America
- Founder, Lean In Energy
- Published author: Grow with the Flow & Everyday Superheroes: Women in Energy Careers
- Contributor, Scientific American, Forbes, The Hill, CNBC, CNN, NASDAQ, Newsweek
- Appeared in Hot Money, a documentary produced by Academy Award-winning actor, Jeff Bridges
- Bachelor of Arts, Louisiana State University and Rice University's Executive Energy Program
- Four-time World Major Marathoner

Katie Mehnert
The modern architect of culture change in energy, Katie Mehnert is the Founder and CEO of ALLY Energy™, the community accelerating connections, jobs, and skills to drive an equitable energy transition. ALLY is an inaugural member of Greentown Labs Houston, the top climate technology incubator in North America.
Mrs. Mehnert has held global leadership roles with BP and Shell in safety and environment during periods of financial crisis, spills, divestment, and globalization. Her corporate path drove her to entrepreneurship to help energy companies prepare for the looming talent shortage and workforce diversity needs to address energy poverty and climate change.
She was appointed an Ambassador to the United States Department of Energy in 2020 and has testified before Congress on the clean energy workforce of the future.
Katie has been published in Scientific American, Forbes, The Hill, CNBC, CNN, and in 2020, she published her first book, Grow with the Flow, Embracing Difference, Overcoming Failure, and Progress with Purpose. She's the co-author of Everyday Superheroes: Women in Energy, a children's book focused on energy careers to be released in 2022. Mrs. Mehnert appeared in Hot Money, a 2021 documentary produced by Academy Award-winning actor, Jeff Bridges and Retired NATO General Wesley Clark on the financial complexities of climate change and finance.
Katie is an Energy Institute Fellow and an advisor to Clean Energy for America. She's a 1997 graduate of Louisiana State University and attended Rice University's Executive Energy education program in 2004. She is also is a four-time World Major marathoner having completed London, Chicago, New York, and Berlin Her husband Mark is VP of Legal with Baker Hughes. They live with their 11-year-old daughter, Ally, in Houston. Bio Download | Photo Download

Laura Aiken
Laura Aiken founded Thrive Leadership after a ten-year career in engineering and construction to help companies help their people thrive. She’s worked and led teams on several multibillion-dollar engineering and construction projects in the energy industry has led DEI programming including strategic planning, inclusive leadership, ally engagement, and business resource groups for over 50,000 employees, and has facilitated resiliency training for a construction workforce of over 6,000 people. Laura is a part of the team delivering our member programming. She graduated from the University of Bath in Chemical Engineering, Biochemical Engineering, Materials and Biomedical Engineering.

Mandy Asberry
Mandy Asberry recently rejoined ALLY Energy as our Head of Technology, Product, and Partnerships. Mandy is responsible for ALLY’s technology (website, community, HR software and CRM). Mandy has a background in federal and state-level politics, along with 12 years of project management in Corporate America; including the oil and gas industry, agriculture, and manufacturing. Mandy earned her MBA in 2016 and her MS in Business Analytics in 2018. Previously, Mandy was the Director of Operations for Pink Petro, now known as ALLY.

Peggy Montana

Adam Quinton
Adam Quinton has invested in and advised several early-stage companies with a focus on diverse founding teams, proudly being one of the first investors in The Muse. He has also served as Chair of the North American Jury for the Cartier Women's Initiative for the past two years.
He is Board member and Treasurer at Holy Cross Energy based in Glenwood Spring, CO as well as Walking Mountains Science Center based in Avon, CO. Adam is a Board member at International House in New York where he has Chaired the Development Committee and been a member of the Executive Committee. He also currently serves on the Finance and Programs Committees of the House.
Previously Adam taught as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in New York City for seven years and was a Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. His last role at BofA was Head of Global Macro Research where he led a team of 175 professionals in 12 countries across the globe. Prior to that, he was a sell-side equity research manager in the USA, Latin America, and Asia was a top-ranked sell-side equity research analyst in all of Europe, Asia, the USA, and globally for telecommunications services.
Adam holds a BA and MA degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, England, and an MBA degree from the Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School at City University, London.

Marianne Robak

John Reed
John is a Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches member. Three organizations certify him as a master coach: Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching, the International Coach Federation, and the MEECO Leadership Institute. He founded and has been a Managing Principal since 2005 at Quinn Reed Associates.
He has undergraduate and MBA degrees from Dartmouth and, as an organizational psychologist, a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia with an internship at Emory University. A Navy veteran, he previously worked in the strategy practice of Accenture and the government practice of CGI. He helps talented people excel further, serving C-suite leaders, partners, boards, executive teams, business founders, and other professionals.
John has 30 years of executive coaching and trusted leadership advising, executive assessment, leadership development, organizational change, and strategy consulting experience globally in the aerospace, biotechnology, chemical, construction, consumer products, defense, education, energy, entertainment, environmental services, the federal government, financial services, healthcare, legal, manufacturing, not for profit, pharmaceuticals, real estate, retail, and technology sectors.
Organizations supported for example: 3M, Abbott Laboratories, AGCO, AIG, Aker Solutions, AlEn, ALLY Energy, AstraZeneca, BASF, Benteler, Black Hills Corporation, BP, Brock Group, Calpine, Cameron, CBRE, CDI Energy Products, Children’s National Medical Center, CIA, Citgo, Clock Spring/NRI, Comerica Bank, Comfort Systems, ConocoPhillips, Covalus, CVS Health, Diageo, Dover Industries, Duke Corporate Education, Duke University Medical Center, East West Bank, EGC Critical Components, Exelon, ExxonMobil, Flix Entertainment, Gulfstream Aerospace, Hines, HydroChemPSC, ION Geophysical, ITW, IvyExec, John Deere, Jones Lang LaSalle, KIPP Schools, Lloyd’s Register, LyondellBasell, Macquarie, Memorial Hermann Health System, NASA, NGP Energy Capital Mgt., NRG, Occidental Petroleum, Oil States Intl., Panasonic, PetroChina, Raytheon Technologies, Recall, Schlumberger, Seyfarth Shaw, Shell, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Songwon Intl., Stepan Co., Sunbelt Steel, Texas Children’s Hospital, The Cameron School of Business at the University of St. Thomas, The CapStreet Group, The March of Dimes, The Menil Collection, The Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University, The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, The University of Houston, The University of Texas at Arlington, The University of Texas at Austin, The UT Health Science Center at Houston, Thomson Reuters, TransUnion, US Foods, Vinson & Elkins and WakeMed Health & Hospitals.
John is a Founding Fellow and Contributing Author of the Institute of Coaching at McLean/Harvard Medical School. His book 'Pinpointing Excellence' for example is a popular guide for evaluating and selecting coaches.
He teaches MBA courses as an adjunct professor and contributes as a speaker and writer. He is the 2013-14 president and a member of the Society of Psychologists in Leadership, and a member of the Society of Consulting Psychology. His psychologist license was granted in 2000.
In volunteering, John cares about education and supporting children and veterans. He has a history of board service, for example as the 2016-17 president of an inner-city Houston school, the Nehemiah Center. He supports institutions including the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Dartmouth College and Deerfield Academy.
He and his wife Perry Ann, a healthcare executive, have four grown children.

Lori Feldman
Lori Feldman is the founder and president of TheDatabaseDiva.com, a sales and marketing consulting firm started in 2005. She trains and mentors CEOs, business leaders, and entrepreneurs on how to exceed revenue goals by building long-term customer relationships. Her practice includes optimizing sales lead workflows, creating and implementing lead nurture campaigns, and setting up marketing automation processes. Lori has written more than 3,000 e-marketing campaigns and is a recipient of the prestigious Direct Marketer of the Year Award. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri and has been an adjunct professor in marketing and social media for St. Louis Community Colleges.

Tri Nguyen
Tri Nguyen is the founder of Tri Nguyen Law Office PC. He has worked with Katie Mehnert since the formation of her first company and ALLY Energy’s parent corporation, Cognovi Communications, and more recently helped the company with its acquisition of Clean Energy Social. Tri’s expertise is in corporate formation, purchases, investment raises, advisory governance, and exits. Tri is also a member of the Houston Executive Advisors. He graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and his Juris Doctor of Law from UH Law Center.

Lee Jourdan
Lee is an independent board director PROS Holdings, (NYSE:PROS) a provider of AI-solutions, where he serves on the Leadership and Compensation Committee and is the lead director for ESG governance. Lee also serves on the board of the nonprofit, SEARCH Homeless Services, in Houston. Previously, he served on the board for Chevron subsidiaries Amata Natural Gas Company and The Electric Generating Company, both headquartered in Thailand.
Lee is recognized for leading international businesses to high-value outcomes, developing strategies to monetize business trends and disrupters, and advancing a more diverse and inclusive corporate culture. He is interested in leveraging his business development and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion expertise as a board member for an international, energy, manufacturing, or services company that recognizes the business potential created by current business disruptions.
At Chevron, Lee led teams from diverse backgrounds and cultures and closed multibillion-dollar projects. As the Vice President of Business Development for Southeast Asia, Lee received the Chairman’s award by leading his team to generate an additional $0.9 billion for the company through the successful closure of a ten-year concession extension with the Thai government and supply agreements with PTT, the Thai national oil company. As Vice President of Commercial and Business Development for IndoAsia, Lee led cross-functional commercial and technical teams to divest a major capital project at 40% above target.
As the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Chevron, Lee helped Chevron be recognized as an industry leader in diversity and led the effort to develop a more diverse and inclusive culture. Lee is a contributor to Harvard Business Review and Hart Energy, and he was recognized by Business Insider in 2020 as one of 100 People Transforming Business in North America.
Before joining Chevron, Lee was the Managing Director of El Paso Global LNG. He led the successful closing of the company’s 20-year capacity contract and won a highly competitive bid to provide commodity and transportation management services to a multi-national independent power producer, generating $40 million in Mark-to-Market value. At Dominion, Lee developed and executed a joint venture with Sabine Pipeline Company to provide unique products and services to the natural gas commodity market. He led the start-up of the largest physical natural gas hub on the continent, the CNG/Sabine Center.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in National Security and Foreign Affairs with a concentration in General Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Lee left the U.S. Army as a Captain after completing five years of service as a logistics officer.

Arquella Hargrove
Arquella Hargrove is a sought-after facilitator, leadership consultant, speaker, and coach dedicated to the transformative and sustainable results of people through development. She is an author of Coaching Perspectives, Leadership Coaching Strategies Chapter. A moderator and frequent panel speaker in the areas of diversity, women in leadership, and social capital, as well as a contributor to publications, such as, Workforce Magazine. She holds 11 licenses and certifications in professional development and coaching. She helps business leaders build stronger, more effective teams and companies. Arquella is a part of the team delivering our ALLY Academy. She received her MBA from Texas Woman’s University.

Shantera Chatman
Shantera Chatman is the author of the Transformative Ally Framework. Shantera helps bridge cultural gaps with interactive, immersive learning experience. Shantera is known for her guiding principles, developing strong cultures, and her successful work within many Fortune 500 companies. She has worked for both large and small consulting firms servicing clients such as NASA and Chevron.
Shantera has led teams for her clients as they successfully rolled out various information technology (I.T.), cyber intelligence, and diversity initiatives. As a transformation specialist and project manager, Shantera has helped Fortune 500 companies engage their user community and adopt significant workplace cultural changes.
Shantera graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Information & Operations Management. She is noted for founding The Chatman Women's Foundation in Houston, Texas. Shantera is a part of the team delivering our ALLY Academy.

Bill Davis
Bill Davis founded Stance Capital to bring to market investment portfolios that mitigate material environmental, social, and governance risks and generate excess returns while at the same time allowing investors to align their portfolios with their belief systems. Prior to forming Stance, Mr. Davis was co-founder and Managing Director of Empirical Asset Management, and Portfolio Manager on EAM Sustainable Equity, a strategy he launched in 2014.
Prior to co-founding Empirical, he was the founder and CEO of Ze-gen, a venture and private equity-backed renewable energy company focused on up-cycling certain waste materials into renewable syngas. Mr. Davis received a B.A. from Connecticut College, and his career in business has included serving as CEO or founder of numerous companies including Database Marketing Corporation in 1986, Holland Mark in 1997, and Cambridge Brand Analytics in 2003.
He serves on the board of the Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation. He also serves on the Board of Ceres, where he also chairs the Ceres President’s Council. Mr. Davis co-leads a shareholder engagement effort within Climate Action 100+, a collaborative effort between UNPRI and Ceres. He has taught Environmental Entrepreneurship at Columbia University Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, and guest lectured at Harvard College, Harvard Business School, MIT/Sloan, and Vanderbilt University.

Claire Broido Johnson
Claire Broido Johnson is a senior operations and finance executive who runs the University System of Maryland Momentum Fund. (MMF) She has a proven track record in creating and managing successful businesses and driving operations (including as founder of SunEdison). She also guided the deployment of $11 billion in economic stimulus funds in 2009-2010 at the Department of Energy (DOE).
Prior to MMF and after DOE, she ran CBJ Energy where she developed a energy efficiency financing product for Serious Energy, launched new products and new states for Next Step Living, and managed energy projects and research for Katerra. She is on the Board of BlocPower.io, the National Sierra Club Foundation, Living Classrooms, and serves as an Advisor for several companies. She lives with her husband and 2 kids in Baltimore.

Christina Sistrunk
Christina Sistrunk has held management and executive roles focused on assessing and delivering next level performance. She has lead organizations across Upstream E&P, both IOC and independent, ranging in revenue from $2- 10B. Prior to her CEO role, Christina was a VP with Shell focused first on Deepwater production and development and then Arctic strategy. She has served on several industry and community boards in addition to the Aera Board of Managers. Christina started her career after earning a BS in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University. Her management training has been supported via formal programs at Amoco and Shell via IMD and University of Houston.

Angela Gonzales

Sarah Smith
Sarah’s passion for people, culture, and all things ‘JEDI’ and comes from over 25+ years of leading, innovating and implementing Talent solutions, Culture Transformations, HR evolutions, DEI Strategies, Leadership development, Recruiting pipelines and workforce engagement. Experienced working with 50k+ global organizations, mid-size companies in growth and scaling startups, in energy, manufacturing, hospitality and healthcare, she ultimately loves to supports others to work inclusively and collaborative to deliver true impact.
- As a keen strategist Sarah supports CHROs and C-Suites in designing, aligning, integrating and communicating their People, Culture, Talent and DEI strategies to their business and teams.
- She uses a unique blend of practical and iterative pragmatism tailored to each organizations to ensure progress and success. She connects and builds trust with those she works alongside, with open and honest communication, passion and energy, strong collaboration skills and a growth mindset which encourages others to join in.
- During her time as a consultant she specialized in defining corporate values and behaviors needed in service of strategy, engaging and equipping leaders in culture and behavioral change and embedding culture by aligning organizational processes and system to culture needed.
- During her time in corporate she led global teams of HR and talent professionals to design and implement new performance management, leadership development, organizational structure, reward and recognition, fresh-out and experienced talent acquisition, succession planning, talent pipelines and culture shifts.
- Sarah has spoken at conferences in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Dallas & Houston, including for the Hispanic Association for Career Enhancement (HACE), the Women’s Energy Network (WEN), and ALLY Energy on the topics of transformation, leadership, performance management, resilience and creating innovative cultures.
- She is a featured in the Rice University Online executive MBA program discussing the realities and challenges of being a change agent beyond the academics of change and most recently has been featured in the podcast ‘Change on the run’.
- Sarah is also a proud working mother of two, who understand only too well, the challenges we face to drive an equitable energy transition, so is and has always been an avid support of the ALLY community, and has the passion and resilience to help us deliver.

Joanne Madriaga

Krystal Williams
