Radial Power Management Team

John Bates

John Bates

Chief Executive Officer

John Bates has more than 30 years of domestic and international energy experience in development, project acquisition, EPC contracting, purchase power agreement origination and contracting, project finance, fund raising, and team development.

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John has held senior positions in NRG Energy, Sunnova Energy, and TXU/Luminant. As SVP of Operations at Sunnova Energy John was part of the executive team and was responsible for sales, channel partner development, product development, supply chain, and operations. During his 13 years at NRG Energy, he held senior positions as SVP of Supply Chain, COO of its nuclear development joint venture with Toshiba, and SVP of NRG Solar and a member of its 5-person executive team that successfully IPO’d NRG Yield. He led NRG’s commercial distributed solar business for large national customers.

His roles in NRG were commercially focused in supporting or leading project development and operations across multiple generation technologies. Prior to NRG John was VP of Development at TXU in a leadership role in restructuring the company’s corporate functions and its $10B development program, leading to the largest LBO at that time in the US. John spent the initial 10 years of his career at Chevron Corporation in various roles in shipping, trading, and logistics.

John holds a B.S. from United States Merchant Marine Academy and an M.B.A. from the Cullen School of Business at University of Houston.

John King

John King

Chief Financial Officer

John has 25 years experience in the Energy and Power industry in various roles spanning finance, capital markets, corporate development, treasury and strategy. For the last 7 years, he held senior positions in the distributed solar and battery storage sector.

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In the distributed solar generation (DG) and battery storage (DS) sector, John served in roles of increasing responsibility as Head of Strategy & Corporate Development for Mosaic, SVP Capital Markets at Loanpal, Interim CFO of Sunfinity Energy’s Commercial and Industrial (C&I) Solar Division, and SVP Finance & Assistant Treasurer at Sunnova (NYSE: NOVA).

Prior to joining the DG & DS space, John spent 18 years in various sell-side and buy-side roles in the energy and power industry. He has also held positions as Board member and advisor to various growth-stage companies.

John holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Managerial Studies from Rice University, cum laude, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he graduated with honors.

Ed Kent

Ed Kent

Chief Operating Officer

Business executive and mechanical engineer with over twenty-nine years of experience in the Marine and Power/Energy industry. Consistent record of achieving substantial improvements in operations metrics and overall P&L results on diverse energy projects.

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Particular strengths in operations management, leadership, business strategy, contract negotiation and management, maintenance and repair, business development and asset optimization.

Ed joined East West Power in 2010 as Senior VP of Operations, then held a position as Executive President, and eventually he was appointed as President & CEO, a position he held since 2017, where he was responsible for all business unit operations.

Prior to East West Power, he was Senior VP of Operations at Marubeni Sustainable Energy Inc., there he was entrusted with being the company’s key representative on every operating project.

He has also worked for DG Energy Solutions, Pantellos Group, Chevron, MAN and Verde Energy. Ed holds a B.S. Degree in Marine Engineering from The United States Merchant Marine Academy. He also holds a U.S. Coast Guard Licensed as Chief Engineer and was honorably discharged from the US Naval Reserves.

Hector De La Garza

Hector De La Garza

Senior Vice President of Strategy and Portfolio Development

Héctor has over 8 years of experience in the Energy and Power industry in the E&P, midstream and power generation segments with functional focus in finance, M&A and strategy.

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Previously led financing and development efforts for Starmex Energy a private equity sponsored development company focused on Mexico and the United States. Hector served as V.P. of Finance and Business Development in Prana Power (Mexican IPP) in which he was responsible for the acquisition and financing of a 108MW of solar PV plant and the acquisition and development of additional 200MW. Additionally, he was responsible for the formation of a Distributed Generation business which deployed US$10MM+ in onsite C&I systems in Mexico.

Prior to Prana, he was Senior Associate for Artha Capital where he participated in the deployment of the first energy and infrastructure fund raised by Artha. Previously, he participated in Strategy and Operations at Schlumberger and Equity research at Credit Suisse.

Héctor holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with concentration in finance from ITAM in Mexico City where he graduated top 5% of his class.

Janny Gandhi

Janny Gandhi

General Counsel

Janny Gandhi is a projects attorney, serving as in-house counsel for all activities of Radial Power, including M&A, development, procurement, projects, financing, and corporate governance.

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Janny started as a projects and project finance associate at White & Case LLP, where she supported on international energy projects and M&A, including a $1.3 billion divestment by a U.S. energy major of its U.K. assets and a $1 billion offtake agreement in West Africa. Prior to joining Radial Power, Janny served as Legal Counsel for TotalEnergies’ renewables team, on the full scope of their offshore wind projects and utility-scale and DG solar projects, from acquisition through diligence, development, procurement, EPC, financing, offtake, and O&M, including negotiating EPC and module supply contracts for utility-scale solar projects totaling more than 1,000MW.

Janny holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Letters with Special Distinction from the University of Oklahoma and Juris Doctor with Honors from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and has native fluency in Hindi and Gujarati.

New Aubrey Gunnels

Aubrey Gunnels

Vice President of Portfolio Development

Aubrey leads Radial Power’s EV charging business unit. Aubrey has over 10 years of experience in the transportation and infrastructure industry focused on funding programs, technology innovations, and climate impacts.

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With a background in public sector consulting, Aubrey has closely followed market trends in the mobility sector, collaborating with major road networks, urban transportation organizations, and state-wide initiatives to build reliable and modern infrastructure systems.

Within the EV charging market, Aubrey has deep expertise in funding programs, monetizing charging systems, and innovation trends. She regularly speaks at events on decarbonizing transportation systems and the charging needs to meet climate goals.

Aubrey started her career as a systems engineer and worked at a number of infrastructure start-ups and at large corporations like Caterpillar construction and Wells Fargo.

Aubrey holds an MBA from London Business School and B.S. Degree in Systems Engineering from George Washington University.

Steven Panagiotou

Steve Panagiotou

Vice President, Business Development

Steve leads battery storage development activities at Radial Power. He has over 8 years of experience in the utility scale and distributed battery storage sector. His experience includes EPC contracting, project development, procurement, program management and new product introduction.

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Steve joins Radial Power from FlexGen, a leading battery energy storage integrator where he held commercial and operational roles and most recently served as strategic account executive. He supported international and domestic business development and contracted over 2.6GWh’s of battery energy storage projects.

Prior to entering the renewable energy space, he served in the U.S Army for over 10 years as a Green Beret with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Steve holds a B.S. Degree in Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire, and an MBA from Rice University.

Gerritt Ewing

Gerritt L. Ewing, Jr

Senior Vice President, Treasurer

Gerritt Ewing has had over 40 years of domestic and international energy experience in utility scale power and renewable energy projects. He has served in senior management positions demonstrating expertise in Corporate and Project finance, Treasury functions, Insurance programs and start-up companies.

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Gerritt was one of the Founders and CFO/Treasurer of Sunnova International, a retail solar company now trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NOVA). Prior to this, he served as CFO of Tessera Solar, a start-up company developing and financing power projects using the Stirling energy technology. Mr. Ewing also served as Assistant Treasurer at TXU Energy in Dallas, TX working on general corporate finance matters for the regulated and unregulated businesses. Prior to this, Gerritt served as Vice President of Entergy Corporation in the unregulated subsidiary developing and financing renewable energy Projects. In this role he served 4 years in Entergy’s London Office and closed financing on about $2.0 billion in project financings. Prior to these roles, Mr. Ewing worked for 15 years in corporate banking in the energy sector for Security Pacific (now BofA) and Marine Midland Bank (now Hong Kong Shanghai Bank).

Mr. Ewing holds a B.A. Degree in Economics from Lafayette College in Easton, PA and a Masters Degree in Financial Management from the Pace Graduate School in New York, New York.