Renewable Energy, Clean Tech and Sustainability Capabilities and Case Studies
New Leaders for New Challenges
The economics and politics of sustainability initiatives are driving demand for a new breed of leadership.
Over the last decade, the topics of clean technology, energy and sustainability have moved from the periphery to the center of the global economy. Established and emerging companies, along with private equity and venture capital firms, are making sizable investments as they stake out their areas of the market. Governments have made sustainability and the technology needed to achieve it a key component of both environmental policy and economic development. The question no longer is whether this trend will take hold but rather when large markets will coalesce and which technologies and companies will prevail. Current global economic conditions and gyrating energy prices have made operating and investment conditions challenging in the short run, but industry players nonetheless are moving to capture mind share and press their speed-to-market advantage.
The influence of clean tech, energy and sustainability extends beyond the diverse array of companies focused on this market space. Sustainability has become a strategic leadership issue in virtually every industry as enterprises rethink everything from product design to facilities strategies in the face of regulatory developments, increasing scarcity of resources and rising costs. Forward-thinking companies are appointing chief sustainability officers to proactively address these issues and turn them into opportunities for growth.
Identifying and hiring clean tech, energy and sustainability leaders to meet this growing demand are complicated by two factors:
•The nascent state of the industry means there are very few senior executives already within the sector who have a proven track record at scale.
•The hybrid nature of sustainability requires knowledge and experience across a broad range of disparate fields and a unique set of leadership competencies that can be difficult to find in a single individual.
Clean tech companies require proven entrepreneurial leaders who understand the energy business, can navigate rapidly changing markets, and know how to lead the development and commercialization of new technologies and business models. But leaders from traditional energy companies may not have had the level of experience working within entrepreneurial environments that sustainable energy organizations require. Likewise, few technology executives with a track record of managing innovation also possess deep familiarity with the energy industry. The same challenge applies in finding sustainability executives for companies in other industries, who must combine an understanding of a specific company or industry, deep knowledge of sustainability issues and the ability to bring and implement the appropriate technologies and perspectives.