AutoGrid Expands Management Team, Appoints Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Adds Key Management Roles

Industry-leading virtual power plant (VPP) provider AutoGrid Systems Inc., announced the appointment of the company’s first Chief Revenue Officer, Scott McGaraghan; Chief Operating Officer, Rahul Kar; Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development, Tad Piper; and an expanded management team. McGaraghan leads all of AutoGrid’s revenue-intensive functions, including sales, marketing and industry solutions. Kar, an eight-year veteran at the company, will now head up AutoGrid’s product, engineering and customer delivery teams. Piper leads overall corporate strategy and new strategic partnerships to accelerate growth at AutoGrid.

“Climate change and the race to achieve 100-percent renewable energy have made the world’s need to harness distributed energy resources more essential than ever,” said Amit Narayan, AutoGrid founder and CEO. “Scott McGaraghan, Rahul Kar, Tad Piper and our expanded management team will build on AutoGrid’s decade of innovation and steer the company, our customers and partners through this next phase of explosive global growth.”

As CRO, McGaraghan brings more than 25 years of experience in the cleantech space, and specifically in demand response and VPPs. Formerly VP of International Business Development at Voltus, McGaraghan is an expert in demand response and VPPs for residential, commercial and industrial markets. He spent more than a decade in leadership roles at Nest, where he was responsible for the launch of the highly successful Nest Rush Hour Rewards program. McGaraghan also serves as an advisor to a number of clean energy technology companies and was an early VPP pioneer as a core member of the team at EnerNOC. McGaraghan completed his undergraduate and graduate studies from Stanford University.

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“The clean energy transition is one of the most important challenges of our lifetime, and AutoGrid has led the charge in accelerating that transition,” said McGaraghan. “I’m excited to be aboard as we take the company to the next level.”

Newly promoted to COO, Kar builds on eight years as AutoGrid SVP and GM. Throughout his career, Kar has focused on developing and delivering innovative energy solutions for industries, utilities and the government. He has designed turbomachinery, managed large technology strategy projects for the US Department of Energy and developed machine learning and optimization products for various energy companies. Prior to joining AutoGrid, Kar worked at Navigant Consulting (now Guidehouse) and at Praxair’s Cryogenic R&D Center after completing his graduate studies at MIT.

“Technology innovation is in our DNA at AutoGrid, and I’m excited to take our solutions to the next level,” said Kar. “By bringing together leading customers across the energy sector and extending our reach with Schneider Electric, we’re at the forefront of mitigating climate risk and accelerating the energy transition.”

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As SVP of Corporate Strategy and Development, Piper brings 20 years of experience serving as a catalyst for growth in emerging businesses. A nationally recognized Wall Street research leader in the software and technology marketplace, he has held a range of C-level and leadership positions, driving innovation and sales to achieve rapid growth across multiple industries. Most recently, Piper developed some of the largest demand response resources in the U.S.

“Climate change and the rapid growth in renewable energy resources is driving the energy market’s largest evolution in our lifetime,” said Piper. “AutoGrid has spent the last 10 years preparing for this moment, and I’m excited to join and strategically expand the company in this pivotal period.”

With the global VPP market projected to reach $6.74 billion by 2028, AutoGrid has made a number of other strategic investments in expanding and evolving its executive team. The company now benefits from an extensive list of recently appointed industry veterans:

• Charlie Brasor, VP of Delivery and Customer Operations, most recently led customer success at Voltaiq and previously held leadership roles at Opower, Urbint, Capgemini and AgCert.
• John Perry, VP of Marketing and Communications, has held leadership roles at Hitachi Energy, ABB, GE and Oracle.
• Alex Pratt, VP of Business Development, worked at Metrus Energy and In-Q-Tel and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy SEAL teams prior to joining AutoGrid.
• Anton Prenneis, VP of Strategic Partnerships, is a veteran of IBM, EMC, Dell and Cardinality.io.

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