EDF Welcomes Senior Director to Lead Technology Innovation and Market Adoption Initiative

(AUSTIN – January 7, 2015) Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today announced the hire of Lenae Shirley as Senior Director, US Climate and Energy.

Shirley joins EDF from Power Angels Holdings, a consultancy she co-founded in 2009 that helps start-up companies effectively commercialize their clean-tech solutions. Her former clients represent a wide variety of clean energy technologies: solar, wind (on-shore and off-shore), demand-side energy management, demand response, storage, anti-idle reduction systems, bio-fuels, geothermal, energy efficiency, smart grid, and natural gas. Her involvement in the Department of Energy-funded smart grid demonstration project, led by Pecan Street, Inc., enabled Shirley to provide invaluable counsel of the integration of clean-tech solutions in a real-world setting, including distributed generation, community and residential energy storage, electric vehicles and charging, smart appliances, smart meters (electric, water and gas), and home energy management systems.

Before that, Shirley spent over thirteen years with Applied Materials, Inc., serving in various sales and marketing roles for the world’s largest semiconductor and solar equipment manufacturer. She was responsible for marketing a nine-digit, annual service product portfolio, including identifying and developing new product opportunities to grow revenue. In 2008, she facilitated the development and launch of Applied Materials’ solar services portfolio, which contributed to business growth from $0 to nine-digit annual revenue in less than six months and achieved record-breaking service revenue in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Shirley received several awards for her work at Applied Materials, including two awards for employee of quarter and two awards for exemplary team work.

In her new role at EDF, Shirley will leverage her 25 years of business acumen and demonstrated success in developing and commercializing high-tech and clean technology solutions by using real-world demonstrations to accelerate market adoption and proving that environmental advocacy can be successful through better integration of market intelligence and cutting-edge technology innovation. EDF’s US Climate and Energy program seeks to help accelerate the deployment of large-scale, clean technologies into the nation’s energy system and remake the market for efficiency and innovation in order to reduce the environmental impact of energy production, delivery, and use. We are working to make natural gas exploration safer and cleaner, modernize our outdated energy infrastructure, and break down the regulatory and financial barriers to broad-scale adoption of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other innovative ways to make, move, and use energy.