YouSaid · the spoken record

Mary Powell

lines on the record: 26
first: 2022-06-25
most recent: 2022-06-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“At stake is just losing the opportunity of how fast we could scale if we don't keep getting faster, better, stronger. What's at stake is like we want to be that beloved trusted partner of customers. We want to be that solution for customers to deliver them an energy future that is more sustainable, that's more cost effective, where they feel more safe and secure in their home. We've streamlined layers of management. Like I hate bureaucracy. Can't stand it. I can't stand it. When you have a lot of bureaucracy in an organization, right, the customer feels that. Getting things done feels a little bit harder and takes few too many phone calls, right? How do you keep the necessary components of a control structure, of a leadership structure, right? But build it in a way that is as streamlined as possible for the customers we serve and the employees who serve them.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What has made this feel like a meaningful and impactful role every single day has been my connection with the work, the real work that we do. Why wouldn't you want to have that joy, that learning, that connection with the work that you do? And I find actually a lot of leaders don't do that. And the ones then that do seem to all say the same thing, which is, wow, like that gives me drive. It feeds that passion and being the ambassador of change.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Culturally, I love organizations that are fast, fun, and effective. And I feel like the whole work I did at Green Mountain was about becoming the unutility at Sunrun. There was a level of urgency. Let's get to the point. Let's talk about what really matters. And then let's scale. So that was very clearly a part of the culture that permeated the board.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Over the years, I've had people whether it's their interviewing for a board seat or whether they're interviewing at a company. And I always say the same thing, which is whatever you do, be yourself because you don't want them to hire the wrong person. You don't want to morph yourself into like this Uber formal culture of a board if that's not who you are, because you're not going to do your best. You're not going to contribute, and they're not going to benefit. So I think culture is super important. And that's one of the reasons, like I actually always said Sunrun was my favorite board.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Team here has used those exact words like wow, you hit the brutal facts dead on, but you do it with such optimism and high energy. I'm like, yeah, I think I was born an optimist. Do I get discouraged by things? Yeah, but then it's like, well, what am I going to do with that? Am I going to drive that towards high energy and optimism to tackle it or just live in despair?”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“a woman. And I remember going to my first CEO's meeting and feeling a little awkward. It just felt like nobody really wanted to talk to me. And I was kind of like, okay, I'm just going to do what I want to do because I'm not going to waste time or energy trying to fit in or fit the mold. I basically just leaned into being an outsider. I definitely do feel frustrated that we haven't made more progress and kind of in”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's not changing fast enough for sure. I've tried to lead the change I want to see. There were many things we did at Green Mountain that were very different and viewed as innovative. My leadership team was actually from a gender perspective pretty much evenly split, which I think was the only utility leadership team I know of in the country. At a personal level, I have always felt like an outlier. And it's not just because of my gender. I was raised in a theatrical family. Like I actually felt sorry for business people. I never wanted to be one. I went to an art high school. I got an associate's degree. Like I call myself the accidental executive. So really for me, it was powerful to sort of just lean into being an outlier. It gave me great freedom. When I became CEO at Greenmont and Power, I think I was one of three in the entire United States of an investor-owned utility.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's no doubt that for a large swath, creating a planet run by the sun and being a part of the solution for climate change is a huge motivation. Is that for all of them? Absolutely not. So many recently I've talked to like they want to be part of the future, part of newer technology. Some folks just want to put food on the table for their family and want to work for a company that they feel like respects them, right? So you're going to have all different drivers for folks. And it's all good, right? It's all good.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In their journey, because it isn't about my reason for being passionate about what I do, it's about their reason for being passionate about how we can help them.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why I think we are so much at this tipping point solar poles across the country, across political party, right? It pulls the highest. It's always pulled in the 90s in terms of like customer favorability. And you're right, Bob. There's going to be a lot of different reasons that people want to go solar. And yes, a certain percentage of them, absolutely. It's about savings. But then that's great because like some of the numbers I looked at just yesterday of what's going on in Nevada, what's going on in California with peak pricing this summer, I mean, I saw numbers as high as 50 cents a kilowatt that utilities will be charging. So this gives those customers a chance and an opportunity to save money. And then there's a bunch of customers that they do it for value reasons. There's a bunch of customers that just want to be more independent. They don't like feeling so dependent on things they can't control. We try to always meet customers wherever they are.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have like some virtual power plants, like we do have now the utility in Hawaii that is being very innovative. If you have Green Mountain Power, you do have a couple examples of leaders facing also that were hitting this tipping point. And this is what customers want. What I see holding back the leaders is the system that they operate in. So both in the context of their own imagination, I think it holds them back. There are many that are still dabbling in a way. A pilot of like a hundred if you have like a million customers. And then there are some that really seem to want to combat climate change. But then they also do operate in a system not built for speed nor innovation.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never have to worry about an outage. And then you, you get to then leverage those resources to make the grid operate more cost effectively and more resiliently.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was chasing distributed generation ideas even before solar was mainstream. We were the first utility in the country to actually propose to our regulators to pay customers to go solar. Like as you know, most utilities are still fighting any kind of compensation for customers for their energy, right? They go solar. It wasn't just that the grid itself is like 40 some odd percent economically efficient. It wasn't just that we needed to move to clean energy fast. It was also seeing your customers without power, seeing the effects of climate change on them and knowing that there was no utility solution for providing the kind of resilience when we provide solar plus storage in their homes. You create these homes that are then these little virtual power plants and these folks.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my gosh, yes. The work I was doing in Vermont, you know, I used to say, let's face it, it's grandpa's electric system. It's fundamentally like an old technological way to think about delivering energy. That's why I became so fixated on like, how do we just move to that next grid of the future where, again, the utility has this role, but it's way more a conductor of the orchestra having thousands of points of storage around the system. It's a culture that's been around a long time. And then you overlay the politics of energy. You overlay the regulation of energy. And again, yes, it's a system built for slow and no.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For me, a big part of my need to move on was I'm so passionate about driving this transition. And I was getting tired by the level of, frankly, accolades we were getting, proportionate to how fast we actually could scale because we were a regulated utility. So like even being noted as like the most innovative utility, winning awards, even within that because of the whole structure of being a utility, which is a system built for slow and no, like it's built for slow and no. And we broke that mold. We moved fast by those standards. But those standards were wearing the crap out of me. I needed to be in a role doing work where I felt like I could run as fast as I can run with the organization. Not have artificial constraints. And so it feels so good to be with a company where, again, like the only”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. I mean, again, that's a way to look at it. I mean, I didn't really appreciate that the Ford F-150 has been the top-selling vehicle in the United States of America for 40 years. That's crazy. And now we're partnering on the electric version of it. But then again, you drive around, Bob, and there's a lot of people that still need to adopt electric vehicles. So back to like, is it about competition or is it about we're at a state of abundance? Everybody get your ore in the water and row. Like, let's go. That's my view is let's go.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I honestly don't view us or myself as competing with Tesla. In fact, they're an important partner. We put power walls in customers' homes. And the reality is this problem we're all facing is massive. We should all be in a state of abundance in the context of to solve the problem, to get the kind of adoption we need to get in time to save the human race. We need to all win. So you can't be at 4% of the market with 80 million addressable homes and spend a lot of emotional or intellectual energy thinking about others that are trying to move towards that same future. You've got to use all of your intellectual and emotional energy on like how to scale and how to scale fast. I should note though, we're like the largest in the context of having residential storage in homes in the United States.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everything. Everything. You know, and as I knew it would be because I've been a CEO before and you appreciate your board members and your board members appreciate the company. You know, it's totally different when you're actually in the seat.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do it because I believe it's the right way to lead, leading from the front, creating connection with the amazing folks that work at Sunrun. But I learn every time you learn how hard somebody's job is. You learn about tools and extra things we can do to make jobs easier, to be more supportive. One customer I'll never forget. I was in their living room and they're going to get an EV as soon as they go solar and then they want to get heat pumps. So of course I said, oh Well, then maybe we should size you up, right, only to find out in that jurisdiction the utility doesn't allow that. I literally can't prepare you for the future. So you learn about things that you need to work on and improve from a policy perspective.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your house. I know how cool is that To scale at the pace that I want to scale from just a climate perspective, we need as many customers converting as fast as humanly possible. I'm out and about. I am boots on the ground leader and so I've been at like 36 different locations of ours. I've been meeting with installation crews and really universally I find that people are all excited. I see them on the job site and they're like, oh, my cousin wants to work here like this, my friend, my neighbor, you know, so it's really heartening in the context of being on the front lines of battling climate change.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were the nation's leader, and we're growing incredibly faster. And now with our partnership with Ford on the F-150, Lightning, which I'm sure you've followed, right? Yes. Like now we have...”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like routinely get your power just shut off. So it is fundamentally a value proposition for customers that is becoming more powerful by the day, let alone the incredible energy cost inflation around us and the utility rates that are going up in many cases double digits all around the country.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh no, it's not complicated at all. It really isn't. Bob, like, you don't even have to own this stuff if you don't want to. We can take care of it for you. Basically, you just get to, again, move to this kind of energy source at a rate that's lower than you're paying for energy already, right? And is stable and isn't going to go up and is powered by the sun. I feel like we are at a tipping point. It's very different than a couple of years ago. We started selling in Costco, Home Depot. You saw ADT get into solar. So the good news is I feel like it is becoming for customers, not that technology that like your strange uncle had 10 years ago. And then the other piece is, you know, we're having more and more climatic events that are making people feel insecure in their own homes if you're spending time in California like I am these days. You know, you also”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's all about making people aware of their options. It's still so stunning to me that I run into people that literally don't realize that solar and storage and the services we provide are economically accessible to all. Yes, we do see demand going up, and then we work really hard to make customers aware that they have alternatives for how they power their homes, how they power their lives, how they power their transportation.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where we sit is just in a place of having to move as fast, as humanly and technologically possible to the cleaner, more cost-effective future. I've been working on this for a long time. None of the things that are happening in many ways are surprised to me relative to the perilous nature of relying on fossil fuels. My work at Green Mountain, it was all about accelerating what I always viewed as a customer-led revolution to distributed energy technologies. And so now leading the country's largest solar storage and now EV transformation company, it is the time to move as quickly as we can to not just harness the demand, but to again accelerate this customer-led revolution.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's face it, it's Grandpa's electric system. It's fundamentally like an old technological way to think about delivering energy. How do we just move to that next grid of the future? Oh no, it's not complicated at all. It really isn't. You get to move to this kind of energy source at a rate that's lower than your paying for energy already and is stable and is powered by the sun. I feel like we are at a tipping point. Get your oar in the water and row like let's go. That's my view is let's go.”
2022-06-25 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Solar energy’s time to shine, w/Sunrun’s Mary Powell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT