Partnership opportunities

Leo is the head of strategy and a member of the Executive Leadership Team at AES, reporting to the Chief Executive Officer. A leader with substantial international experience, he has led strategy, finance and M&A teams in the US, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

In his current role, Leo leads the design and execution of AES’ global strategy, oversees the company’s growth investments, manages global risk management and heads a unit to incubate new businesses with the potential to become transformative, high growth platforms.

He sits on the Board of Directors of Dayton Power & Light in the US, of AES Gener in Chile, and of AES Tiete in Brazil. Leo previously served as the Europe Chief Financial Officer, managing businesses in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. In his 13 years with AES, he has held leadership positions at both the corporate and business levels. Leo managed mergers, acquisitions, divestments, and restructurings throughout AES’ global portfolio. In Brazil, he ran teams in charge of strategy, financial planning, risk and investments.

Leo worked for Ernst & Young prior to joining AES. He has a degree in Business Administration from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, and has completed executive business and leadership programs in the London Business School, Georgetown University, and University of Virginia.
 

Robert Trinnear is a widely respected expert in risk management and financial derivatives with two decades of industry experience. He brings invaluable strategic insight to The Energy Authority (TEA), leading trading services across all commodity types for TEA’s clients in the East Coast markets.  An entrepreneur by nature, Mr. Trinnear is spearheading TEA’s exploration and integration of blockchain technology. Mr. Trinnear’s expertise in both blockchain technology and energy make him a highly sought-after speaker at conferences across the country. His lengthy history of leadership roles at TEA gives him a unique perspective on the specific needs of clients as they adjust to significant change and opportunity in the energy markets.

In addition to leading one of public power’s most active trading desks in the nation, Mr. Trinnear was the Managing Director of Southern Horizon Consulting, where he specialized in financial risk management for clients in the technology, energy, and financial industries. He also worked for Tyson Foods Inc. and Mirant Corporation where he held a variety of trading and structured finance roles.

Mr. Trinnear holds a master’s degree in finance from Georgia State University, and a bachelor’s degree in management from Trinity College, Dublin. He also has an advanced diploma in business studies from the Dublin Institute of Technology and an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For nearly twenty years Ilia Bouchouev has been managing the global derivatives business for Koch Industries, the world second largest privately held company. Koch's derivatives group operates globally with trading desks in New York, Houston, London and Geneva with the focus on energy trading. Ilia also serves as a President of Koch Global Partners, proprietary trading group specializing in trading foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives. Ilia has PhD in Applied Mathematics, and has been a regular speaker at various industry conferences.

Nodal Exchange is a commodities exchange providing participants the ability to trade and central counterparty clear hub, zone and nodal power futures and options contracts in North America achieving over $35 Billion in notional value open interest and 45% market share in monthly futures open interest. The company also offers natural gas, environmental and trucking freight contracts.  Nodal Clear, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nodal Exchange, is registered as a derivatives clearing organization and acts as the central counterparty clearing house for Nodal Exchange contracts.  Nodal Exchange became part of the EEX Group in May 2017.  Mr. Cusenza led Nodal Exchange to its commencement of trading in April of 2009 and the market has seen great growth since its launch. 

Mr. Cusenza has over thirty years of experience in building and managing businesses. He was co-Founder and co-President of 23andMe, a personal genetics company which Time Magazine identified as “The Best Invention of the Year” and which has now achieved “unicorn” status.  He was also the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Alliance Management at Perlegen Sciences. He was part of the Senior Management Team of Capital One Financial during a period of great growth in the 1990s. Prior to Capital One Financial, he was a Vice President and Partner at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman) for nearly a decade focusing on financial services. He also worked for IBM early in his career. Mr. Cusenza holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Gary Taylor is Head of Commodity Risk for BP's NAGP commodity trading unit and Chief Risk Officer for BP Energy Company, a registered swap dealer under Dodd Frank, with headquarters in Houston, TX. BPEC and NAGP participate in a variety of domestic and global commodity markets including natural gas, power, NGLs, chemicals, and emission credits.

Prior to BP, Gary was a Director in KPMG's Financial Risk Management consulting practice, Controller of a capital markets hedge fund, Head of Origination and Structuring for Enron's Weather Derivatives desk, a Market Risk Manager at Enron, and to start his career, an auditor and consultant with one of the Big 8 Accounting firms.

Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University (‘92) and received his CPA license in NY State in 1996

Dr. Zhukovsky has worked as a "quant", a manager, and a director of Energy Portfolio Risk Management at National Grid for more than ten years. He also has been serving as a chair of Commodity Management Committee and a Director of Quantitative Risk and Financial Reporting. Dr. Zhukovsky specializes in applying advanced mathematical and computational techniques to the real-world energy risk problems, developing risk reporting, advanced risk metrics, and valuation models. He played a key role in three Energy Risk Management and two Data Management System implementations. Before joining National Grid, he worked as an adjunct professor at SUNY at Stony Brook and an analyst/software developer for firms specialized in scheduling, dispatching, and supply chain optimization. He holds advanced degrees in Applied Mathematics and Management and Policy.