For our Q1 issue, we are proud to feature VP of Industry Solutions at AutoGrid Sadia Raveendreen.
One in four college students graduates without knowing where they will land. But Sadia Raveendran, VP of Industry Solutions, industry solutions for AutoGrid, not only knew that she wanted a career in clean energy but began actively planning her path when she was 17 years old.
As a high school student in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, Raveendran was encouraged to research local solutions to global problems as part of her graduation thesis. She investigated energy equity and clean energy and wrote her final essay on how biomass could be used to meet rural energy needs sustainably by generating clean methane.
“As part of my research, I remembered reading that the biomass you generate in a typical farm is enough to serve 75% of the energy requirements for that community,” said Raveendran. “That blew my mind. It was so long ago, but I still remember that. That was when the bug hit.”
In the years since that early project, Ravendreen’s professional journey has paralleled the global energy transition – from utility-scale renewables to cutting-edge clean tech.
Chasing the mission
Raveendran opted to major in physics and economics at Wellesley College for her undergraduate degree – the former so that she could have a solid STEM foundation, and the latter to understand more about the micro and macroeconomic context for clean energy.
When she graduated, the global economy was reeling from a recession, and jobs in the energy sector were difficult to come by. However, Raveendran remained undeterred and landed her first job at Tata Power, the largest power generation company in India.
Raveendran credits her experience at Tata Power with kick-starting her career in clean energy, as it allowed her to be involved in the company’s first utility-scale solar power projects, including the then-largest 25 MW solar project in India. Through her work there, Raveendran realized the importance of policy in catalyzing the growth of clean energy. After a couple of years, she returned to the U.S. to pursue her master’s degree in technology & policy at MIT. While there, she continued her work in clean energy through her research in Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) in Howard Herzog’s group, to better understand how to reduce emissions from traditional sources of energy at scale.
Scaling up renewable energy supply
Raveendran then joined GE in the Renewable Energy Leadership Program, where she had the opportunity to work across functions. Drawn to the product management function as it required collaboration across sales and marketing, engineering and supply chain, she had the opportunity to lead product management for one of the company’s key products. Shortly thereafter, she was chosen to be a part of the first class of the GE-wide Accelerated Leadership Program (XLP) where she focused on product management for wind services.
Shifting to demand & distributed energy resources
After focusing on the supply side of clean energy, Raveendran accepted a position as solutions architect at AutoGrid to build her experience on the demand side. She has been at AutoGrid for nearly five years, during which she has been promoted twice and now leads the team she joined. She was asked by Autogrid Founder and then CEO, Amit Narayan to manage and grow the relationship with various Schneider Electric businesses since their first investment in AutoGrid in May 2019. She credits Narayan for helping to challenge and inspire her to deliver her best in some tough roles. The Schneider engagement ultimately culminated in Schneider Electric acquiring Autogrid in May 2022.
Looking back on her career path, Raveendran emphasized the importance of working in a field where she felt true passion. “If I’m going to spend more than a third of my life working, I want my job to be something that I thoroughly enjoy a job that challenges me intellectually and helps me develop my knowledge base and skill set. It must also be a job, where I like working with other members of the team."
Raveendran also highlighted the challenges of building her team almost entirely through the pandemic, which meant not only finding the right candidates through entirely online interactions but also helping them to ramp up while continuing to engage the new hires virtually. Her experiences at AutoGrid have given her a model for what a modern, flexible, and effective workplace can look like.
Sadia Raveendran Explains Her Role at Autogrid
“I lead the tech pre-sales function at AutoGrid. We work with our customers to understand the problems they are trying to solve today, where they want to be tomorrow, how we can collaborate with them as a technology partner in delivering their business plans and how we can enable them to be leaders in this space.
When you look at EVs, utilities are thinking about how to service and manage the additional load created by the addition of these assets to the network. Meanwhile, as OEMs prepare to shift entirely to EVs, they must figure out new streams of recurring revenues because EVs do not need to be serviced as frequently. This makes for a very interesting dynamic and unique opportunity for our team to deliver industry-leading solutions that meet the needs of the utility, the OEM, and of course, the EV driver.”
Paying It forward
Raveendran also underscores the importance of having professional mentors and hopes that she can “pay it forward” for people who are trying to navigate their career paths. “My first professional mentor was Banmali Agarwala, who I met during my first job at Tata Power. His career path has been inspiring to me, and I have sought his advice during critical junctures in my own path. Then, my first manager at GE, Lauren Thirer, also mentored me through and after GE. I was always struck by how well-regarded she was across the organization and aspired to be that kind of leader – highly credible and damn good at my job! And finally, Rahul Kar, who was my manager until recently, has been instrumental in enabling me to do my best and challenging me to step it up when I needed to. Through the people I have met along the way, I have understood the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are better than you in one way or another – it is inspiring and helps you bring your A-Game!”
Sadia Raveendran is VP of Industry Solutions of industry solutions at AutoGrid. Raveendran has over a decade of experience in clean energy across technologies, regions and functions. Prior to joining AutoGrid, she worked at GE Renewable Energy in product management roles for equipment, services and digital products (internal tools) for the onshore wind business. Before that, she conducted research on carbon capture and sequestration at the MIT Energy Initiative and helped build Tata Power's solar power portfolio in India. At AutoGrid, her work focuses on the demand side of clean energy and effective management strategies for the ever-evolving electricity grid. She works closely with AutoGrid’s customers to design and implement energy flexibility management programs that make them leaders in the energy transition. She graduated from Wellesley College with majors in physics & economics and completed her master’s degree at MIT in technology & policy.
