Season 1, Episode 7: Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street

Suzanne Russo is chief executive officer for Pecan Street, having previously served as its chief of staff and chief operating officer. During her time at Pecan Street, Forbes named her one of five women ‘Using Technology to Blow Up Social Change.’ Suzanne also worked for New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. An urban planner with a masters degree in community and regional planning from the University of Texas at Austin, Suzanne has worked in Africa, China, India and the USA on community-based sustainable development.

In this conversation Suzanne talks about her time in New York at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the skills she learned working on energy efficiency projects there. We discuss her time in Kenya and how that shifted her focus to the human environment as she worked on solving issues related to energy conservation. We touch on the Texas blackout, systems level thinking, and her vision for a data utility regulator to ensure we get the most out of our smart grids, meters, and other sensors that we are going to need if we want to get to net zero.