9th Annual Energy Workshop

Pierre-Olivier Pineau

Pierre-Oliver Pineau (PhD, HEC Montréal, 2000) is a professor at the Department of Decision Sciences of HEC Montréal and holds the Chair in Energy Sector Management since December 2013. He is an energy policy and management specialist, with a focus on electricity reforms. He has published many papers on the energy sector, most of them exploring the links between energy and some aspects of sustainable development. He participates regularly in the public debate on energy and has authored many reports for the government and other public organizations. His book The Energy Balance (in French only) was released in February 2023.

He is a researcher and Fellow at the Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations (CIRANO). Before joining HEC Montreal, he was an associate professor at the School of Public Administration, University of Victoria (2001-2006).

Tam Wagner

 Tam Wagner is the Director of Demand Side Management at the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). In this role, Tam provides thought leadership to broad customer-based solutions and leads the IESO’s Demand Side Management team to design and deliver energy efficiency and demand side management programs. Tam has been at the IESO since 2005 and has held increasingly senior roles including in the CEO’s office, Regulatory Affairs, and Operations. Tam also spent a year on secondment with the provincial government, where she helped support the implementation of the government’s Conservation First policy and initiatives. Recent achievements of Tam include leading the IESO’s Emergency Preparedness Task Force and Crisis Management Support Team (two stakeholder forums that include Operations senior leaders across the energy sector) through the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A graduate of the University of Waterloo in Electrical Engineering, Tam is also a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario.

Darren Christie

Darren Christie is the Chief Economist at the Canada Energy Regulator. Darren first began at the regulator in 2007 and brings a wealth of expertise in regulatory and energy market matters. In addition to his extensive experience at the federal energy regulator, Darren began his career at Environment and Climate Change Canada and spent four years in a senior leadership role in the private sector before rejoining the regulator in 2019.

Darren holds a BA (Honours) in Economics from the University of Calgary and an MA in Economics from Queen’s University.

Ehren Cory

Ehren Cory is the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), an impact investor that develops the next generation of infrastructure Canadians need. The CIB has made significant progress during his tenure, building its portfolio of projects which advance action on climate change, create more connected communities, and help close the Indigenous infrastructure gap.

Prior to joining the CIB in November 2020, Ehren was the President and CEO of Infrastructure Ontario, a provincial Crown Agency responsible for financing, building, and enhancing the value of the province’s infrastructure and real estate assets. Between 2001 and 2012, he was a Partner with McKinsey & Company, a global strategy consulting firm, where he served as a leader in the Public Sector and Capital Projects practices.

A recognized leader in sustainable finance and infrastructure investing in Canada, Ehren is involved in several Canadian and international organizations tackling sustainability in relation to finance and the development of infrastructure.

Ehren is a graduate of the MBA program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau France, where he graduated with distinction. He also received an Honours degree in Business Administration (HBA) from the University of Western Ontario.

Malini Giridhar is a strategic and forward-thinking executive from Canada’s energy sector. Malini retired from Enbridge Gas Ontario after more than a decade in various executive roles in regulatory, business development, public and government affairs, energy transition planning, energy conservation, marketing and energy supply. While at Enbridge, Malini had a keen interest in diversity and inclusion initiatives and was the executive sponsor of several employee resource groups for women, ethnically diverse employees and a network for differently abled employees.

Malini has Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and a graduate degree in Economics. Malini was recognized by the Ontario Energy Association (2024) with a Lifetime achievement award and the Women’s Executive Network (2019) as one of Canada’s Top100 women.

Andrew Leach

Julia Frayer

Julia Frayer is a Managing Director with London Economics International LLC (“LEI”), specializing in economic analysis and evaluation of infrastructure assets, such as power plants, natural gas-related infrastructure, electricity transmission and distribution systems, and utilities, as well as market design and expert economic advisory services for regulated and competitive power markets. She has worked extensively in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Julia is an advisory board member with the Institute of Global Sustainability (“IGS”) at Boston University, and an executive board member for Northeast Energy & Commerce Association (“NECA”), one of the oldest trade associations in the Northeast U.S. focused on energy-related matters.

Julia Frayer has extensive experience over the last three decades working on resource planning in both vertically integrated regulated markets and competitive wholesale power markets across North America, South America, and in Europe. Julia co-developed economic evaluation frameworks for ISOs (e.g., the first of its kind, economic benefit framework implemented by CAISO in the early 2000s known as the Transmission Economics Assessment Methodology or “TEAM”), has recommended innovative regulatory rules that modify incentives for utilities around investment and capital planning, and has advised on critical competitive market rules for maintaining an investment signal in organized markets for resources.

Julia’s work is grounded in economic theory, and she frequently uses quantitative techniques and data analysis in her work. Julia has firsthand experience preparing multi-faceted assessments of investment projects to support financing and commercial negotiations, by way of estimating the future benefits of transmission, generation and distribution investments in electric power systems. In addition to the application of power system simulation models, which measure efficiency changes, profits, and consumer surplus changes, she has applied real options techniques for internalizing the extrinsic value of investments. She has also quantified social benefits (such as GDP impacts and employment changes) in economic impact studies using computable general equilibrium models, and assessed direct and indirect environmental benefits, both from the perspective of specific contractual customers as well as the system as a whole.

Julia has also testified on integrated resource planning and served as an independent evaluator of investments arising as a result of regulated and market activities.

Brian Rivard

Brian Rivard is an Adjunct Professor at the Ivey Business School and Director of Research for the Ivey Energy Policy and Management Centre. His area of expertise and study is electricity market design and regulation. Brian has experience as an energy consultant, most recently as a Principal at Charles River Associates. He also worked for the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) as Director of Markets. For almost 15 years at IESO, he helped support the development of market-based approaches to managing Ontario’s electricity system needs. In addition, Brian spent six years as a senior economist with the Canadian Competition Bureau. He has written articles for various publications such as the Energy Journal, Canadian Competition Record, Antitrust Law Journal, and the Journal of Economic Theory as well as chapters included in Competition Policy and Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge-Based Economy and Payments Systems in the Global Economy: Risks and Opportunities. He has also provided expert testimony before the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Ontario Energy Board. He received his MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Western Ontario.

Aaron Engen

Aaron Engen was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer for the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) effective August 2024. Mr. Engen first joined the AESO in 2020 as a member of the AESO Board and has acted as Chair of both the Power System and the Human Resources committees.

Mr. Engen is an accomplished professional with more than 30 years of experience in investment banking and law. He spent 25 years at BMO Capital Markets, where he held increasingly senior roles, most recently as the Vice Chair, Investment & Corporate Banking at BMO Capital Markets. His work focused on energy infrastructure across North America, including power generation, transmission and distribution, natural gas midstream, storage, liquefication and distribution, and liquids storage and transmission. During that period, he co-headed the bank’s Power & Energy Infrastructure group.

More recently, Mr. Engen co-headed BMO’s Energy Transition group, which encompassed key sectors including hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration, low-carbon fuels, critical minerals, renewable natural gas, renewable power generation, energy storage, small modular reactors, cleantech, and sustainable finance.

During his investment banking career, Mr. Engen’s experience included advising clients in merger and acquisition transactions, opportunities and financings, accessing debt and equity in private and public markets and debt in the bank market, capital structuring, strategic corporate initiatives, opportunities and investments, investor perspectives and considerations and regulatory matters involving cost of capital, capital structure and other corporate matters.

Prior to joining BMO Capital Markets, Mr. Engen was a partner at McCarthy Tétrault where he practiced corporate and securities law in the energy and energy infrastructures.

Mr. Engen holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Alberta, as well as a Bachelor of Arts and Science from the University of Lethbridge. He holds an ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Mr. Engen has deep family roots in the province as he and his wife, Lorena, have four Alberta-born sons, all of whom now have their own families, including two children each, who live and work with their spouses in and around Calgary.

Lucia Westin-Eastaugh

Lucia Westin-Eastaugh is a lawyer with McInnes Cooper, practicing in Atlantic Canada. Called to the bar both in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, her practice is focused on energy, environmental, and natural resources law, with an emphasis on regulatory work. She also has experience in construction and aboriginal law. She has appeared on behalf of clients in forums ranging from the Nova Scotia Energy Board to the Federal Court of Appeal.

Lucia has also worked in energy and resource policy for an Atlantic Canadian provincial government. This experience has provided her with insights into keeping up with, and adapting to, an evolving legislative landscape.

With a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University, as well as a Masters of Energy Law from the North Sea Energy Law Partnership, Lucia has developed skills in managing cross-jurisdictional legal challenges and opportunities. Her master’s thesis focused on the federal division of powers and interprovincial transmission lines. She has authored and co-authored a number of publications related to renewable energy and Indigenous Rights. Lucia is thrilled to share her passion for energy and environmental regulation with other like-minded jurist, as the acting Vice-Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Environmental, Energy and Resources Law Section.

Blake Shaffer

Blake Shaffer is an associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary and the co-director of Canada’s Energy Modelling Hub. His research focus is on electricity markets and energy transitions. His published articles have appeared in Nature, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Energy Economics, The Energy Journal, Canadian Journal of Economics, among others. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Calgary, Master’s in economics from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences from Queen’s University. He has held visiting scholar and Fulbright postdoctoral scholar positions at the Toulouse School of Economics and Stanford University. Prior to returning to academia, Shaffer had a 15-year career in energy trading, specializing in electricity, natural gas and emissions markets. Shaffer regularly serves as a policy advisor to the governments of Alberta, British Columbia and Canada on energy and environmental policy matters.

Michael Pollitt

Michael Pollitt is Professor of Business Economics at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He is an Assistant Director of the university’s Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG) and a Fellow in Economics and Management at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He is an Honorary Academic Director Energy at the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University. Michael was the elected Vice President for Publications of the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) for 2020-23 and was external economic advisor to Ofgem from 2007-11. His research interests include productivity analysis, measurement of economic reform impacts and future energy and carbon market design and regulation. Together with Jean-Michel Glachant and Paul Joskow he is the co-editor of Handbook on Electricity Markets (Edward Elgar, 2021) and Handbook on Electricity Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2025).

Derek Olmstead

Derek E. H. Olmstead is the Administrator & CEO at Alberta's Market Surveillance Administrator (MSA). The MSA is mandated to conduct surveillance and enforcement in Alberta's electricity and retail natural gas markets. Prior to being appointed to this position, Derek was responsible for the MSA's electricity-related enforcement and surveillance functions, including as Principal Economist. Derek has also worked at the Alberta Electric System Operator, the Australian Energy Regulator / Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator.

Derek is an Adjunct Research Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Calgary. Derek is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Association of Members of Public Utilities Tribunals (CAMPUT).

Derek holds a Ph.D. in economics and maintains an active research agenda in energy and environmental economics, applied industrial organization, and applied econometrics, with a particular focus on the competitive and regulated aspects of wholesale and retail electricity markets.

Kent Fellows

G. Kent Fellows is an Assistant Professor of Economics and the Director of Graduate Programs for the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. Kent specializes in competition policy and energy and infrastructure economics. Through his academic and policy publications he has provided advice to provincial, federal and international governments, including the government of Alberta, through the Energy Diversification Advisory Committee (2017) and the Economic Corridors Task Force (2021); the European Union as an expert panel member in their global infrastructure benchmarking assessment (2020-2021) and the Senate of Canada for their report on Economic Trade Corridors (2016).

Guy Holburn

Guy Holburn is Professor of Business, Economics and Public Policy at the Ivey Business School. Holburn is the founder of the Ivey Energy Policy and Management Centre and served as Director from 2010-2022. He is currently the faculty lead for the Centre's Electrification Research Program. His areas of expertise are regulation, governance, and business strategy, with a focus on the energy and utilities sectors. He has published widely in top peer-reviewed academic journals and has authored more than a dozen reports on provincial and federal energy policies. He is a Director of London Hydro, a board member of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, and on the Council for Clean and Reliable Energy. Holburn has served as a consultant and advisor to corporations and governments in Canada and the U.S. He has provided advice on economic impact assessments, corporate governance, merger/acquisition strategy, regional economic development strategy, electricity pricing policy, pipeline regulation, and corporate performance improvement. He testified as an expert witness on utility regulation and Crown corporation governance issues at the Muskrat Falls Inquiry in 2018 and 2019. He has also testified in court as an expert witness on business strategy issues in commercial litigation. He holds a PhD and MA from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA Hons. (First Class) from Cambridge University. Previously he worked for several years as a management consultant for Bain and Company in the U.K. and in South Africa.

Greg Robart

Greg Robart | CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER – Smart Grid Innovation Network Canada.

Greg champions the organization in establishing its goals and supports the members as they drive to accomplish them. SGIN strives to evolve the smart energy sector to support the energy transition activities through education, advocacy and supporting system deployment of smart energy technology. Greg was a member of the Canada Electricity Advisory Council, an independent body of 19 experts who provided the Government of Canada with advice on actions needed to achieve our 2035 and 2050 net-zero emissions goals as they pertain to electricity. Prior to SGIN, as Siemens’ Global Lead for electrical utility business transformation, Greg supported utilities in realizing their digitalization strategy.

As a seasoned Professional Engineer, Greg has wide ranging expertise in engineering principles, both for the electrical grid and building systems. This includes critical customer building distribution and distributed control system design and power backup systems, as well as communication infrastructure solutions. Greg has additional experience in industrial power distribution design and commissioning along with power quality and protection co-ordination studies. Within Siemens’ Energy Management (EM) Division, Greg also led the consultants and architects for the PTI consulting group across Canada. Greg was fully engaged with utility customers in their transformation and modernization programs, and supports customers in Canada, the United States and Jordan on concepts ranging from ‘Utility of the Future’, Operations Center of the future, and alternative distributed energy storage solutions.

Sarah Simmons

Sarah Simmons, Director Utilities and Innovation, Power Advisory LLC

Sarah is a seasoned professional with more than 15 years of experience in the electricity sector, based in Toronto. She has worked with a diverse range of clients, including distributors and transmitters, system operators, regulators, utility-scale and distributed generators, energy storage providers, consumers, and emerging technology companies.

Sarah specializes in regulatory and policy matters, utility strategy and business models, market evolution, and non-wires solutions (NWS). She has a strong focus on the energy transition and distributed energy resources (DERs). Her expertise has driven innovation across the sector, as highlighted by her contributions to projects such as the Electricity Distributors Association's Solving Grid-Lock: Our Vision for a Customer-Centric Energy Transition, the Ontario Energy Board's Electric Delivery Rates for Electric Vehicle Charging, and the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator’s Innovation Roadmap and Workplan.

Currently, Sarah provides strategic guidance on electricity policy, regulatory developments, and grid modernization. Her work includes developing utility strategies for the energy transition, designing frameworks for DER participation, and implementing NWS. Prior to joining Power Advisory, she played a key role in developing and launching Ontario's Feed-in Tariff Program at the Ontario Power Authority, which enabled the widespread adoption of renewable energy in the province.

Sarah holds an MSc in Environmental Studies with a specialization in electricity pricing policy from the University of Waterloo and a BSc in Environmental Science with a focus on environmental monitoring and analysis from the University of Guelph.

Jillian Falls

I’m a Senior Economic Advisor with Cenovus Energy’s Government Affairs team in Calgary. My work focuses around the impacts of Federal and Provincial government policy on our business, industry, and the economy. I completed my undergraduate studies in Economics at the University of Calgary, my master’s degree at the University of Toronto, and am a CFA Charterholder. Prior to joining Cenovus I worked as a Senior Economist for the Bank of Canada, and an Economist for the City of Calgary and IHS.

Krista Hills

Partner, Torys LLP

Krista is the co-head of the Infrastructure and Energy practice. With significant expertise in infrastructure and energy M&A, projects, privatizations, and joint ventures and partnerships, both in Canada and internationally, she is widely recognized as an industry leading lawyer in these areas. She has deep experience in complex, innovative, first-of-a-kind transactions and projects and has been the go-to lawyer for clients for their most difficult and complicated matters. With robust insight into all types of energy projects and infrastructure asset classes, she regularly leads large teams working to advance significant projects and transactions. Krista is a repeatedly ranked as a top lawyer in Canada, including in Chambers Global and Chambers Canada, and Lexpert’s Leading 500 Cross-Border Lawyers. She has also received the Women’s Executive Network’s (WXN) Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award and the University of Toronto Arbor Award.

Brandon Schaufele

Brandon Schaufele is the Director of the Ivey Energy Policy and Management Centre and an Associate Professor of Business, Economics, and Public Policy at the Ivey Business School. Prior to coming to Ivey, Brandon was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Ottawa, as well as Research Director of the university’s Institute of the Environment. Brandon’s areas of expertise are regulation and energy and environmental economics. He has published in range of leading academic journals including, among others: the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Journal of Regulatory Economics and Energy Economics. Brandon served as Research Director of a national environmental policy think-tank and was Chair of the Canadian Resource and Environmental Economics Association. He is currently Treasurer and an Officer of the Canadian Economics Association. Brandon has testified before provincial and federal governments, participated in hearings on major energy projects, consulted for a wide array of companies and law firms on a range of policy topics and writes at the Substack Ergs and Equilibrium.