Michael Fisher, PhD

Senior Managing Director of PowerVAL

Dr. Fisher holds a PhD in energy policy from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in Economics and BAS in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Fisher leads the valuation team which produces bankable asset valuations and revenue forecasts for solar and storage.  In the last 3 years, Dr. Fisher has consulted on over $5B of asset transactions, where he provides guidance on market outcomes and risks for developers, lenders, and investors.
 
Prior to Ascend, Dr. Fisher worked in corporate development for an unregulated development arm of a regional utility company. He also has experience leading commercial teams in distributed generation development. His doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon explored the technical, economic, and emissions impacts of distributed storage participating in wholesale and retail markets.

Brandon Mauch, PhD

Senior Managing Director of PowerSIMM

Dr. Mauch holds a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas.

Dr. Mauch, Senior Managing Director of PowerSIMM, leads a team of analysts at Ascend in providing modeling support for resource planning and risk management. Since joining Ascend in 2018, Brandon has led projects on behalf of utilities, project developers, non-profits, and state agencies. He also provides guidance and oversight on Ascend’s development of PowerSIMM.

Prior to joining Ascend, Dr. Mauch was a Senior Program Manager for CLEAResult Consulting where he managed utility energy efficiency and demand response programs for Midwestern utilities. Before that, he was a Utility Regulation Engineer for the Iowa Utilities Commission where he worked on regional energy policy issues, resource planning and rate cases for Iowa’s investor-owned utilities.

Brent Nelson, PhD

Senior Managing Director of Market Intelligence

Dr. Nelson holds PhD and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Nelson leads the long-term power market forecasting practice at Ascend Analytics, advising clients on emerging market dynamics and strategic long-term investment strategy. His knowledge spans wholesale markets, financial modeling, emerging technologies, and energy systems analysis.

Prior to joining Ascend, Dr. Nelson was an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northern Arizona University, while also holding a collaborative appointment at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly NREL), focusing on energy systems analysis and decarbonization. He also worked for the US Department of Energy from 2014-2016, focusing on R&D and commercialization strategy for energy efficiency and load flexibility.  He has extensive experience in energy technology and energy system modeling, with a focus on understanding market opportunities for emerging technologies.

Shalom Goffri, PhD

Chief Delivery Officer

Dr. Goffri holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a BA in Physics from the Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr. Goffri brings extensive expertise in power markets, power asset valuation, procurement strategy, decarbonization, and due diligence to Ascend Analytics. He advises private and public sector clients on clean energy business strategy, technology and market assessments, policy analysis, and M&A. His knowledge spans wholesale markets, community solar, and distributed resources.

Before joining Ascend, Dr. Goffri led the power markets team at Guidehouse's Energy, Sustainability, and Infrastructure practice, focusing on M&A due diligence and strategy projects in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. He has developed detailed cost, performance, and financial models for clean energy systems and analyzed the levelized cost of energy across various global regions and technologies.

Dr. Goffri also has a background in research, having worked at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  

Carlos Blanco, PhD

Managing Director of Risk Management

Dr. Blanco holds a PhD in Finance from Universidad Complutense, Madrid, where he was awarded magna cum laude distinction. He also has a masters degree in Investments and International economics from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Dr. Blanco provides expertise to Ascend's clients in the areas of analytic modeling, forecasting, optimization and simulation, while also contributing to advance the software product and services to meet the evolving client needs.

Dr. Blanco is an internationally recognized expert in energy risk management and climate change risk. He works globally with Ascend customers on development of risk management policy and procedures. His expertise in risk management and climate risk has been highly sought after by corporations for training and board presentations. Dr. Blanco has uniquely linked risk policies consistent with renewables and storage and the attributes of Ascend software. Prior to joining Ascend, he was the co-founder and managing director of Black Swan Risk Advisors, where he worked with leading organizations worldwide on a wide range of advisory and education projects. Dr. Blanco has published over 150 articles on a wide range of financial and commodity risk management topics and taught finance at the University of California, Berkeley.

He also served as the former VP of Risk Solutions at Financial Engineering Associates, where he was a member of the Executive Management Committee as well as an essential contributor in the development and client support of financial and energy derivatives pricing and market risk management models.

Caroline Zechter

Director of Community Solar

Ms. Zechter holds a M.A., Economics and Energy & Environmental Policy,  from the SAIS Johns Hopkins University.

Ms. Zechter applies her extensive expertise in ISO wholesale market and utility retail forecasting to ensure successful deployment the Ascend Analytics MI Retail products. She leads a team of analysts that models retail rates and community solar bill credits across the country, serving customers across the distributed energy resources space.

Additionally, Ms. Zechter leverages her 5+ years of experience modeling the NY Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) market to oversee the deployment of Ascend’s VDER battery dispatch tool.

Rahm Orenstein

Managing Director of Ascend Energy Exchange

Mr. Orenstein holds an MBA from Reichman University and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tel Aviv University.

Mr. Orenstein leads Ascend Energy Exchange – Asset Sales, an analytics-based marketplace that enables Ascend customers to buy and sell high quality energy storage and renewable energy projects in a streamlined and efficient way, wrapped by Ascend's unique suite of analytical and consulting services, thereby maximizing reach and value.   

Prior to joining Ascend, Mr. Orenstein spent 15 years holding executive positions in the renewable energy industry, including as CEO of Sunflower Sustainable Investment, Ltd (TASE: SNFL), a global developer and IPP of renewable energy and energy storage; VP Business Development – Energy Storage and VP Business Development – Americas, at Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA), a global developer and IPP of renewable energy and energy storage. Prior to that, Mr. Orenstein spent nine years with ECI Telecom (now Ribbon Communications) in various senior capacities covering product management, business development, and pre-sales engineering.

Robert Lafaso

Director of Market Intelligence

Mr. LaFaso holds a MS in Engineering Management from the Colorado School of Mines and a BS in Energy Systems Engineering from the University of Wyoming.

Mr. LaFaso leads Ascend Analytics’ Market Intelligence (AscendMI) day-to-day practice area, which encompasses the development of long-term supply-stack, market-price, and project-economics forecasts. His work influences Ascend's software suite, as AscendMI forecasts drive the analytics behind PowerSIMM and PowerVAL. Mr. LaFaso conducted the Valuation Due Diligence for significant M&A transactions, including the multi-gigawatt portfolios behind TerraGen’s sale to Masdar and Origis Energy’s sale to Antin Infrastructure Partners.

Mike Huisenga

Senior Managing Director of SmartBidder

Mr. Husienga holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering with Specialization in Sustainable Power Generation from the Royal Institute of Technology/KTH and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Iowa

Mr. Huisenga leads the SmartBidder team at Ascend Analytics providing overall business unit management and direction with strategic growth initiatives. He also acts as a subject matter expert for bid optimization supporting Ascend's commercial team activities that include sales enablement and training, executing customer acquisition strategies, product marketing and positioning, sales demos and trials, webinar and conference speaking roles, along with executing commercial partnerships.  Since joining Ascend in 2023, SmartBidder assets under management have grown five-fold.  

Prior to joining Ascend Analytics, Mr. Huisenga was a Senior Vice President and Energy District Business Line Leader with WSP USA, a Top 5 ranked design firm by Engineering News Record (ENR), spending 15 years in roles covering sustainability services, renewable energy, and management.

Keegan Campanelli

PowerVAL Product Manager

While studying electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University, he focused on distributed energy and control systems and published research related to transactive energy systems. He holds a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.

Mr. Campanelli serves as a product manager for Ascend Analytics, where he works as part of the team that helps develop PowerVAL, Ascend's product offering for asset valuation and long-term wholesale price and retail rate forecasting. Mr. Campanelli began his career as a software engineer working on IoT connectivity solutions at RTI, before becoming a product manager for Lumin with a focus on building the demand-side tools needed to economically support rapid electrification in a modern distributed and renewable grid.  

Ben Anderson

Manager of Resource Planning

Mr Anderson holds a M.A., Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University and a B.A. Mechanical Engineering,

Ben Anderson, Senior Energy Analyst, provides modeling support and analysis for integrated resource planning and forecasting. Prior to joining Ascend in early 2023, Mr. Anderson worked with Colorado Energy office to model pathways for the state to reach 100% clean energy by 2040 and he did portfolio management for various developers. In addition, Mr. Anderson spent five years as a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), focusing on wind energy and microgrid modeling.  Mr. Anderson holds an M.A. and B.A. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.

Taylor Grafton

Director of Business Operations

Ms. Grafton holds an MBA, Finance Concentration from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a B.S. in Earth Systems:  Energy, Science, & Technology from Stanford University.

Ms. Grafton, Director of Business Operations, leads cross-functional execution for the SmartBidder product line at Ascend Analytics, aligning product, operations, sales, finance, and engineering teams on strategic commercial and operational priorities. Since joining Ascend in 2024, she has scaled SmartBidder delivery and implementation processes to support 3x growth in assets under management and launched the SmartBidder Managed Optimization offering. She led the QSE build/buy/partner assessment resulting in the Tenaska partnership.
 
Prior to Ascend, Ms. Grafton held product and technical sales roles at Stem, Inc. (formerly AlsoEnergy), where she led post-merger integration and commercial feasibility work, and at Guidehouse, where she managed energy consulting teams and utility EM&V contracts.

Zander Kessler

Senior Energy Analyst

Mr. Kessler holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College.

Mr. Kessler, Senior Energy Analyst, leads the analyst team on the SmartBidder product line at Ascend Analytics, where he supports product management and delivers advanced energy market analytics and bid optimization solutions for storage and renewable assets across major North American power markets. Since joining Ascend, Mr. Kessler has developed deep expertise in battery dispatch optimization, nodal price forecasting, and ancillary services markets, contributing to client-facing analysis and internal product development across ERCOT, CAISO, and other ISOs.

 

Prior to Ascend, Mr. Kessler conducted research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), where he focused on lead halide perovskite solar technology, independently fabricating and testing prototype devices to improve performance.