Grid modernization sits at the intersection of operational reliability, deep technology, regulatory complexity, and customer impact. Almost everyone working in the space sees it from one angle, the utility operator's, the vendor's, the integrator's, or the consultant's. Very few people see it from all five.
Over the past 33+ years, I've made deliberate moves to build that full 360° view. Each transition was a chosen step toward a specific capability I knew I didn't yet have. I've now sat in all five chairs.
Austin Energy
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Oct 1993 - Nov 2015 · 22 years
I started in the Austin Energy control center long before “smart grid” or “grid modernization” were terms, when grid operations were 100% manual: calculator, pencil, paper logs, and operator judgment. That's why I know what's under the hood in the operating systems and the operating practices, not just what the dashboards show. Over 22 years, I lived through and helped implement every major operational technology evolution: EMS, OMS, DMS, ADMS, DERMS, distribution SCADA, GIS, AMI, FLISR. From fully manual operations then to leading the AI evolution now.
I built and ran the Blackstart restoration program from the ground up, became NERC Certified Reliability Coordinator, supervised real-time T&D operations, and led the integration of advanced grid technologies across the control room.
Austin Energy had a 23-year vested retirement system available at any age, which gave me a deliberate runway to fully evolve with the industry. Those weren't 23 passive years, they were 23 years of deep, hands-on experience implementing and operating every major grid platform on the market as the industry transformed. By the end, I could speak credibly about how each platform actually performed in production, where the gaps were, and what utility operators really needed from the next generation of technology. That depth is what made the next chapter possible.
Operator-grade credibility, the ability to speak the truth about what grid modernization technology actually does, and doesn't do, in real-time operations.
Schneider Electric
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Jan 2016 - Apr 2022 · 6 years
I was recruited into Schneider Electric specifically because of that operational depth. Schneider needed someone who could bridge the gap between how their ADMS and DERMS platforms were designed and how utilities actually used them.
I led the global SME team and worked across product development, R&D, pre-sales, deployments, and integrations. I set new sales records every year, deployed Schneider ADMS at dozens of utilities across North America and Australia, and pioneered the cloud-based virtual server environment that became the global default for ADMS demonstrations.
My operator background fed product enhancements directly back into the engineering roadmap, including the first-of-its-kind ADMS+DERMS hybrid architecture at Arizona Public Service, and the wildfire mitigation operational capability built into ADMS for Pacific Gas & Electric.
The vendor lens, how operational technology gets developed, enhanced, packaged, sold, deployed, and consulted on, plus the discipline of becoming an industry-recognized voice for a platform.
Cognizant Technology Solutions
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Apr 2022 - Apr 2024 · 2 years
At Cognizant I built and directed the Smart Utilities Digital Grid Solutions practice. I defined offerings, led a team of senior SMEs, supported RFPs and proposals, coordinated with platform providers and hyperscalers, and oversaw enterprise programs.
I worked on major engagements including PSEG Long Island's DER SCADA migration and OSI DERMS implementation, and Duke Energy's GE OMS support and DMS migration.
Enterprise systems integration, how grid modernization gets executed at scale across multi-vendor, multi-platform, multi-year programs at the largest utilities.
Qualus Technology Solutions
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Apr 2024 - Jan 2025 · ~10 months
At Qualus I moved into a strategic consulting and advisory-focused role as Senior Principal for Grid Management Solutions. I worked directly with utilities on ADMS strategy, AMI 2.0 integration, modernization roadmaps, and operational assessments.
I led the Hydro One operations change management consulting engagement and the ADMS upgrade assessment work. The role gave me the consulting depth I wanted to add on top of the integration experience, defining where utilities needed to go, not just how to implement.
Senior consulting and advisory craft, how to lead strategy engagements with utility leadership teams and translate operational realities into modernization roadmaps.
Wipro
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Jan 2025 - Jun 5, 2026
Wipro recruited me as Partner for Grid Modernization & Energy Transition Consulting in North America. The role was the integration of everything built so far, business development, growth strategy, multi-million-dollar engagement leadership, executive advisory, platform direction, and practice building.
I architected GridVISION (Wipro's flagship system-of-systems platform), Suite 16 (the 16-domain utility modernization framework), and MC-LLI (the mission-critical large-load infrastructure market category targeting data centers, airports, ports, and other high-load sectors). I led client engagements with National Grid (GridVISION 2.0 / AI for Operations and FERC 2222) and Avangrid (FERC 881).
Practice and platform leadership, how a senior partner orchestrates growth strategy, productization, business development, and delivery across an entire grid modernization practice.
SoftServe
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Jun 8, 2026 - Present
Current
SoftServe brought me in as NVIDIA Solutions Director for Power & Utilities to build GridCORTEX, the AI-powered utility intelligence framework for electric utilities. This is the role where everything I've built across the previous five chapters becomes the foundation for something the industry has never had: an intelligence layer that sits above the OT stack, answers the questions no system of record was ever built to answer, and now extends into the physical world with autonomous robotics and edge AI.
GridCORTEX is built on NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform, Earth-2 for weather physics, Isaac ROS 2 and Jetson Orin for physical AI, Omniverse for digital twins, NeMo and NIM for generative AI grounded in utility records, Metropolis for vision AI, and cuOpt for fleet-scale optimization. It encompasses 187 utility-specific use cases across 23 operating domains and ten independently deployable domain agents, entering through the four domains utilities are funding today: Connect, Resilience, Asset, and Operations.
The 33 years of sitting in utility control centers, building the platforms, integrating the systems, and advising at the partner level are what make this different from a technology company building utility AI. I have operated the grid that GridCORTEX is designed to augment. I know the questions that fall between the systems because I lived in the gap layer before it had a name.
The intelligence layer above the grid: an AI framework that sits on top of the systems a utility already owns, answers the questions those systems cannot, and never touches the controls. Augment the grid, never replace it.
AI solutions leadership, translating 33 years of operational and consulting perspective into the intelligence layer the utility industry has always needed but only now has the compute to build. The fifth clock, physical AI, is the newest and may be the fastest-moving. And I'm in the right seat to build for it.
I've been the utility. I've built the product. I've integrated the systems. I've shaped the strategy. Now I'm building the intelligence layer above them all.
That perspective is what I bring to grid modernization, and it's increasingly rare.
After 33+ years of deliberately building the full 360° view, the highest-value applications of this background share a common shape.
Building the intelligence layer above the OT stack requires someone who has operated inside that stack, sold and deployed the platforms it runs on, integrated them at enterprise scale, and advised at the executive level about where it all needs to go. GridCORTEX is the expression of that combination.
Standing up a new grid modernization or AI practice, repositioning an existing one, or productizing a set of capabilities into something a market can buy. This is the pattern executed across two different companies, two different decades, and across vendor, consulting, and AI solutions business models.
Utility executive teams making large modernization and AI commitments who need an advisor who can translate between the boardroom and the control room without losing fidelity in either direction.
Bringing the full operator + vendor & developer + integrator + consultant + NVIDIA AI solutions perspective to utility accounts at the intersection of grid modernization and accelerated computing. The NVIDIA Lab Robotics portfolio applied to utility infrastructure. The Gap Layer made real.
Five things are converging in this industry that make the next 5-10 years the most important window of my career, hyperscaler load growth rewriting IRP across North America, AI moving from demos into real operator workflows, DER and grid-edge complexity outpacing current operating models, physical AI crossing the maturity threshold for live utility infrastructure, and the workforce retirement cliff creating an irreversible knowledge drain. GridCORTEX is the architecture built to answer all five at once.
I've been the utility. I've built the product. I've integrated the systems. I've shaped the strategy. Now I'm building the intelligence layer above them all.
Long before the control centers and the platforms, the same maker's instinct was building things by hand. Since 1993, Ronnie has designed and run Outlaw Incorporated — a Texas house of brands spanning leather, apparel, media, and marketing. The MR maker's mark that signs this site started there.