The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

International Sommelier Guild

West Virginia University

Osmania University

(The company that I was a part of since 2012 - The Structure Group, was acquired by Accenture in 2015.)
 
I was selected to Accenture’s prestigious Leadership Development Program for the top 2% of senior managers that are groomed for senior leadership roles. 

•    I have managed initiatives that have given me a strong understanding of the electric system from generation to the customer meter. 

•    Most of my work has been to help plan and deploy grid improvement efforts, and improve the way the electric system is maintained and operated. This includes areas like Operations Strategy, Advanced Distribution Management Systems, Data Quality Assessment and Improvement, and Asset Lifecycle Management. Most of my experience is with large (~Fortune 100/200) IOUs (Investor Owned Utility) in the US. 

•    Highlights of my results include: 
	• Saving a large western IOU over $100 million in an electric asset 	records accuracy effort by innovating Machine Learning techniques 	to minimize field surveys.
	• Successfully leading multiple efforts of over $150 million to improve 	grid operations at various US IOUs.
	• Driving ~15x growth in a deputy Account Lead role for one of the 	largest American utilities. 

•    I am currently developing solutions that bring Artificial Intelligence to bear on utility challenges. Examples include training Machine Learning algorithms to: inspect/maintain assets (using pictures - including those taken by drones); and identifying solar panels (Solar PVs) and Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) on specific transformers by reading their associated smart meter (AMI) data. 

•    I also developed and led our Data Readiness offering where we assess and improve electric Transmission and Distribution data to support advanced operational and asset management systems while reducing risk exposures.

Accenture

Senior Manager - Utilities

•	I founded and led a Data Readiness offering that was foundational to 	enable utilities to deploy modern grid management systems. This 	typically included the Outage Management System (OMS), SCADA, 	and the Distribution Management System (DMS). It often also 	interfaced with smart meters (AMI), Asset Management and 	Inspection programs, and Vegetation Management programs. It 	generally involved a Geographic Information System (GIS) as the core 	repository of data. 

•	These efforts were about $100 million to $300 million in overall size 	with the data readiness portion (assessment and implementation) 	being around 5% to 20% of the overall effort. 

•	I led some Distribution Operations Strategy efforts and was often 	called upon to provide expertise on Electric Operations Processes 	and Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Operations Control Center 	design and process improvement efforts.

•	I was also the Account Lead for a large utility where I grew the 	business from 0 to an annual $2+ million dollars in under 3 years.

•	I had an oversight role at this account where I was responsible for our 	contract and our team’s work in supporting various Smart Grid 	initiatives, such as Volt-VAR Optimization and Smart Inverters.

The Structure Group (Acquired by Accenture in 2015)

Practice Lead

I was a part of the CEO’s Leadership Program intended to groom candidates for senior leadership.

I was responsible for planning and implementation of Smart Grid initiatives and managing the OMS, and path to a DMS, integration with SCADA as they related to our Distribution Operations Control Centers serving 15 million Californians. I also managed the vendor supplying the OMS and required improvements in the tool.

I also led a Lean Six Sigma process with ‘Workouts’ to improve the process addressing Equipment Requiring Repair - a backbone process impacting safety, reliability and efficiency, involving tickets (tags) identifying malfunctioning equipment to be prioritized for repair/replacement. This resulted in improvement of over 200% in time to fix on average for critical equipment. 

I was also the lead for our Distribution Operations consolidation project Including performing analysis to site the final 3 centers (from an initial 16 centers). This made me the business owner in charge of the processes to transform our operations from a paper wall-map based operation (1000s of maps) to go digital, retraining 100s of operators/mappers, and the associated data quality improvements and the integration with a GIS. 

I often served as a volunteer to help operations control centers when they worked storm shifts and was frequently a ‘vacation relief’ manager in charge of control centers. As a result I was also exposed to issues related to bargaining unit (Union) management. This gave me tremendous ground-level operator experience.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Distribution Operations Manager

In this 2-year rotational role as a part of the Leadership Program I:

•	Helped develop a Smart Grid roadmap for PG&E.
•	Assessed the impact of (then) potential Climate Change regulations 	on PG&E rates.
•	Led a ‘Lean’ effort to improve the process of obtaining 	Clearances for Electric Transmission Operations planned work
•	Conducted an assessment of efficiency of Gas-leak inspection crews •	in-house versus contract for the COO
•	Performed a study (part of a team of 3) to evaluate the efficiency of 	the Power Pathways program to recruit field and operational crew for 	the Head of HR
•	Studied the performance of a prominent US corporation over 2 	decades and distilled lessons for PG&E on the request of the CFO
•	Training included exposure to the following: the lineman school 	(climbed a pole!); meter reading (before AMI); Troublemen ride 	alongs, inspection ride alongs; working at the trading desk; and visits 	to the Helms Pumped Storage plant and Diablo Nuclear Power plant.

Associate (Leadership Program)

This was then GELCore - a GE led LED Joint Venture

•	Studied the evolving market sensitivity to Energy Efficiency - for 	users to switch from conventional lighting to LEDs. 
•	Conducted a market entry analysis for two segments - 
	Transportation and Medical Lighting - estimated at $x100 million 	each.
•	Developed existing industry pain points and voices of the customer to 	inform a business development plan for these industries.

Business Development Associate (Summer)

The Management Lab was a course designed as a consulting engagement where 8 students were selected from applicants to work on a issue for a corporation. 

•     Analyzed various potential Climate Change legislations to develop a 	model of ranges of carbon prices.
•    	Applied the model to asses exposure of GE’s Power Generation 	business - estimated at $x billions at the time.
•    	Presented the findings to GE Energy’s leadership for implementation.

GE Power

Consultant (Chicago Booth Management Lab)

•	Designed and directed a US Government funded Climate Change 	Awareness campaign in Hyderabad, India.
•	Campaign involved engaging school children -educating them about 	the ills of air pollution and challenging their parents to action.
•	Recognized in newspapers and magazines in the city of about 6 	million people for its effectiveness.  
•	Invited to address an international conference on climate change. 
•	Honored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency 	(USEPA) with an International Climate Change award.
•	Led an effort size the Solar PV requirement of a remote (off-the-grid) 	village in India.

Winrock International

Campaign Director

•	Started up and managed a new Data Analytics and Geographic 	Information Systems Practice contributing an additional 10% to the 	operation's bottom line within 2 years.
•	I was promoted to the Manager (M) band - in the year 2000, making 	me one of the youngest people in at that level in the 5000+ people 	company at that time.
•	I led the site preparation as the site Foundation Engineer for the 	construction of the minor league Staten Island Yankees baseball 	stadium.

URS Corporation, An AECOM Company

Department Head

•	Managed a soil-testing drill crew and conducted foundation strength 	assessments for construction.
• 	Designed foundations for single family homes and malls.
• 	Started up an Environmental Assessments practice; led a field crew to 	test soil strength and design foundations.

Sandeep Ganesh