Speaker list & bios.

Michel Augonnet is a graduate electrical engineer from Centrale Supelec, class of 1973.

Across a 42-year career with Alstom Group, now GE Vernova, Michel worked across power generation, transmission, and distribution, with a focus on electrical systems, control and instrumentation, project management, and sales.

He was Chairman of the Board of Alstom India T&D Ltd, now GE Vernova T&D India. Michel is currently a board member of AEG Power Solutions, focused on UPS technologies, and an alternate board director for ACTOM (PTY) South Africa, the largest electromechanical manufacturer in Africa.

Until 2023, Michel was President of SuperGrid Institute, an innovation and research company for electrical systems. He is the outgoing President of CIGRE, serving from 2020 to 2024.

Gideon O. Powell is the Chief Executive Officer of Cholla Inc., a multi-generational Texas energy company headquartered in Dallas. Cholla traces its roots to his grandfather, L.W. "Slim" Powell, who began his career in 1916 as an oil-field pumper on Caddo Lake in East Texas. Under Gideon's leadership, Cholla focuses on independent upstream energy exploration while expanding into emerging fields including solar generation, dispatchable load, battery storage, Bitcoin mining, data-center development, and venture capital.

Gideon joined Cholla in 2013 as Director of Acquisitions & New Ventures, leading the company's entry into the Permian Basin of West Texas. He subsequently turned his attention to global power markets, where he and his team identified flexible electrical load as a tool to strengthen grid reliability and unlock more productive use of Texas's abundant energy resources. That work led to the development of HODL Ranch, the world's first purpose-built Bitcoin mining campus. After divesting the 150-megawatt project, Gideon returned to Cholla to lead its current vision: building the next generation of Texas energy and compute infrastructure.

Gideon serves as President of the Texas Bitcoin and Grid Alliance (TBGA) and is engaged with the Texas Flywheel. He has testified before the ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee, the ERCOT Board of Directors, and the Texas House Committee on Business & Commerce on issues of grid reliability and large-load interconnection. In the 89th Legislative Session, he supported large-load interconnection legislation focused on protecting Texas citizens.

A graduate of Baylor University, where he earned a B.B.A. in Finance, Gideon is a longtime supporter of the Crystal Charity Ball, the Meadows Foundation, and Men of Nehemiah, a Texas-based faith-rooted recovery program for men. He is also actively engaged in Buried Alive, a criminal-justice-reform initiative working to end federal drug-related life-without-parole sentences.

Gideon is passionate about Texas energy abundance, innovation, and building strong communities. He resides in Dallas with his wife and four children.

Phil Harris is a Strategic Advisor, energy executive, and recognized thought leader with more than 52 years of experience spanning engineering, utility operations, executive leadership, public policy, and emerging energy technologies. Throughout his career he has worked at every level of the electric industry, providing a unique perspective on how infrastructure, markets, regulation, and innovation intersect to shape the future of energy.

Through PHARRISLLC, Phil advises CEOs, investors, boards of directors, and entrepreneurs on the convergence of electric power, natural resources, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and autonomous resource enterprises. His work focuses on helping organizations move beyond traditional utility thinking toward integrated platforms that continuously optimize resources and create long-term value.

Known for translating complex technical challenges into compelling executive strategies, Phil develops governance models, enterprise architectures, and investment frameworks that help leaders visualize opportunities others often overlook. His philosophy is rooted in a simple belief: technology should improve people's lives, and every resource should be continuously optimized to its highest-value use.

Today, Phil's work centers on helping organizations prepare for the transition from the Industrial Age to the Digital Economy, where intelligent infrastructure, autonomous operations, and human-centered innovation redefine how communities, enterprises, and nations create value.

Andre Canelhas brings more than 40 years of international experience in HVDC, FACTS and power systems engineering, spanning system design, control and protection, power quality, and large-scale transmission projects across Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. As owner's engineer on high-profile interconnectors, he has guided major schemes from conceptual design through to commercial operation.

Following senior roles at ABB-Hitachi, Siemens and Alstom/GE — and 14 years of independent consultancy through HVDC Technologies Ltd — he is recognised for sound, practical engineering judgement. A CIGRE and IEEE contributor for over three decades, Andre pairs deep technical expertise with the ability to ensure solutions are robust, buildable and fit for real-world delivery.

Julia Frayer is a Managing Director at London Economics International LLC and a seasoned energy economist with nearly three decades of experience advising utilities, regulators, investors, system operators, and market participants on complex economic, regulatory, and market issues across the energy sector. Her expertise spans wholesale power market design, rate design, infrastructure valuation, transmission planning, resource adequacy, reliability, decarbonization policy, and investment due diligence.

Julia has worked extensively across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, applying rigorous economic analysis, quantitative modeling, and expert advisory experience to regulated and competitive energy markets. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

In addition to her full-time leadership role with London Economics International LLC, Julia is an advisory board member with the Institute of Global Sustainability at Boston University, and chairs the board of Northeast Energy & Commerce Association, one of the oldest non-profit trade associations in the Northeast U.S. focused on energy-related matters.

Arushi Sharma Frank, Founder of Luminary Strategies, is a grid innovation pioneer and angel investor who excels in early venture actuation while securing their growth trajectory by simultaneously building grid engineering-based policies and utility programs. She specializes in bring-your-own dispatchability programs for batteries, distributed portfolios, and electronic loads, including bitcoin and AI factories. Luminary Strategies is a venture studio accelerating energy and AI technology commercialization, advising private equity and hedge fund sponsors and investing with high-impact tech-to-grid firms at seed/pre-seed, including Base Power Company, Emerald AI, Powertown, and V-Wire.

Sharma Frank has created category authority in first-principles grid dispatch architecture, having pioneered multiple efforts: ERCOT provisional controllable loads as a speed-to-power solution (2025-2026), aggregated DER dispatch in SCED (2022-2023), multi-jurisdictional utility-enabled DER dispatch (2021-2026), and AI data center utility program design (2024-present).

Sharma Frank's expertise is built on an elite career spanning the full arc of how tech powers America. Previously, she led Tesla's strategic market entry to launch its first U.S. wholesale and retail energy businesses, advancing grid frameworks for virtual power plants and Megapack. Earlier, she built the multi-market operator compliance program for Exelon-Constellation, overseeing thermal, nuclear, and renewable power across diverse grids. She also spent years leading Washington gas utility and power policy across financial, physical, environmental, rates, and tax issues at the American Gas Association and the Electric Power Supply Association.

Today, she serves as a non-resident power markets expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), sits on the Advisory Board of C3 Solutions, is an Adjunct Lecturer at Johns Hopkins SAIS, an Executive Councilmember at the University of Texas KBH Energy Center, and an advisor to the Harvard Undergraduate Clean Energy Group.

Robert Wittmeyer serves in Strategic Initiatives within the Office of the CEO at Cholla Inc., where he works at the intersection of energy policy, infrastructure development, workforce development, and strategic investment. A recent graduate of Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Industrial Distribution Engineering, Robert has built his career around the belief that Texas's energy future depends on principled people willing to do the hard work of building it—from the statehouse to the field.

At Cholla, Robert translates executive vision into actionable initiatives across policy, operations, and strategic partnerships. He works across the full lifecycle of large-scale energy and digital infrastructure development—helping move projects from early-stage siting and land strategy through permitting, construction coordination, and the tax and capital planning that make them viable. That work spans land assessment, environmental and construction permitting, project cost and timeline analysis, and the federal energy tax-incentive strategy that underpins modern infrastructure development.

On the policy side, Robert's work spans ERCOT, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and the Texas Legislature, where he has contributed to shaping legislation affecting large-scale energy infrastructure and digital assets. Through his work in strategic initiatives at the Texas Bitcoin and Grid Alliance (TBGA), he advances legislative priorities at the intersection of energy reliability, digital infrastructure, and emerging technology.

On the investment side, Robert helps deploy capital into principled startups advancing energy infrastructure and innovation, and supports founders in developing organizational vision and guiding principles. He brings a strong interest in grid resilience, critical infrastructure security, and the workforce and academic partnerships necessary to support Texas's next generation of energy infrastructure—a commitment reflected in his role as lead organizer of the Texas Power Summit at Texas A&M University, a student-focused industry conference connecting the next generation of talent to careers in Texas power and energy.

Philippe Vassilopoulos is Director of Product Design and Algorithms at EPEX SPOT where he also served as Economist and Market Surveillance Officer. Before joining EPEX SPOT, Philippe Vassilopoulos was an Associate Director with IHS CERA.

He specializes in the European wholesale power and gas markets. His expertise includes market design, price formation and price modelling, asset valuation and due diligence, regulations, and market surveillance.

Dr. Vassilopoulos also carried out applied research on price signals and investment incentives in the European electricity markets for the Commission de Regulation de l'Energie. He holds a master's degree and a PhD from the University of Paris-Dauphine.