Biography

“I believe in fostering public-private partnerships in cross-cutting domains to integrate sustainability, resiliency, and diversity & inclusion in the work they do as well as within their own organizations to drive and accelerate innovations bringing water, energy, and food equally to all for future generations.”

Present Employment/Project: Principal, La Ferla Associates, LLC

Expertise: Off grid energy access; mini grids; energy policy; finance & fundraising; energy efficiency; renewables

Background: Policy & advocacy; fundraising & finance; project management; business advisory & strategic planning

Lydia La Ferla leads a consulting practice focused on mentoring renewable energy and energy efficiency start-ups on business, sustainability, and stakeholder engagement strategies; business and market expansion; access to funding; and project design, development and management. She has worked with ESCOs, energy efficiency/IoT platform companies, renewable energy trade association, environmental NGOs, UN, USAID, USDepartment of Energy, and its laboratories, and Nordic companies. She serves as Board Member of the Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce-USA, and as Director for Cleantech/Sustainability assisting its network of 19 chambers across the US. As a thought leader, she conceived, designed and organized a multi-stakeholder Executive Forum on the Water-Energy Nexus at the Embassy of Sweden and is looking to develop a water-energy platform (WE-Platform) to catalyze tech innovations, start-ups and public-private partnerships.