Rising voices. Rising ambition

Progress doesn’t fail because solutions don’t exist. It fails when people don’t believe them.

That is the real challenge facing energy leaders now. And it’s where a new generation is stepping in, not to polish the message, but to change how belief is earned.

“If people don’t trust you, you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall and watching all of it fall,” says Kristina Zagame, Senior Researcher at EnergySage. It’s not a line you’d expect from an industry built on engineering, regulation, and certainty. But it captures the shift underway. Across geothermal, renewables development, utilities, marketplaces, and climate media, a new cohort of rising leaders is rejecting spin, noise, and overclaim. Instead, they are rebuilding trust from the inside out through clarity, presence, and evidence.

Clarity is a leadership discipline

For this new generation, clarity doesn’t start with communications. It starts with decisions.

If people don’t trust you, you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall and watching all of it fall.

Kristina Zagame Senior Researcher, EnergySage

At Fervo Energy, Chief of Staff Nour Ghadanfar is helping lead one of the first
next-generation geothermal projects in the US at scale. The stakes are high, the scrutiny intense, and the margin for error slim.

“Clear, transparent communication lies at the heart of excellence in execution and planning, especially when you’re doing something for the first time,” she explains. But clarity, in this context, isn’t about simplifying the story for external audiences. It’s about aligning internally before saying anything at all.

“One of our core values is ‘do what we say we’re going to do,’” Nour adds. “You will rarely find us saying something we’re not fully committed to delivering.”

That restraint matters. In an industry where credibility can evaporate overnight, overpromising can be a risk. At Con Edison, Lucia Game, Senior Specialist – Electric Vehicle Demonstration Projects, sees clarity as a matter of sequence. Working on electric mobility and large-scale demonstration projects, her focus is not on flooding stakeholders with information, but on giving them what they need, when they need it.

“The goal is well-informed decisions,” she says. “When expectations are clear, confidence follows.”

Across roles and technologies, the pattern is consistent: clarity is not a communications output. It’s a leadership discipline, rooted in alignment, accountability, and follow-through.

Trust is built through presence, not campaigns

If clarity starts inside, trust is earned outside – often far from the spotlight. Maile Resta, Communications Manager at rPlus Energies, views audiences as collaborators, believing trust is built face-to-face and true understanding comes from spending time with the communities and teams you serve.

“I don’t really identify as a PR or comms person,” she says. “I identify more as a developer, because I work in-house with people who are boots-on-the-ground every day. Honestly, my favorite days are the ones spent in the field just listening. You have to listen first if you want the story to resonate.”

Clear, transparent communication lies at the heart of excellence in execution and planning, especially when you’re doing something for the first time.

Nour Ghadanfar Chief of Staff, Fervo Energy

The most effective work, Maile argues, often doesn’t look like branding at all.

“The most effective branding often feels really quiet,” she explains. “It’s just showing up.”

This idea of presence – consistent, human, accountable – comes up repeatedly. Lucia sees its impact directly in adoption rates.

“If people don’t trust that solutions will work for them,” she says, “they simply won’t electrify.”

And at Fervo Energy, trust is treated as something that can be built painstakingly, and lost instantly.

“Trust is built bit by bit, but can be lost so quickly,” Nour reflects. That’s why transparency, from publishing results to naming trade-offs, is a non-negotiable.”

The message is clear: in energy, trust doesn’t come from persuasion. It comes from proximity.

Making complexity usable without losing credibility.

Energy is complex. These rising leaders don’t deny it, but they refuse to hide behind it.

Honestly, my favorite days are the ones spent in the field just listening. You have to listen first if you want the story to resonate. The most effective branding often feels really quiet. It’s just showing up.

Maile Resta Communications Manager, rPlus Energies

The challenge, as Kristina sees it, is not dumbing things down. It’s understanding them deeply enough to make them accessible: “You have to fully understand something to explain it clearly,” she says. “If I don’t understand something, I’ll keep asking the right people questions until I can explain it with ease.”

That approach is grounded in respect for the audience. Jargon can create unnecessary distance.

“The second you start throwing jargon around, people tune out,” Kristina adds.

Lucia tackles the same challenge structurally, designing tools and processes that let customers engage with complexity at their own pace. Rather than forcing people to commit upfront, she focuses on creating entry points that reflect real-world constraints – cost, timelines, and trade-offs.

At Fervo Energy, narrative plays a role too but with guardrails. “Narrative lets us pull on what people care about right now,” Nour explains. “But without changing the truth.”

The goal isn’t to remove complexity. It’s to make it navigable and to give people a way through that builds confidence rather than creating confusion.

The goal is well-informed decisions. When expectations are clear, confidence follows.

Lucia Game Senior Specialist, Con Edison

From information to agency

Ultimately, clarity matters because it changes how people feel and what they believe they can do.

“I want people to feel like they’re not powerless,” Kristina says. “Clarity gives people agency.”

That sense of agency sits at the heart of Kiana Michaan’s work as a climate storyteller. Facts alone, she argues, rarely move people.

“People don’t respond to data alone,” says the Climate with Kiana podcast host. “They need emotional connection to feel called to action.”

For Kiana, storytelling is about restoring a sense of participation in systems that often feel remote and politicized: “We’re all stakeholders in the energy system, whether we want to be or not,” she reflects.

Maile reframes that participation as pride: “Solar and wind are just another
resource our land provides,” she says. “Using them should be a point of pride.”

Together, these perspectives point to a different kind of leadership – less focused on control, and more focused on credibility. Less about certainty, more about honesty.

These Rising Stars are not waiting for uncertainty to disappear. They are
designing clarity within it, helping teams, communities, and customers move forward with confidence, even when the path is still taking shape.

Trust, after all, is the hardest infrastructure to build. And the most valuable once it’s in place.

We’re all stakeholders in the energy system, whether we want to be or not.

Kiana Michaan Podcast Host, Climate with Kiana Podcast

About the author: Max Bhugra-Schmid
Senior Consultant,
Brandpie

A strategic and creative consultant, Max helps clients clarify their vision, align stakeholders and connect their brand strategy to their business strategy.

Connect with Max