Andy Vesey

Last updated
Andy Vesey
Born
Andrew Martin Vesey

(1955-05-14) May 14, 1955 (age 67)
United States
Alma materUnion College, New York University
SpouseMiranda Vesey

Andy Vesey (born 1955) is an American business leader. He was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of AGL Energy. [1]

Contents

Early life

Vesey was born in 1955 and grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His parents settled in New York having fled their native Hungary as the Nazis rose to prominence in the 1930s; his father gaining US citizenship by serving as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne during World War II. [2] He graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he received a BA in Economics and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering. He went on to study for a Masters of Science degree at New York University. [3]

Professional career

Identifying energy as “the issue of the day”, Vesey started out as an engineer at New York utility Consolidated Edison, before joining Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation. [4]

Vesey subsequently worked in leadership roles at Ernst and Young [5] and FTI Consulting, before joining AES Corporation in 2004. [6] He held a number positions at AES, including running the business in Latin America, before becoming Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2012. There he led the company’s Global Operations portfolio across 20 countries. [7]

Having run the Melbourne-based Citipower Pty Ltd in the late 1990s, [8] Vesey returned to Australia as Managing Director and CEO of AGL Energy Limited in February 2015. Citi analyst Dale Koenders described the appointment as “a good time to change the perception of AGL” and Vesey's first action as CEO was to place AGL Energy’s entire upstream gas business under review. [9]

Vesey implemented a new Greenhouse Gas Policy in 2015, including a commitment for AGL to close its existing coal-fired power stations by 2050. [10] In an interview with Guardian Australia, Vesey spoke of his desire to take AGL "out of the CO2 emissions business". [11]

In March 2017, Vesey launched the world’s largest residential virtual power plant in South Australia. The plant will involve 1,000 connected batteries being installed in homes and businesses in South Australia providing 5MW of peak capacity. [12]

The launch of the initiative resulted in a public row between Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill during a media conference, at which Vesey was also answering questions. Vesey commented that Frydenberg and Weatherill needed to "keep talking". [13]

Also in March 2017, Vesey responded to Elon Musk’s claim that Tesla could solve Australia’s energy shortage crisis within 100 days - offering him a site for a grid battery farm in South Australia. [14]

Vesey is a member of the 2016 cohort of Male Champions of Change [15] and the co-author of Unlocking the Benefits of Restructuring: A Blueprint for Transmission (PUR Inc., November 1999). [16]

Awards

In October 2016, the Climate Alliance recognised Vesey as its Business Leader of the Year, citing his role in launching “numerous initiatives to transition towards a carbon constrained future”. [17] In the same year, he was named at number 11 in the Australian Financial Review’s 2016 Corporate Power List. [18]

In December 2017, Vesey was named CEO of the Year at the S&P Global Platts Global Energy Awards. He was recognised by the judges as "progressive, enlightened and hard-charging", and praised for moving AGL away from coal to a diverse portfolio of renewables. [19] In the same month Vesey was named by The Australian Financial Review as one of its Business People of the Year, having “managed to move the country’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter forward along what he sees as an inevitable path of carbon reduction”. [20] The AFR also described Vesey as “one of the most prominent business leaders to speak out on diversity, equality and violence against women”.

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References

  1. ↑ "Executive Team". agl.com.au. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  2. ↑ "AGL chief Andy Vesey sees power in positive energy". heraldsun.com.au. 11 March 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  3. ↑ "Andrew Martin Vesey". bloomberg.com. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  4. ↑ "AGL chief Andy Vesey sees power in positive energy". heraldsun.com.au. 11 March 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  5. ↑ "AGL Energy names Aes Corp's Andrew Vesey as CEO". www.smh.com.au. 18 November 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  6. ↑ "Andrew Vesey". www.usea.org. 25 February 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  7. ↑ "Andrew Vesey". www.usea.org. 25 February 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  8. ↑ "Andrew "Andy" Vesey". bloomberg.com. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  9. ↑ "CSG more trouble than it's worth for AGL". canberratimes.com.au. 14 March 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  10. ↑ "AGL Greenhouse Gas Policy" (PDF). agl.com.au. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  11. ↑ "AGL boss: regardless of climate science, it's time to drop the 'emissions business'". theguardian.com. 23 February 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  12. ↑ "The world's biggest residential 'virtual power plant' has just been switched on in Adelaide". businessinsider.com.au. 16 March 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  13. ↑ "AGL CEO Andy Vesey seeks driveway diplomacy after Weatherill, Frydenberg spat". afr.com. 16 March 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  14. ↑ "AGL offers rival Musk site for 100-day battery challenge". theaustralian.com.au. 14 March 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  15. ↑ "Andrew Vesey - Male Champions for Change". malechampionsofchange.com. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  16. ↑ Awerbuch, Shimon; Hyman, Leonard S.; Vesey, Andrew (1999). Unlocking the Benefits of Restructuring: A Blueprint for Transmission. ISBN   0910325790.
  17. ↑ "2016 Business Leadership Award Winners". climatealliance.org.au. 27 October 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  18. ↑ "Corporate power 2016: David Gonski leads list of 15 most powerful businesspeople in Australia". afr.com. 28 September 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  19. ↑ "Energy Companies from 10 Countries Win Honors at S&P Global Platts Global Energy Awards". businessinsider.com. 7 December 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
  20. ↑ Angela Macdonald-Smith (14 December 2017). "AFR Business people of the year: AGL's Andy Vesey stands his ground". afr.com. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
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