Delivering essential energy at the speed and scale of American innovation

Jeff Starzec is an energy executive with 15 years of experience as General Counsel of public and private energy companies. Previously, as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of EnVen Energy Corporation, Jeff built the legal function and advised on corporate strategy, financings and ultimately the sale of the company. Earlier, as General Counsel of Cobalt International Energy, he scaled the legal function as the company grew its offshore oil and gas business across the U.S. Gulf and West Africa through more than $10 billion of major financings, development projects and strategic transactions. Jeff holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.S. in Economics from Duke University.

In January 2025, Michael founded G2W Partners, a project development and investment platform active in LNG, chemicals, and power. He previously spent 16 years at Cheniere Energy, most recently as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, where he helped finance and scale the company’s $35 billion LNG construction program. Earlier, he led the development of the $12 billion Corpus Christi Liquefaction Project, the first greenfield LNG project constructed in the Lower 48. Prior to Cheniere, Michael worked in oil and gas corporate development, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures at Anadarko Petroleum and began his career at Union Pacific Resources.

Since retiring from Cheniere Energy in January 2025 after 30 years in the energy industry, Corey has served as Founder and Principal of G2W Partners, an energy infrastructure development firm focused on large-scale projects along the U.S. Gulf Coast. He previously spent more than a decade at Cheniere, most recently as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, where he oversaw operations, engineering and construction, trading, supply chain, IT, security, and commercial operations across one of the world’s leading LNG platforms. Earlier in his tenure, he led Cheniere’s worldwide trading and gas supply businesses, helping build the company into the premier U.S. LNG exporter and one of the largest natural gas purchasers in the United States.

Akshat is an engineering executive with more than a decade of experience in autonomous driving and industrial automation. His expertise spans building world-class engineering teams and leading the design, development, and deployment of production-grade systems to market. As the CTO/CEO at SafeAI, Akshat led the development of autonomous driving software and fleet automation for heavy industry. As CTO/co-founder at Udelv, he delivered three generations of autonomous delivery vehicles, deployed for public-road deliveries with clients such as Walmart. Prior to Udelv, he managed novel perception sensors development at Apple Special Projects – enabling advanced sensing solutions for perception algorithms, was an early team member on the Tesla Autopilot team, delivered UPS engineering solutions at Eaton Power, power systems control automation at Caterpillar, and manufacturing automation controls at General Motors.

Jake oversees the identification, evaluation, and onboarding of the human talent required to drive Joulent's growth.  Jake also supports Joulent's expansion efforts through engagement with state and local government officials in prospective areas of new development. Prior to joining Joulent, Jake led Engine No. 1’s operating team, partnering with portfolio companies to drive value creation through operational improvements. Previously, Jake spent 21 years as an Operations Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency serving in southern and eastern Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Prior to his government service, Jake was an Analyst with Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston and Palo Alto. Jake received a B.A. from Georgetown University, and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College.

Adam brings 25+ years of experience across the full lifecycle of energy infrastructure development, including direct leadership and construction of over 5 GW of new traditional power generation projects, 2.5 GW of environmental retrofits, and multiple billion-dollar high-voltage transmission and desalination water projects across North America and international markets. Adam’s background spans greenfield development, permitting and interconnection, OEM and EPC contracting, construction execution, and long-term offtake commercialization.

Chris is a power infrastructure executive with 18 years of experience developing, operating, and scaling energy assets across the United States. Has led the development of more than 15 GW of gas, energy storage, and renewable projects, including senior leadership roles at BrightNight and Doosan Gridtech, with hands-on execution across the full project lifecycle. Instrumental in founding and scaling three IPPs, building platform-level portfolios and repeatable development strategies.

Jeff van Heel is an engineering and infrastructure executive with more than thirty years of experience delivering multi-billion-dollar construction programs. As Director of Infrastructure Engineering at Tesla, he led construction of four Gigafactories across Nevada, China, Germany, and Texas — each completed for production in under two years, with a documented 58% reduction in capital expenditure. He was recruited by Panasonic to take command of their troubled $4.8 billion De Soto, Kansas battery facility — the largest in the world — stabilizing the program and driving it to first production in June 2025. Earlier, as VP of Engineering at Redwood Materials, he helped secure a $2 billion DOE loan commitment. He spent over two decades at Intel leading worldwide engineering programs.

Brian has over 15 years of investing and operating experience across the energy value chain and related infrastructure. Before joining Joulent, Brian was Group Chief Financial Officer of BrightNight Power where he served on its executive team and was responsible for BrightNight’s global financial operations, capital markets and investment activities. Before BrightNight, Brian was a Managing Director at Global Infrastructure Partners and EIG Global Energy Partners where he was Co-head of Infrastructure. Previously, Brian worked at Credit Suisse in the Global Energy and Leveraged Finance groups based in New York.

Chris James is the Founder and CEO of Joulent, a technology-driven power company that delivers scale power solutions at the speed and magnitude American innovation requires. Joulent pioneered the Behind the Meter and Across the Meter solutions as scale – by passing the constraints of the grid to bring electricity straight to the customer – without raising costs for utility customers.

Joulent is an affiliate of Engine No. 1 which Chris’ holdings company founded in 2020 to reindustrialize the United States. Engine No. 1’s mission is to build and invest in companies that remove bottlenecks across energy, infrastructure, and domestic industrial capacity.

Before founding Engine No. 1, Chris spent more than 30 years investing in and building businesses across industries undergoing fundamental transformation. Chris founded Partner Fund Management, originally part of Andor Capital Management which he also co-founded. Chris served as a member of the Management Committee of Pequot Capital Management and founded multiple companies based in the natural resources industry, including White Oak Resources, Pin Oak Mt. Airy, Pin Oak Corpus Christi (co-founded) and Greenfield Holdings. Chris is also a founding board member and Chairman of Tipping Point Community in San Francisco, was Vice-Chair of The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and was Chairman of the Investment Committee of Tulane University during his 12-year tenure on the board.

Chris received a B.A. in Economics from Tulane University.

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