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Kathryn Porter
Energy Consultant at Watt-Logic, Non-executive director
Professional Background
Kathryn Porter brings a wealth of experience to the finance and energy sectors, characterized by her unique blend of technical expertise and leadership skills. Currently, she serves as an Energy Consultant at Watt-Logic, a role where she leverages her extensive background in business development and strategic planning to enhance operational efficiencies and foster growth within the energy sector. Kathryn's professional journey has been marked by her ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams in delivering innovative strategies that explore and capitalize on new revenue streams.
Her impressive track record is complemented by her expertise in negotiating large, high-value transactions, an area where she has consistently excelled. Kathryn's experience spans various segments of finance including equities, equity derivatives, debt capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, loans, and risk management. This diverse portfolio empowers her to build strong, impactful relationships with both clients and stakeholders, effectively bridging the gap between technical capabilities and market demands.
Before her current position at Watt-Logic, Kathryn honed her skills at several prestigious organizations, including serving as a Senior Originator at Centrica Energy and Director of Commodities Structuring at Societe Generale. She also held prominent roles at EDF Trading and Barclays Capital, where she contributed to significantly shaping commodity structuring and pricing strategies. Her foundational experience in financial services began with Deloitte, where she specialized in audit functions.
Education and Achievements
Kathryn's educational background is as impressive as her career accomplishments. She graduated with a Master of Physics from the University of Exeter, which set the stage for her analytical and technical career approach in complex sectors. Further enhancing her expertise, she pursued an MBA at the prestigious London Business School, an experience that equipped her with essential business acumen and leadership insights crucial for success in high-stakes environments.
In addition to her formal education, Kathryn is a recognized champion for diversity within her industries. She actively mentors young women aspiring to enter both engineering and finance sectors, fostering the development of female talent and empowering future leaders. Her dedication to mentorship extends to supporting female entrepreneurs and charity organizations, where she offers her strategic insight and business wisdom.
Community Engagement
Kathryn's commitment to community involvement and the voluntary sector is a notable aspect of her profile. As a trustee of The Kids' Cookery School, she plays an essential role in strategic planning and governance, ensuring the organization effectively supports children through culinary education. Additionally, she serves as a trustee for the Royal Choral Society, advocating for cultural enrichment and community engagement through the arts. Kathryn’s active participation not only reflects her professional dedication but also her passion for making a meaningful impact in the lives of others.
Achievements
- Exceptional track record in business development and strategy formulation in the finance and energy sectors.
- Proven ability to negotiate large, high-value transactions, securing advantageous outcomes for stakeholders.
- Extensive experience in utilities, oil, and gas sectors, demonstrating expert knowledge in complex financial instruments and strategies.
- Dedicated mentor of young women in engineering and finance and supporter of female entrepreneurs.
- Active trustee in notable organizations, significantly contributing to community and cultural projects.
Highlights
People are making a big deal of the budget increase for the next CfD auction round (AR6). But the problem with AR5 when there were zero bids for off-shore wind wasn't the budget, it was the strike price. Since then the Government (the Conservatives before the General Election) increased the strike price for off-shore wind from £44 to £73 /MWh. This has not been changed again ie the new announcement simply means that IF this price is attractive to bidders more contracts will be awarded.
Before the Election, Labour made much of claims that it would save people £300 on their electricity bills. Part of this claim was based on a report by consultants Ember, which assumed that new renewables would be built at AR4 prices which had a strike price of £46 /MWh for off-shore wind.
So this announcement means that IF the new price of £73 is attractive to bidders, a lot more of these expensive contracts wull be awarded. It's hard to see how the £300 will be delivered on this basis. Plus wind output has been poor in recent weeks (right now it's 2.5 GW) which further undermines the value case to consumer because they still have to pay for the backup generation under the capacity market, the extra grid infrastructure to connect these new renewables (which is more per MW than for conventional generation) and the higher balancing costs to manage the intermittency - although the upside is that if wind output is so low, the balancing costs actually come down. Ironic....
#windpower #renewables #netzero
https://lnkd.in/eepuMWer balloons-to-more-than-1-5bn/
Until recently Ørsted, formerly DONG Energy was an oil and gas company. It transformed itself amid great fanfare to a renewable energy business focusing on wind.
But all has not been well for some time. Losses have mounted, projects have been cancelled, and now the company is heading for a major re-structuring, cuting up to 800 jobs and withdrawing from offshore wind markets in Norway, Spain and Portugal. It has slashed its 2030 target for installed renewable electricity capacity from 50 GW to 35-38 GW.
It is also suspending its dividend in order to protect its BBB+ credit rating - it can only afford a one-notch drop and still remain investment grade. Dividends are to be "paused" for the financial years 2023, 2024, and 2025, with a target is to reinstate them from the financial year 2026.
This is a further sign of the economic challenges faced by the wind sector. While turbine maker Vestas has returned to profits making a small positive return last year, it has long been the best performing of the turbine OEMs, and efforts by manufactureres to strengthen their financial position is boind to adversely affect developers such as Orsted, with tighter warranties, higher prices, and probably increased resistance to delivering ever larger turbines.
The entire sector needs to be re-strustured if losses are to be stemmed and companies across the supply chain are to be financially viable. Ideally without simply piling more costs onto already over-burdened consumers.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.