Interview with Kelly Veney Darnell, American Clean Power (ACP)

Catherine: Hi, I’m Catherine McLean, Founder and CEO of Dylan Green. And today I have with me Kelly Veney Darnell. Kelly is the chief operating officer at ACP and the president of CPI. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Kelly: Thank you.

Catherine: And inviting me to your beautiful offices during the day. So for those who may not know, could you please introduce yourself?

Kelly: Sure. So I am the chief operating officer here at American Clean Power Association. I’ve been here for about a year and a half. And I’ve been in operations for a long time now. This is my fifth COO role. And so here I manage operations, this beautiful space that we’re in, that we built out and moved in last July. I also have human resources and IT Finance. The corporate council reports to me, as well as I’m responsible for all of our conferences and events of which we run eight different conferences throughout the year. And I am president of the Clean Power Institute, which is our 501c3 nonprofit where we focus on workforce.

Catherine: Amazing. What brought you to ACP?

Kelly: A gentleman named Jason Gourmet brought me to ACP. We were, when he was the CEO of the bipartisan policy center, I was the COO there. And he, when he was thinking about taking the job, he came to me and he told me about the opportunity. And he asked me if I’d come and he said, I really need you. And so he gave me all kinds of sweet things that he sprinkled on because I was serving as the interim CEO at the bipartisan policy center. And I was thinking about whether I would throw my name in the hat and the board was really encouraging me to do so. But I really, really enjoyed working with Jason and I wanted to work with him again. I liked how he built cultures. We have the same philosophy in building an organization. And so he said, it’s really hard. And I, the joke was, I kept telling him, I’ve been CO 5 times. I was really, really arrogant, right? He’s like, no, I’m telling you it’s going to be really hard. And I was like, oh, it’ll be fine. And then I got here. I was like, I hate you. How did you bring me here? He said, I told you it was going to be hard. And that is how I got to ACP.

Catherine: What made it so hard?

Kelly: I think that because ACP sort of merged, the foundation was our IT systems, it was just enough to get by and our finance systems. We were still really using what AWEA had, our former organization. And so we had all of these systems that were really built for a different organization. And we were trying to change them and quite frankly, build more sophisticated systems. But it was all the departments. Normally I come in and I say, oh, okay, HR needs a little help. Oh, okay. We’ll work on IT or finance. And at ACP, it was really putting a lot of time and effort across all of our systems. And that was hard.

Catherine: Wow. How do you feel that your upbringing has influenced your career trajectory?

Kelly: I am the product of a mom who was in the foster care system from the time she was seven. She didn’t go to college until I was four years old. And so I went to college on a community, I went to preschool, didn’t go to college, I went to preschool on a community college campus. My dad actually only has a third grade education and believed very much in education.
And so he encouraged my mother to go to college. And so with three kids, my dad worked, of course, he was a Mason, took Masonry. And my mom went to college, she started at a community college. And then she went on to a four year school and got her master’s and became a teacher. It literally changed our lives. It changed everything about our lives. It changed where we lived. We moved out to the suburbs. It really changed just the environment in which I was growing up. And there was just such an emphasis in our house about you can be anything you want to be. Education is really, really important.
My parents actually sold their house. We moved to Howard County, Maryland, which is like the Virginia equivalent of Middleburg. And it ended up increasing in value. My parents sold their house to send me to college. It was so my success and the success of my siblings was so important to them. And they moved to another house, but that is how they financed my college education because they did not want me to incur debt to go to college. And I think it just always stayed with me. And what I wanted to do and the encouragement that I got from my parents, and quite frankly, the support, everything they did was to make sure their kids were going to be successful. And that, I mean, I still think about all of the sacrifices, quite frankly, that they made to make sure that I got the education that I did.

Catherine: They must be pretty proud.

Kelly: They’re so, I’ll tell you, when my dad passed away in 2014, he was in hospice. He actually died of melanoma. And so he’s in hospice. And he can barely speak at this point. And he said, the nurse comes in and he says to the nurse, some of his last words were my daughter’s a lawyer. And I knew at that moment that he just, he was just so incredibly proud of everything that I had accomplished.

Catherine: It’s such a beautiful story. Can you share a pivotal moment or mentor in your career that significantly had an impact on your career path?

Kelly: You know, I’ve been a lot of places. I’ve moved, I’ve had several different careers. I started in politics and then I worked for a mayor and worked on the hill and did all of those things. And then went to law school and practiced and did corporate. And I think actually Jason Grumet has been one of the most incredible mentors and sponsors that I’ve ever had. Okay. And just his belief in me, and I had the jobs before, but you’ll hear a lot, especially a lot of advice to women. They’ll say you need a sponsor and someone who’s speaking on your behalf when you’re not in the room. And my question is always, what happens when you don’t have a sponsor? How do you navigate corporate America? How do you navigate the law when you’re just, your head is down and you’re working really, really hard? And I had to figure that out because I didn’t have parents who could sort of steer me in the direction in which I needed to go. And so I was able to get there. And then when I met Jason, he said when he was asking me to come to ACP, I said, I called him after the offer and I said, oh my gosh, Jason, thank you so much for this opportunity. And he said, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me. I need you to help me look good.
And it just really hit. Because I think as a woman, you just kind of second guess a little bit. You forget how good you are. I’m really good at this. I’ve done this five times. So he just was so unemotional. I was like, what are you talking about? This is totally about my success. I appreciated that message though.

Catherine: I mean, it’s so insightful because I mean, that’s a true leader, like someone who’s like, I’m going to have a bunch of people around me that are better than me.
So that’s awesome. If someone wants to be an ally, mentor, sponsor of their female colleagues, what do you believe is the best thing that they could do?

Kelly: Just give opportunities. I don’t even know how else to say that I was and allow women to just be themselves. When I went to practice corporate law, I was the first associate to, I was the first woman female associate to have a child as an associate. So I went to a big firm. Every other woman waited until she was a partner to have a child. And I thought going into the firm at the time, it’s much bigger now, but at the time there were 500 attorneys, there were three black attorneys. I thought that would be the challenge. The challenge was being the only woman, being a woman in that environment.

Catherine: So you were the only black woman in the whole law firm?

Kelly: Yes. I was also the only woman. When I was at Bank of America, I was the only woman and the only person of color in capital market structured finance on the risk team. Goodness.
But it was just really, it was just having those allies who did not look at me differently, who did not just give me the opportunity. I always say, you don’t have to do anything for me, but you have to stay out of my way. Don’t put any roadblocks in front of me, to get in my way. And I think that women have different seasons of their lives too. There’s kind of a season where you need something different from an ally when your kids are young. And you’re sort of in those mothering years and then you need a different type of ally as you go through your career.

Catherine: It’s so interesting what you said about not putting roadblocks because I mean, that’s sort of what I try to do in my work. Like I’m just trying to give people an equal shot. Like what we were talking about before the interview about that, just providing that rainbow of profiles, just giving everybody a shot and like made the best person win, but at least giving an opportunity and not putting hurdles in front of people unnecessarily.

Kelly: And that’s exactly Just give me that opportunity to sit in the room. That’s all I want. Once I get there, I can do it. But at least let me give me an opportunity to sit there.

Catherine: No, I love that. So I want to talk about this event that you do have coming up this year. ACP has an empower her event. What inspired you to launch it?

Kelly: So our pilot was last year during clean power. Okay. And we had an Empower Her luncheon.And there was so much need, even though, of course, there’s WRISE in their other women’s organizations in the clean energy space. Still more was needed. We still are not. We still, of course, have a lower percentage of women in the industry. And so he said, there is space for all of us to be successful and for all of us to offer something for women in the space.
And so if you think about it, we have 43 members on our board. We only have seven women. And so we still need all of the support that we can to reach those executive levels in this industry. And so we had a successful luncheon last year. And I think even we were surprised at how much support there was. And so when we thought about it, what is the space that we think we can really be successful in? And that is not entry level, but as we look at that sort of director, senior director to executive, what can we offer that will help women really get into the C-suite? And that is where we wanted to focus. And that is where we see, we see women, of course, we are entering the industry. But how do we break through that glass ceiling to get women into those CEO jobs? And what can we offer as an organization? What skills can we offer what opportunities and skill building can we offer to help women to get into that place?

Catherine: I think it’s so necessary too, because in order to continue to have a workforce of incredible young women, they’re going to look up. And so there’s so many times I look to place a woman and she says, but the whole senior leadership team is men. Like, is there any space for me? Like, who am I going to learn from? How am I going to kind of grow? And so I think it has to start from the top down, no?

Kelly: It does. You know, representation means so much. And I think a lot of times it will even prevent you from applying for a job when you look at the C-suite. You automatically think there’s no, there’s no place for me here. Why am I going there? And so we have to be able to get in those spaces.

Catherine: Who do you think should attend to Empower Her and why?

Kelly: I think someone who really does want to grow in her career, I think maybe not the entry level and more junior, but someone who is, once you get to a certain point of your career, I like to say what got you here won’t get you there. There really is a different mindset. And someone who is interested in, how do you manage up once you become sort of mid-level to get into the C-suite? What do you, what does resiliency look like? What does it mean when, how comfortable are you when you’re the only one in the room? What is your confidence? How do you build that confidence to be the only one in the room? And also the confidence to bring other women along, because sometimes you get into those spaces and you’re so happy to be there that you pull the ladder up and you’re afraid. Guys are never afraid, but we are we get afraid. And so someone who wants to learn we’re also going to focus on deal making. What is project finance? A lot of times we don’t have the background in finance that we need that senior leaders are really looking for to be able to elevate. So what does that sort of project finance 101 look like? How can we build that skill set? We’re having someone come in to talk about compensation. How, what is it, what does an executive compensation package look like? When you speak to experts, they’ll say that women leave a lot of money on the table. We just don’t even know. You know, they’ll say, men are audacious. They’ll ask for everything. We’re just so grateful for the opportunity that we don’t counter, that we don’t really say what we need. We don’t think about our exit. We’re so happy to get in that we don’t think, huh, I need to think about how do I negotiate the exit at the beginning? And I’m really excited about that because I think I was able to participate in a program that talked about compensation. I thought, I wish I’d had this 20 years ago.

Catherine: I find that a lot of senior women will negotiate against themselves. Like they’ll say, Oh, would I have such great flexibility? I can go home and bathe the kids and have dinner with my family. And I’m like, Oh, okay. So you don’t turn the laptop on again. Oh, no, of course I turn the laptop back on again. And I was like, okay, so why are you negotiating against yourself on flex, on thinking flexibility is a perk. I mean, this happened and it happens a lot.

Kelly: What are some other things that you see when women are looking at compensation?

Catherine: I think that there’s, like you said, I think we feel like we should be grateful and there’s a nervousness. They don’t want to lose the opportunity, right? So it’s like, well, I don’t want to ask for more because then it’s going to seem like I’m greedy and like, I’m just so, so amazing that I have the opportunity. Like I don’t want to, I don’t want to make them mad.

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely.

Catherine: And this is stuff that we’re taught as little girls. To be seen and not heard. You’re trying to undo, especially senior women, senior women are in their forties, 50s, 60s. This is decades that you’re trying to counterbalance. And the best advice I always say to my candidates is just fake it. Just, you have to just just ignore the voice and just fake it until you make it.

Kelly: Absolutely.

Catherine: Posture syndrome is a thing.

Kelly: I don’t believe in it, but it is a thing. I’m like, it’s don’t, it just takes up so much space. Here’s a funny story about Jason. So this is when we are at the bipartisan policy center and I go to him and I say recruiters are really starting to reach out to me. And I just I, and even though I know better, I too, I have to fall into this trap, right? I know not to do this, but I said, oh Jason and, and here are all the ways and why I think my compensation should change. And he looked at me and he goes, what’s your number? And I was like, wait, what? What do you mean? What’s my number? I was not ready because I hadn’t thought I was still so reluctant and thought I had to make such a case for myself. He just looked at me and was like, so what do you mean? I was like, well, and so I said, it’d never be unprepared again.

Catherine: So what is your parting advice to people who don’t think women need these pathways to leadership? I’d like to meet these people.

Kelly: You know, I think you see so many women that you see women in the space, but you don’t think about the women who aren’t in the C-suite and or on the boards, right?

Catherine: That’s a whole nother topic.

Kelly: That’s it. Oh my gosh. And so I think people get fooled in the saying, Oh what is it? 60% of women now are graduating from college. And so they see that imbalance there and they don’t think about, yeah, but we reached that glass ceiling really, really soon. And if we want the best talent, the truth is, and we need the best talent and clean energy, you’re going to have to go to all pillars of society. I have to go everywhere and you’re going to have to be willing to give everyone that opportunity and women that opportunity to sit in the C-suite and to serve on boards.

Catherine: Do you think things are going to be harder now to do this kind of work considering our current predicament? I’ll call it a predicament. I’ve noticed a shift. I’m not going to lie.

Kelly: I absolutely think it’s going to be harder. Look at Goldman Sachs who had that 50% for a company that they would invest in, 50% had to be women or people of color. And so pulling back from all of that, it’s going to be tough. I grew up because of my mom and my background. My mother was a feminist because she didn’t have those opportunities and she knew how important they were. And it was, you have to take care of yourself, right? You always have to take care of yourself. I am worried. I wish I had great advice or great words for something, but I am worried. I think we can’t stop. We’re not going to stop our progress. We’re here now and we’re so powerful. And I think the one thing that women have to do though is we’re going to have to stick together.

Catherine: You know, it’s so funny you said that. I was thinking the exact same thing. I think it’s more important than ever to do that. What you said about once you get to a certain place and then pulling that ladder up. It’s so true of, I feel like older school women have done that. And so I really feel like this next generation, that’s going to be like the number one thing we have to give, help each other. And I always say help each other, provide opportunities for each other, you know?

Kelly: Absolutely. The pie can expand, right? It’s not like the pie doesn’t, it can get bigger and there’s a place for all of us. But I think women can be hard on women. We have to be honest about that, but we’re going to have to stick together if we want to keep advancing.

Catherine: And we are so fortunate. We have the best women in our industry.

Kelly: We do. We actually, I have to say I’m new to clean energy. And so I have been, the support of the women on the board has been unbelievable. And how they support each other and how they support women in the industry, it has been quite a joy to work with these women.

Catherine: It really is. It’s a love fest.

Kelly: It actually is. It is.

Catherine: Well, thank you so much for talking to me today. And all the work that you’re doing are on our behalf.

Kelly: Thank you. This is a lot of fun. Thank you so much.