Our Team
Meet the talented individuals who make up our exceptional team.
Adib Naslé
Chief Executive Officer
Adib is the inventor of real-time power analytics for mission critical electrical power distribution networks. Previously, Adib was co-founder, and president at Power Analytics Inc. He has worked with renowned organizations in computer applications in power and energy, including the design, and development, of the predictive energy management system for the National Airspace System (NAS) critical infrastructure for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Adib is a senior IEEE member, co-teaches the Microgrid planning and economic optimization course at UC San Diego (CSE-41291), is a member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Energy Research at University of California, San Diego Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and the Advisory Board for the Power System Engineering Certificate program at UC San Diego Extensions, and holds 26 U.S. and international patents in the areas of electrical power system design, optimization, and capacity assessment. Adib received his BA from Michigan State University, MBA from Pepperdine University GSBM and studied finance and accounting at Stanford University GSB.
Scott Mitchell, MSCS
Chief Software Architect
Scott has been a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) every year from 2002 through 2014, and is recognized as one of the Top 40 Alumnus under the age of 40 at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Scott holds several patents in the areas of electrical power system design, optimization, and capacity assessment.
He is a renowned technical authority on Cloud Computing and cyber-secure web application development for distributed energy systems, and created the Microgrid information and management platform for the Federal Aviation Administration National Airspace System (NAS). Scott has a Master’s in Computer Science from the UC San Diego with an emphasis in data analytics and information retrieval systems.
Whitney Haring-Smith
Board Director
Whitney Haring-Smith is a investor focused primarily on industrial and technology businesses. As a Managing Partner at Anzu Partners, Dr. Haring- Smith leads the portfolio support functions, the firm’s SPAC practice, and has led most of Anzu’s acquisitions and software investments. Among other investments, Dr. Haring-Smith led the investments for:
- acquisition of Axsun Technologies from Royal Philips NV in October 2015 (acquired by Excelitas in 2019)
- minority investment in MultiMechanics (acquired by Siemens PLC in 2019)
- pre-IPO crossover round for Ai-Media (now public as ASX: AIM)
- revenue-based redeemable preferred share financing for Pivotal Systems (ASX: PVS)
Dr. Haring-Smith currently serves as a board director for several Anzu portfolio companies, with a current public list of board positions available on LinkedIn.
Prior to Anzu Partners, Dr. Haring-Smith was a Principal at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where he focused on energy, industrial goods, and globalization while working in BCG’s San Francisco, Seattle, and Hong Kong offices. During his tenure with BCG, Dr. Haring-Smith served energy clients in the United States, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Angola, and Argentina. In industrial goods, Dr. Haring-Smith coordinated operational transformations for clients in the manufacturing and mining industries across the United States, both working in white-collar corporate headquarters and on-site in steel-toed boots to drive operational change.
While based in BCG’s Hong Kong office, Dr. Haring-Smith worked with David Michael on BCG’s flagship globalization report Global Challengers: Allies and Adversaries, which identified 100 high-growth companies from emerging markets with the potential to become global leaders in their industries.
In early-stage companies, Dr. Haring-Smith was the co-founder & board chairman of College Abacus, a website that became the “Kayak.com of college financial aid” in the United States. From 2012 to 2014, College Abacus was featured in the New York Times, CNN Money, Yahoo Finance, CBS News, Fox Business, and other publications. In 2014, College Abacus was acquired by ECMC.
Dr. Haring-Smith earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees simultaneously from Yale University, magna cum laude, and received his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar from Pennsylvania.
Yash Arya
Solutions Engineer
Yash Arya is an up-and-coming web engineer with about 5 years of working in a full-stack environment.
Though he entered UCSD with the intent of going to medical school, computer science became something he loved to learn and to teach. Most of his development experience is in payment gateway logistics and security for companies such as The Customer Connection, Payment Logistics, Authorization.Net or in enterprise level ecommerce platforms like FenceScreen.com or Shopify. Yash joined XENDEE in hopes of using his knowledge to “move the needle” as far as global sustainability and optimization goes.
He believes that providing a toolkit like XENDEE to the world would incentivize and ease the transition for many organizations, to a more sustainable usage of energy over time. In his spare time, he enjoys soccer, go-karting, and family activities.
Kelsey Fahy, MSME
Lead Engineer
Kelsey Fahy has a Master degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). Her research includes work on simulating grid-connected and islanded Microgrids with stochastic methods, with a focus on evaluating reliability and value streams.
She also holds a BA in Physics from St. Olaf College, where she was a member of the St. Olaf Rube Goldberg team that placed 2nd at the National Rube Goldberg Engineering Championships at Purdue.
Kirk A. Gottlieb
Patent & IP Legal
Kirk Gottlieb is a principal in the Silicon Valley office of Fish & Richardson P.C. His practice emphasizes patent prosecution in the areas of electrical engineering and computer science.
Mr. Gottlieb counsels clients on patent-related matters, performs patent portfolio analyses, and prepares patent applications and non-infringement/invalidity opinions. He has supported patent litigations, conducted intellectual property due diligence analyses, and negotiated technology licensing transactions for clients in software, electronics, and semiconductor industries. He was a judicial extern for the Honorable Steven J. McAuliffe of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire (1996-1997), and a member of the technical staff of Rockwell International’s space systems division (1989-1994).
Technology areas include: software, electronics, telecommunications, digital signal processing, image processing, power conversion and transmission, semiconductors (including devices, equipment, and processes), optics, lasers, databases, networking, location-based services, wireless systems and devices, security systems and devices, encryption, search engines, instant messaging, and digital rights management.
Reynaldo Guerrero
Principal Engineer
Reynaldo C. Guerrero Jr. is a Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (University of the Philippines, Diliman 2019), Master of Science in Electronics Engineering (Ateneo de Manila University 2011), Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communications Engineering (Ateneo de Manila University 2007) and cofounder and board member at SolarSolutions, Inc.
Previously, Reynaldo worked at SunPower Corporation as a Senior Staff Device Engineer and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as an affiliate implementing multi-period investments in DER modeling and sizing.
Nathan Johnson, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor
Nate is an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, as well as the Director of the Laboratory for Energy and Power Solutions (LEAPS).
He also works with XENDEE on multiple projects and his 25-person research team takes energy innovations from concept to construction with a focus on grid modernization, Microgrids, off-grid solutions, critical infrastructure, and workforce development. Nathan manages a one-acre Microgrid test bed and combines simulation-based design with hands-on prototype development to create next-generation solutions to current market needs.
He has over 40 peer-reviewed publications. He spent ten years in industry and academia working in product development for the energy sector with projects across 15 countries. He now helps start and advise small businesses and is an active educator with training and workforce development programs inside and outside the university.
Jan Kleissl, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor
Jan is a Professor, and Director of the world renown Center for Energy Research at University of California, San Diego Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. Jan's research group works in solar radiation in the atmosphere and solar power integration into the electric grid through field experimental (sky cameras, sensor networks) and computational techniques (optimization, quasi-steady state power flow).
The research is unique in that it spans the spectrum of fundamental work to applications with the goal of increasing environmental sustainability. Sample applications are solar power resource forecasting, variability modeling, voltage control on electric distribution feeders under high solar PV penetration, smart charging of electric vehicles, and Microgrid planning.
Eric Lim-Senesac
Microgrid Engineer
Eric (Yongjin) Lim-Senesac is a recent graduate of USC’s Viterbi Engineering School / Master’s in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis on Powers Systems.
Eric’s early experience includes being a teaching assistant in the electrical engineering lab at Wonkwang University, where he organized laboratory experiments and taught first- year students the principle and operation of asynchronous motors, electric generators, and oscilloscopes. Eric desires to research how to connect several microgrids to develop existing power grids into smart ones. His ultimate career goal is to activate microgrids in utility units, creating a national smart grid ecosystem.
Eric is excited to call XENDEE his first career role in the United States and looks forward to much future success. Additionally, Eric was an Engineering Intern at Jeon-il Technology Group in South Korea. Eric is bilingual in his native Korean and fluent in English. Eric’s passions outside of work include luxury fashion & automobiles and multiple culinary experiences. Before Eric’s time in the US, he attended Wonkwang University as well as spent two years as a Sergeant in the Republic of Korea Marine Corp.
Trent Maw
Director of Marketing
Trent is a results-driven marketing leader with 10+ years of marketing leadership experience in B2B SaaS and 20 years experience in the startup space.
He developed his marketing chops in the learning technology industry as a founder where he was awarded 2009 SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and more recently in the manufacturing software category where he has built marketing strategy, processes and teams to achieve rapid growth leading to successful company acquisition.
Trent received his MBA from University of Phoenix, and undergrad degrees in communications and Spanish from Weber State University.
Zachary K. Pecenak, Ph.D.
Senior Director of Product
Zack Pecenak is an inventor with multiple patents in Distributed Energy Resources design and optimization, and has authored publications in the most reputable power industry forums including IEEE Transactions, Elsevier journals, and Greentech Media.
He holds a Ph.D and M.S. from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), where he was funded by the Center for Energy research. His research at UCSD included unbalanced distribution system modeling, power flow simplification, scheduling of controllable resources, solar forecasting, optimal voltage control, Microgrid design, and software development.
Zack received a management certification from the Rady school of management, with a specialization in technology management and entrepreneurship. He also holds a dual B.S. from the honors college at the University at Buffalo in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering where he authored a thesis on turbulence and cloud formation. Before joining XENDEE, Zack has worked with Sempra energy and the US Air Force Research Lab.
Sadhana Ponnala
Quality Assurance Engineer
Sadhana has worked as a quality assurance engineer for over seven years. Her experience has involved testing client-server applications, SaaS applications, web-based applications, enterprise applications and mobile applications. She has experience in building QA processes and methodologies for small teams.
She holds a Masters in Information Technology with a specialization in Data Management Technology from Colorado Technical University; a Masters in Business Administration with a specialization in Finance; and a Bachelors in Computer Science.
Spencer Schneidenbach, MS
Senior Software Engineer
Spencer is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), architect and full stack developer specialized in enterprise-grade cloud computing solutions.
His work is focused on programmatic integration of complex utility tariffs and real-time electricity pricing structures. Spencer has a Master's in Management Information Systems from the University of Missouri St. Louis.
Jahnis Wish
Web Designer
Jahnis has over 20 years experience in digital development. During his early career, he helped develop a wide range of web applications for startups and corporate clients alike.
He gained broad experience working with clients across varied industries including: Ecommerce, Healthcare, Consumer Goods, Entertainment, Logistics, Direct Response, Real Estate, and more. At a certain point, he developed a strong interest in the design component of web application development and pivoted to meet this growing need within the industry.
He spent 8 years as Creative Director for the LA-based digital agency FLUENT before joining the XENDEE team in early 2022. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from UCSD and is a big fan of technology, art, history, motorcycles, horticulture, and family.
Join The XENDEE Team
XENDEE is growing and looking to expand our team. Review our open positions and help us build a cleaner, more sustainable future through distributed energy Microgrids.
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