Phil Welker

Executive Director, PECI

Tanya stands out among the people I have hired over the years as one of the most strategic, innovative and effective.

Tanya is very effective in conducting exhaustive market and mission research necessary to set vision and direction; developing strategy and product development; establishing the operational, financial, sales and people processes necessary to build an exceptional and innovative organization from the ground up.

Tanya has both a deep understanding of, and experience with highly technical and detailed systems, processes, staffing, and P&L. Her depth of expertise from years of technical product and program management as well as breadth from having owned and sold a business made her both an effective strategist and highly skilled at organization building and execution.

Tanya is an accessible executive who always impressed me with her drive, intelligence, integrity and ability to deliver results. At PECI Tanya thoughtfully considers profit and loss and at every step. She guides the creation and execution of agile processes necessary to insure flexible, scalable and transparent systems for managing finance, budget, investments, human resources, and administration.

She always relates the importance of such activities to our mission and objectives. Her creation of a strategic investment committee and process allows us to both advance our mission through investments and gain valuable market insight in a manner consistent with our brand.

Her hiring and budget processes mean we operate leanly with less than 25% overhead and – despite being a start-up – are able to creatively redirect our funds to attracting the top-notch talent necessary to succeed in a technical field.

Tanya never gets so caught up in management that she loses the vision of strategically positioning the organization to attract clients, projects and revenue that is fundamentally aligned with our mission and that validates and improves our product roadmap for growth.

Micha Ramsey

Senior Product Development Manager, PECI

Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.

Assata Shakur

The first time I met Tanya, I knew immediately that she was unique; in the 9 months that I have worked with her, this initial impression has only been enforced. Tanya embodies Assata’s quote – creating reality from dreams through her actions. Her passion, intelligence, energy, and productivity set her apart. Furthermore, she combines all of these attributes with an extensive skillset that includes organizational development, personnel management and conflict resolution, tactical execution, long-term strategic vision development, business acumen, and deep technical knowledge. To top it all off, she has a fun-loving personality, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with her.

Tanya’s leadership style places the focus on the team as well as the culture it keeps and embraces. She embodies this approach with her empathy for her employees, her clients, and the communities with which she engages. Her ability to build relationships, whether internal or external, is second to none. Through her leadership and vision, she developed us into a closely aligned core team as well as creating momentum for projects, fostering great morale despite high stress deadlines, and enabling us to be highly productive in working toward project goals.

Not only is Tanya an exceptional leader and manager, she also is technically outstanding. She fundamentally understands the challenges facing the energy sector and utilities, the opportunities that a distributed energy economy present for communities, and the technologies needed to achieve the grid of the future. She combines this knowledge with exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal.

All businesses and organizations have in common the need to successfully navigate challenges, and one of the hardest is staying in alignment. The need for alignment spans the gamut – goals, strategy, objectives, and expectations. Tanya’s ability to determine near term tactical actions and align priorities in order to continually move the organization towards the longer-term strategic goals is one of her greatest strengths. Whether in a weekly team meeting or looking towards how an individual task might become a product or could be turned into a standardized process, she always made sure that we all kept sight of where the organization wanted to go and what that meant for what we needed to do today.

Her experience as an entrepreneur and running her own business is evidence of her capacity to manage all aspects of an operation. Furthermore, she is acutely aware of keeping overhead low – whether from a financial perspective or complexity of a process. The processes she developed at PECI were lean yet nimble – simple enough for our small organization but designed with an eye towards future growth. She was always thoughtful and intentional in her choices in order to best utilize resources.

I also admire Tanya’s ability to manage personnel; she has a direct approach and does not shy away from addressing a problem as soon as it becomes apparent. On several occasions, when we had a misunderstanding, she took the time to understand my perspective, identify the root cause of the issue, and develop an approach that would avoid reoccurrence. She is grounded, reflects on her own feelings, and approaches situations with an intent to understand. She has a flexible management approach based on individual styles, encouraging autonomy while setting the clear expectation of being accountable for delivering on commitments.

Matthew Tsugawa, MBA, CMA

Chief Operating Officer, Friends of the Children

It’s my pleasure to recommend Tanya Barham. Tanya and I worked at PECI together for approximately two years. As PECI’s Director of Finance, I reported to Tanya and worked extensively with her to set up and oversee the financial operations of the organization. Together we completely re-designed the chart of accounts, management financial reports, and budgeting and forecasting tools. I was extremely impressed with Tanya’s financial acumen, which she used as the ultimate decision maker on these initiatives. Moreover, the enhanced tools and processes were built to support a new organizational structure designed by Tanya.

Tanya also introduced significant improvements to the stability and effectiveness of the organization by developing much-needed administrative infrastructure.

She created robust processes, tools, and documentation for the accounts payable, contracts management, and budgeting processes, among others. Tanya also developed an operational workflow management tool to track projects and tasks across multiple functions, vendors, and staff. Her contributions and relentless drive to improve efficiency, scalability, and quality allowed PECI the capacity to pursue and perform significantly more projects in a resource-constrained environment.

While Tanya’s administrative scope was considerable, her business development and programmatic responsibilities were even larger. She combined formidable organizational skills and systems thinking with a natural ability to lead numerous stakeholders to accomplish an ambitious set of objectives. Since most of the organization’s resources were not staff, but vendors and contractors, Tanya’s democratic management style and ability to communicate a clear direction and vision were especially critical in creating alignment among and motivating the team.

Leadership and management talents aside, I thoroughly enjoyed working with Tanya and came to respect her tremendous work ethic. I’m confident that Tanya would be an asset to any organization.

Laura Thompson

Founder & Director, Elevation Advising

Tanya is the single most organized, dedicated, and efficient person with whom I have had the pleasure of working. As a fundraising consultant with PECI, I have worked closely with her on a number of projects and have seen firsthand her stellar project management skills, her ability to effectively manage teams, and her keen understanding of organizational vision and strategy.

At PECI, Tanya has developed and overseen a comprehensive and multi-faceted fundraising plan. In this capacity, she has worked with a team of consultants whose schedules varied and who lived in different parts of the world. Despite these challenges, she has been able to ensure that all messaging is consistent, timely, accurate, and on-brand.

Tanya has a knack for recognizing and bringing on board talented people whose skills fit an organization’s team and vision.

She empowers her teams to take ownership of projects and work independently while knowing that she is behind them as an active and supportive supervisor.

Tanya consistently demonstrates an acute understanding of the importance of organizational messaging, vision, and strategy. She knows what it takes to move an organization toward its vision and make decisions based on that vision. For each project, she provides her team with clear direction and a coherent, logical process that allows each team member to work toward organizational goals with confidence.

Tanya would be a great asset for any team. I will enthusiastically work with her in the future if the opportunity arises.

Melanie Adamson

Founder & Chief Marketing Strategist, Alder Agency & Co.

Tanya and I worked together at envisioning the brand future for PECI.

As my direct client, Tanya embodied workplace rigor, intrepid business acumen and leadership that inspired me on a daily basis.

She is relentless at accomplishing the most complex problems. From business strategy to program design, Tanya is skilled at finding solutions while staying disciplined on principle values and goals.

It is her leadership style that will establish exceptional team development, clients with purpose and ultimately making a positive impact in the energy industry. I hope to work with her again.

Luke Mawhinney

Vice President, Development, Calvert Woodley Energy

I am writing to insist that you will find no one more capable to accomplish and accelerate your mission than Tanya Barham.

In all my career I have met few who are as passionate, dedicated, and effective as Tanya. Let’s start with her hyper-competence. As Director of Operations at PECI, she managed a over a dozen complex, multi-agency projects simultaneously with the leanest of staffs. She is breathtakingly creative in leveraging technology to get the most of her human resources. She keeps disparate people, both in and outside of her organization, on task and productive while continually building esteem and camaraderie.

PECI relied on many specialty vendors and contractors, such as my firm. Tanya would engage the right consultants at the right time to focus time, garner needed expertise, and stay right on budget. And she is a relentlessly accurate budgeter.

Her ability to marshal people outside of her direct line of report required and demonstrated her outstanding skills in persuasion, motivation, and management.

Her cool and fun personality excites everyone around her, especially her customers and local partners. She has a successful track record to prove it among public, private, non-profit, educational, and partner organizations. She brings a deep knowledge of their inner workings – both physically and politically.

I have been a number of external calls with Tanya and public agencies who have been looking at complex energy and DER projects. Tanya handles these interactions with exceptional charisma and discipline. She keeps people on topic, builds consensus, documents consensus, and balances a volume of information with a methodical pace that does not overwhelm public servants or less experienced local partners. She answers questions clearly, keeps ice broken, and listens to what clients are trying to say, even if they’re not able to fully express it just yet.

In her dual role as Director of Product Development, her passion for community and energy shines through. I have worked in energy development for over a decade, starting among the first 40 employees at SunEdison. No one, and I mean no one, believes in the innovative energy mission and has thought through the ramifications for massive DER distribution like Tanya.

She is up to date on the latest technological developments, and active at conferences pushing the conversation further still. Despite the ambition of her mission, Tanya maintains a grounded focus to build exactly what needs to be done to meet the next challenge. She keeps staff lean and products relentlessly tailored to customers’ demands while tracking her own long term vision.

If innovative energy solutions are the future, and they will certainly be a part of it, I can think of no one better suited to shepherd them into our energy mix than Tanya.

I am sure you have in your network many capable energy professionals. I am equally sure you have none that are more exceptional than Tanya Barham.