The Lowfoot Team

Philip Playfair

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Philip developed the vision for Lowfoot. Philip believes that “smart grid” is the utility sector’s “telecom moment” and that Lowfoot is extremely well positioned to become a billion dollar player in this market. He has extensive utility experience and a shared passion for reducing electricity consumption and building successful companies. In his first start-up, Advanced Utility Systems, Philip’s vision helped to disrupt the static utility billing software space by developing feature rich software at reasonable prices for an industry held hostage by incumbent software providers and their “change order” rich solutions. Prior to Advanced, Philip oversaw the design, development, and rollout of the first electoral data management system in Canada that overlaid electronic voter registration, complex demographics data, polling data, and automated data collection. Philip has an honors BA in History from Trent University, Peterborough, Canada.
Shirley Rouse

President

Shirley draws on her more than 25 year career in senior leadership roles with a variety of energy companies. Most recently, Shirley was Senior Vice President, Retail Energy, for Frontier Utilities, spearheading high-priority growth initiatives. Prior to that, she was with Reliant Energy for more than eleven years, most recently as Vice President of Mass Markets Innovation. The smart energy products and services created by her team are now used by more than 500,000 Reliant customers and were selected in 2011 for CIO Magazine’s ‘100 Award’. Prior to joining Reliant, Shirley led growth for geophysical processing and environmental management ventures. Shirley graduated from Princeton University with dual degrees in Management Systems Engineering and Geological Engineering and holds a Financial Management certificate from Cornell University. She is currently serving as a mentor with the SURGE business accelerator.
Robert E. Toker

Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer

Rob was an executive with several of the most innovative energy companies in the world including Vice President at Oxane Materials, an Energy Ventures portfolio company and Vice President, Partnerships and Market Planning at GlycosBio chemical Company. Rob has Private Equity and corporate direct investment experiences serving as Senior Vice President with Sindicatum Carbon Capital (SCC), a London – Singapore based energy developer and investment firm backed by Citigroup Alternative Investment, Gulf One Bank, Black River (Cargill) and AIG. While at SCC, Rob had a broad range of responsibilities including origination, planning, financial and strategic analysis through structuring and financial close. Before joining SCC, Rob was Head of Trade and Investment in Houston for UK Trade & Investment where he led the Houston-based International Energy Team and the Miami-based Trade and Investment team including the Latin American and Caribbean Market Intelligence Unit. Rob worked on a range of sustainability and energy policy issues including energy security, resource scarcity and climate policy. Rob has operations and program management experience with several venture backed software companies and was the founding CEO of ENSBio, a venture backed bio-materials firm. Rob started his career at the United Nations in New York. He has a BA from Boston University and an MS from Tufts University. Rob is an Advisory Board Member for the Rice Alliance in Houston.
Andrew J. Roehr

Chief Technology & Strategy Officer

Andy is Lowfoot’s Chief Technology & Strategy Officer, where he applies over 25 years of experience with the challenges of technology and the Power & Utilities industry. An early leader in the development of policies around deregulation and consumer empowerment for the US market, Andy also was an early adopter of Internet based technologies for consumer platform solutions in Retail and Financials Services, and has been applying the lessons of those markets to a consumer focused vision of Energy solutions. Most recently, Andy was a Managing Director with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, LLP where he was responsible for their “Smart Energy” practice in the US and the Global Center of Excellence. Prior to this, he was VP of Smart Energy – North America for Capgemini, where he filled a similar role. His background also includes work in Venture Capital, including a successful IPO of Perficient (NASDAQ: PRFT) where he filled a range of roles from Chief Technology Officer to EVP of Sales/Marketing & Investor Relations. A graduate of Tufts University with a BA in Political Science, Andy is a frequent industry speaker and writer on a range of Energy related topics from Smart Meters to Smart Grids, Distributed Generation and Consumer models for an advanced Power market. Andy is a member of the Rice Alliance for Entrepreneurship, and a member of Mill River Ventures, LLC, both in Houston, TX.
Peter Quinsey

SVP of Technology & Program Management

As SVP of Technology and Program Management, Peter is responsible for delivering the platforms which make Lowfoot work. Drawing on his seven years’ experience running an independent agile software development team, he balances traditional software engineering with modern agile development. Peter believes software is at its best when fresh-baked, and loves to deliver enterprise-grade systems in record time. As an independent developer, he has built and scaled order processing systems for Rogers Communications, rich media interfaces for Masterfile, and social platforms for GetInvolved/TVOntario. He’s also been the development lead on Lowfoot since day one, and is excited to be joining the team full-time. Peter holds a B.A. (Hons) in English and Computer Science from the University of Toronto.
Chuck Pflueger

SVP of Strategic Marketing

Chuck’s career spans 4 major economic sectors including energy (power and oil / gas), renewable energy, technology and healthcare. Chuck draws on 30 years of deep marketing expertise working with Fortune 50 companies as well as start-ups including companies like ConocoPhillips, DuPont, Pennzoil, Texaco, Caltex, BMC Software, Fujitsu Consulting, The Methodist Hospital, Standard Renewable Energy, National City Corp, and Qwest Communication’s Cyber Solutions. In addition, Chuck has extensive international marketing and business development experience in Eastern Europe, Japan and Latin America serving in a wide ranging variety of marketing and business development roles. Recently, as VP of Marketing and PR at Standard Renewable Energy, he built the marketing, business development and PR department and team supporting the company’s residential, commercial and governmental sales channels from scratch. He also serves as a marketing strategy consultant for Endeavor Management working with their oil and gas and healthcare business units. He is currently serving as a mentor with the SURGE business accelerator. Chuck has an MBA from Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio and a BA from Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Board of Directors

Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas served as CEO, President and COO from 2000 to 2012 of Green Mountain Energy Company, one of the country’s leading retailers of renewable electricity and where he built a unique environmental brand in what was believed to be a commodity market. Prior to joining Green Mountain, Thomas had a long career at BP where among other things he ran U.S. Crude Supply and Trading, and was President, North American Gas and Power Trading.
Roberta Konicki

Roberta Konicki is Senior Vice President of Macquarie Energy LLC and is Co- Head of Structured Supply for Power and Natural Gas in North America where she is responsible for structured finance transactions for retail energy suppliers. Ms. Konicki joined Macquarie’s Houston office in 2009 and has thirteen years of energy marketing experience where she focused on negotiating wholesale full-requirements with utilities and municipals, tolling agreements, energy management agreements, options, and credit related structures. Prior to joining Macquarie, Ms. Konicki was Vice President of Power Origination at Sempra Energy Trading, LLC, Director of Power Origination at BP North America, and Director of Power Origination at Duke Energy North America.

Advisory Board

Alex Rau

Alex Rau is a founding partner of Climate Wedge Ltd, an independent firm providing carbon finance and emissions trading related advisory and asset management services, and pursuing principal investments and project development in the environmental markets. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford University, a B.A. from Cornell University and is a CFA charter holder.

Offices

Lowfoot has offices in Houston, Texas, and Toronto, Ontario.

Houston

Team Office & Mailing Address: 10655 Richmond Ave
Suite 100
Houston TX, 77042
(832) 534 2652

Toronto

Mailing Address: 2-125 The Queensway
Suite 200
Toronto ON, M8Y 1H6

Careers

We’re always looking for talented people to join our team. For more information about any of these positions, please email careers@lowfoot.com.

Digital Marketing Specialist

Looking for a creative and energetic leader for search engine marketing, search engine optimization and social media initiatives. This position will manage and launch multiple SEO and SEM campaigns and monitor campaign performance. Responsible for creating effective ad and website copy as well as campaign landing pages.

Energy Data Analyst

The energy data analyst will be responsible for reviewing electricity usage data and processing according to workflows. The opportunity to create new approaches and define standards is part of this position. Experience working with usage data in a retail electricity provider or utility environment is a plus. Position requires high level math and computer skills and the ability to learn new software.

Online Support/QA Assistant

Looking for a energetic, outgoing individual to learn Lowfoot.com inside and out. You'll handle front-line support duties, helping our members get the best of their Lowfoot experience, and escalating issues as needed. You'll also help out with quality assurance testing, and making sure Lowfoot.com is always at its best. You'll need to have great writing & communication skills; and a high comfort level with the Internet. You're well-organized and willing to wear a few different hats over the course of the day. This is an junior position with great opportunities for advancement.

Software Developers: Java, Python

We’re always on the hunt for great software developers: Java EE or Python developers who love building great web apps and web services. We work in small agile teams, shipping fast and iterating quickly. Apart from your slick coding skills, you’ll need solid MySQL chops, a strong understanding of rich Ajax-based web interfaces, and a familiarity with standards-compliant XHTML/CSS. You’re great at thinking and working independently, and your communication skills are top-notch. You love to make your own decisions, but you also understand when to get your teammates’ opinions.

Sr. Sales Executive

Join Lowfoot and serve the U.S. utility and retail energy providers with Lowfoot products and services. You’ll have full responsibility for the sales process from sourcing opportunities, developing key account relationships and closing deals for our innovative retail customer engagement and demand response SaaS platform. Our seamless delivery and market-leading products using smart meter information are meeting a critical need in the marketplace.