AclaraConnect Smart Infrastructure Industry Conference Attracts Industry Thought Leaders for "Game-Changing" C-Suite Panel Discussion

ST. LOUIS, March 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Several of the utility industry's top executives and analysts will speak at the AclaraConnect Executive Track, during Aclara's 9^th annual industry conference that will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from April 10-14, 2017. Open to all AclaraConnect attendees, the Executive Track takes place following the plenary session on Tuesday, April 11. To register for the event visit www.AclaraConnect.com.

Executives and key personnel representing gas, electric and water utilities around the world are expected to attend AclaraConnect 2017. With its theme of Be A Game-Changer, the conference will examine how leading-edge companies leverage technology to thrive in a landscape of disruptive changes.

Headlining the Executive Track is the C-Suite Panel, which brings together leaders from five of North America's top utilities:

• Arizona Public Service Company – Tammy McLeod, Vice President of energy resource management
• DC Water – George Hawkins, CEO and General Manager
• Entergy/CPS Energy – Raiford Smith, Vice President – Energy Technology and Analytics
• Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative – Sean Alvarez, COO, Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative
• New Jersey Natural Gas – Craig Lynch., Senior Vice President-Energy Delivery

The panel will be moderated by industry veteran Meg Matt, Founder and Principal, Applegate Advising, LLC and former CEO of the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP). Matt will facilitate discusion of game-changing strategies and changes to business models that will be required to navigate the many transformational forces affecting electric, gas and water utilities. These issues range from Distributed Energy Resources (DER) to changing regulations, heightened consumer expectations and aging infrastructure.

Two other sessions round out the Executive Track. Session 1 – Game-Changing Trends Affecting the Utility Industry and their Core Operations will be led by Tammy McLeod, VP Resource Management, Arizona Public Service (APS) and Raiford Smith, Vice President, Energy Technology and Analytics. APS is the first non-California utility to surpass 1GW of solar capacity. CPS Energy, a unit of Entergy, is one of the nation's largest municipally-owned utilities with more than 1 million electric and gas customers.

Session 2 – How to Lead Your Organization and Prepare for the Future? Rethinking Business Models, features Seth Cutler, Senior Industry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan North America. This discussion will address how energy as a service is a next step evolution for the industry that engages utilities with customers and the emerging way energy is produced and consumed. It will frame the ongoing changes to the industry and next step evolutions in business models to keep electric utilities as a critical partner in the future.

"As more demands are placed on our already taxed infrastructure, and the number of challenges facing the gas, water and electric industries rises, we must all become game-changers to operate more effectively and efficiently. At Aclara, we believe utility companies can become future game-changers when provided with the right end-to-end solutions and data analytics that will deliver the actionable intelligence operators need to manage their distribution networks," said Allan Connolly, president and CEO of Aclara.

For more information about AclaraConnect or to register, visit www.aclaraconnect.com.

About Aclara
Aclara Technologies is a world-class service provider of smart infrastructure solutions (SIS) to approximately 800 water, gas, and electric utilities globally. Aclara offers a robust end-to-end solutions portfolio including meters and edge devices to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), headend and consumer engagement software, installation services, provision of labor and data analytics to equip operators with the actionable intelligence needed to manage their distribution networks. This comprehensive suite of products and services provides a single point of contact to address the needs of Aclara's utility partners from initial planning to implementation and beyond. In 2017 Aclara won a Frost & Sullivan Global Smart Energy Networks Enabling Technology Leadership Award and was named a finalist in three categories of the 2016 Platts Global Energy Awards. Aclara is owned by an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners. Visit us at Aclara.com, follow us on Twitter @AclaraSolutions or read our blog.

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SOURCE Aclara

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