Leveraging AI For Sustainability – with Mandi McReynolds, Chief Sustainability Officer at Workiva
Release Date: 10/07/2025
Microgrids Keep The Lights On, For Less – Jana Gerber, President of Microgrids, Schneider Electric
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“What is a microgrid?...There's a lot of challenges that folks are dealing with around the grid infrastructure, with weather related challenges and load growth and other elements. And so what a microgrid does is help those customers become not only consumers of energy, but also producers of energy. So we like to call that a prosumer….So a microgrid helps to create that bridge between the building and the big grid…So if the grid's no longer there (e.g., an outage), they can act independently of the grid. It also helps with deploying more renewables on their sites, as well as really...
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How To Talk About Climate In A Polarized Culture – Katharine Hayhoe, Climate Scientist, Professor at Texas Tech University & Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“We have to begin our conversations with what really matters to the person or people we're speaking with. And if we don't know what that is, we have to get to know them and build a relationship and then start the conversation where they're at…The second common misconception I see is that we have to load up our wheelbarrow with the biggest load of scary facts we can possibly find and just dump it on people because not enough people are worried about this.…But if we haven't connected the head to the heart, my life, the places I love, the people I love, the things I love my home, the price...
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Critical Minerals 101 – Abby Wulf, Critical Minerals Expert, Former Head of Critical Minerals at the Dept. Of Energy, & Center for Critical Minerals Strategy
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“Critical minerals and materials…are essential for key economic and national security technologies that help to fuel great sectors in the United States and around the world…We're at a very interesting point in the United States for critical minerals and materials because the US Geological Survey… just released their draft version of their newly updated critical minerals list…(But) they're very difficult to come by. And for a lot of these materials, they are mined as byproducts and co-products. They're used in incredibly low volumes, and so it's very difficult for companies to sort of...
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Mobilizing Women’s Influence – Paula Noble Fellingham
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
"People care about the diversity because diversity makes teams stronger. And, and this is research based. And so they can say what they want, but those who know that there is strength in diversity, they'll continue on in spite of the, you know, the outcry on the other end….There's research that shows that when the lives of billions of women are improved, here's what happens. Number one, there's better female leadership. Number two, there's stronger education and more equality with women and girls. There's healthier national economies. There's research. …There's stronger families and my...
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A Creative Leverage For Good – Kate Williams, 1% For The Planet
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“1% for the planet…the way it works is that we have businesses who are our members, and they're actually supporting environmental partners at the level of 1% of revenues….You invest in the things that matter and the planet matters.…(to) drive impact at scale. And so, in terms of that scale, last year we certified US$100million of support going from these companies to environmental partners….When a company joins, they pay a dues fee to us, but then the rest of their 1%, they will give directly to environmental partners….And then at the end of each year, we certify that giving.” ...
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How Design & Tech Are Transforming Cities – Nikki Greenberg, Real Estate of the Future, from Smart City Expo World Congress 2025
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“(B)efore we're even thinking about AI, it's actually thinking about how are we using our technology effectively and is it part of our processes? Does it complicate things or does it simplify things? And the advice that I always give them is like, before you start bringing in new technology and new processes and having to train people and doing their job in a different way and adding complication first, look at what you're doing and…pair back the stuff that doesn't need to be there anymore. And then think about technology.” Nikki Greenberg on Electric Ladies Podcast Cities are in...
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What’s a ‘Tech Humanist’? – Kate O’Neill, CEO of KO Insights at Smart City Expo World Congress 2025
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“One of the other important things about tech humanism to me is that the three-way relationship between business humans and tech is primarily about the relationship between business objectives and human outcomes and using technological capability to amplify that alignment, as opposed to using technology to amplify only the business objective side of that relationship. So really trying to think about how does a business meet the humans that it serves, and then how can technology be part of making that more effective and more successful so the business can succeed and the humans can have a...
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Unique Practical Urban Climate Actions – Joan’s Panel of International City Innovators from Smart City Expo World Congress 2025
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
The World Bank reports that, “today, more than half of the world’s population – over 4 billion people – lives in cities.” It also estimates that this shift is going to continue, in fact to DOUBLE to nearly 70% – or 7 out of every 10 people will live in cities by 2050. That’s only 25 years away. At the same time, extreme weather events are increasingly devastating cities – we have all witnesses how Hurricane Melissa decimated Jamaica last week, for example, destroying home and businesses, schools, houses of worship, government buildings, everything. So what can, should...
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Career Advice For Difficult Times From 5 Women Leaders
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“Your job isn’t to know the answer. Your job is to ask all the right questions of where the business is going and…Don’t be afraid…(Align) with people who could see the possibility of (your) experience…Take that stretch job and just remember you’re in the room to ask different questions, and that’s perfectly fine. So, take the stretch and then lean into your experience that allows you to have a different lens and a different perspective.” , Chief Sustainability Officer at Workiva on Electric Ladies Podcast When the economy feels tough or you feel like things are...
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How Climate Modeling Affects Everything – Maria Caffrey, Principal Scientist, UK’s National Physical Laboratory
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“(Climate modelling)…it's being used in things like insurance companies. It's being used by companies for their ESG assessments. So, when you get your insurance premium at the end of the year, there is some kind of climate model that has said something about the risk of your house to flood. It has said something about your risk to fire. And so that might be driving up your insurance premium…And so it's being involved in your lives in many different ways. The food you consume, those grocery bills, there's prices behind it that are being driven by people using climate models saying...
info_outline“What we're seeing is, as the new carbon economy moves forward – and this is critical to businesses to operate in the future, in the next five, 10 years – it’s colliding with the digital transformation and financial transformation. And so, I think one of the essential things our customers are asking is. ‘how do we bring together the Chief Sustainability Officer, the CIO and the CFO and the new market, digital and carbon economy as we go forward?’ Because you need all three lenses to make a holistic decision for both the growth and resiliency of your company.” Mandi McReynolds on Electric Ladies Podcast
Artificial Intelligence, A.I., is transforming sustainability work, from data collection to analysis to reporting. It’s a tool to help assess risks and see opportunities, but humans bring the superpower. How?
Listen to Mandi McReynolds, Chief Sustainability Officer at Workiva in this fascinating conversation with Electric Ladies Podcast host Joan Michelson.
You’ll hear about:
● How Workiva is leveraging A.I. to serve its clients across the board – from assessing materiality, to financial reporting and sustainability reporting,
● How to use A.I. to minimize boring work and free up people to be more strategic and creative – in a few unique ways.
● How to ensure the integrity of the data you’re accessing with A.I. – and how to reduce the risk of your data being contaminated by A.I. hallucinations, etc.
● Plus, career advice, such as:
“Your job isn't to know the answer. Your job is to ask all the right questions of where the business is going and think about your lens is adding value because you're going to ask a different question….Don't be afraid….(Align) with people who could see the possibility of (your) experience. And… take that stretch job and just remember you're in the room to ask different questions, and that's perfectly fine. So, take the stretch and then lean into your experience that allows you to have a different lens and a different perspective.” Mandi McReynolds on Electric Ladies Podcast
Read Joan’s Forbes articles here.
You’ll also like:
· Business Leaders Bridging The Gap – Women business leaders from The Earth Day Women’s Summit on the unique role of business in addressing the climate crisis.
· The Power Of Buildings – with Katie McGinty, VP and Chief Sustainability and External Affairs Officer at Johnson Controls.
· How GM Is Going All Electric – with General Motors Chief Sustainability Officer Kristen Siemen.
· Reducing IT’s Carbon Footprint – with HPE Chief Sustainability Officer Monica Batchelder.
· How Businesses Unlock Value With Sustainability – with Kristen Sullivan, Audit Partner and head of Deloitte’s Sustainability practice
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