Ellen S. Smith

Ellen S. Smith specializes in the power, renewable and utilities sectors. Ms. Smith has more than 35 years of operational experience and has provided regulatory support and testimony in the areas of utility business models, power reliability, storm and wildfire response and infrastructure improvements. She has extensive industry expertise in energy, power and products, particularly in the design, engineering, purchasing, construction, system operation and maintenance of electric, gas, liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) and power generation plants and systems. During her tenure at FTI Consulting, Ms. Smith has done extensive work in Puerto Rico.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Ms. Smith was the Chief Operations Officer and Executive Vice President at National Grid. Reporting to the President, and as a member of the U.S. Executive team, Ms. Smith improved safety and reliability of all gas, electric, generation and LNG operations. She completed significant restructuring initiatives, including integrating electric distribution and transmission and subsequently integrating gas operations with electric operations. Ms. Smith also was instrumental in launching end-to-end process teams focused on working across organizational silos and keeping customers at the forefront. In addition, she chaired the Strategic Response team, was Incident Commander in systemwide emergencies and was the senior authorized person for North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) compliance. While at National Grid, Ms. Smith also worked with its Labor Relations team to develop labor strategies.

Preceding National Grid, Ms. Smith was Vice President of Refining Optimization and Planning at Hess Corporation. During Ms. Smith’s tenure, she completed a cold eyes review project of the HOVENSA Joint Venture Refinery, a refinery on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands with a capacity of 500,000 barrels per day. The project outcomes included a refinery-wide performance review, including a focus on energy management, and restructuring the Power and Utilities team to better support the overall refinery operations. Ms. Smith also served as the in-house gas turbine subject-matter expert during the construction of a new 50 MW Nuovo Pignone/GE Frame 5 power plant.

Before her role at Hess Corporation, Ms. Smith served as President of Hess Microgen, LLC, providing cogeneration solutions to small industrial and commercial clients. In addition, Ms. Smith served as President of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems and completed the development of the upgraded FT 8+ aero derivative power package.

Ms. Smith began her career at GE Energy and held a number of positions of increasing responsibility, beginning with various roles on large turnkey gas, steam and combined cycle power plant and substation projects in the United States and in Egypt under United States Agency for International Development (“USAID”) contracts. Ms. Smith was also the General Manager of GE Operations & Maintenance, providing third-party services to asset managers and owners of GE power plants. In addition, she had global parts and product service support responsibility for all GE in-service power generation equipment. Before leaving GE, Ms. Smith led the GE Energy 6 Sigma program for three years, prior to being named Vice President of Energy Services Sales.