Meet the Team

Trevor Bailey has over 30 years senior executive experience in the power generation industry. He is an experienced strategic operational leader who has shaped product and operational thinking within the world’s leading manufacturing companies.

Prior to joining Emerald Strategy Partners, Mr. Bailey served as General Manager at General Electric, Power Division.

Prior to that, he was General Electric’s Integration Leader for the 13 Billion USD acquisition of Alstom Power, inclusive of all of Alstom’s steam activities. The transaction was the largest acquisition in GE’s 125-year history.

As a Vice President of Alstom Power, Mr. Bailey was responsible for taking the group’s core Steam Turbine Retrofit business from a start-up to a business with over $1 billion revenues back in 2012.

Mr. Bailey’s career began with GEC, commissioning & constructing large power generation equipment and plants, which included leading the construction of the power island at the UK’s flagship Sizewell ‘B’ nuclear power plant.

Bryan is a lawyer by Education (University of Exeter), with 16 years of front-line business leadership experience in Sr. Management positions running significant P&Ls. He started his career at HSBC bank, working in a variety of Management positions. Subsequently he served on the leadership teams of several successful Private Equity backed software start-up companies in the Oil & Gas sector. After expatriating to the US, he joined Severn Trent Water, PLC, where he opened their equipment manufacturing business in Shanghai, China and served as the VP of Project Management for their Water Purification division.

Prior to joining Emerald his last role was as a General Manager running the P&L of De Nora’s Global Electro-chlorination Business Unit. Since joining Emerald, he has led multiple Operational Improvement and Strategic Advisory Projects for Fortune 100 companies, and multi-billion dollar privately held businesses.

Lawrence is a recognized inspirational and results-driven CEO who has a successful track record of turning around and growing global industrial businesses with Fortune 500 companies.

Lawrence established Emerald Strategy Partners, which today is recognized as one of the leading industrial M&A industrial advisory firms with strong relationships with PE firms such as Blackstone, Carlyle, Platinum Equity, and EQT and as well as exclusive strategic advisors to corporate firms such as Mitsubishi Power and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. ESP has over 200 industrial advisors within its network.

Lawrence has comprehensive industry knowledge and has run international businesses with annual revenues ranging from 200 million USD up to 1.2 billion USD in Europe, NAM, and Asia. He was CEO of Severn Trent Water Purification where he led the sale of the business to De Nora Industries continuing as CEO of De Nora Water in Milan. Prior to this position, Lawrence was President of Alstom Power Turbomachines North America.

As CEO of Alstom Power Asia, to merit his support toward the development of the Chinese nuclear industry and the economic growth of China, he was also honored to be a torchbearer at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Lawrence was also Great Britain’s special envoy for central China trade and investment.

Marzena is a global specialist in marketing, communications, and product management for the Energy Sector. Marzena is also an expert on Chinese business culture and is fluent in Chinese language.

Marzena holds master’s degree in Chinese Language and International Business from Sichuan University, China & Poznan University, Poland. She also holds a Public Relations and Marketing master’s degree from the University of Stirling, UK. She also holds a Global Energy MBA degree from the Warwick Business School, ranked no 1 in the United Kingdom and 18th globally.

Marzena has held management positions in Marketing and Communications in China, Switzerland, UK and in the USA for Alstom Power, a world leading energy company. Her specialization was product marketing for a range of product lines in the power sector.

Don Stephen has joined Emerald Strategy Partners as a Chief Operating Officer and Partner.

Don has over 30 years of operational and leadership experience spanning numerous global technology companies. Don led the billion-dollar retrofit business within Alstom, was a leader for product management within GE and has occupied numerous
C-suite positions in public and private companies.

As an expert in Energy Transition, he will lead Emerald’s business for future technologies including renewables and hydrogen.

Don is a true asset to the Emerald team, and we are very excited to have him onboard.

Michael is an energy transition thought-leader with 18 years of experience as a senior executive, sustainability consultant, and project architect in a wide range of sectors from real estate to manufacturing and from technology to utilities. Michael assembles and manages high-performance teams that help businesses, organizations, and governments drive economic, environmental, and social success for their internal and external stakeholders.

Michael’s clients have included Calvert Social Investment Foundation, Generation IM, US Government Services Agency, Institute for International Finance, CoStar Group, Tennessee Valley Authority, EPB, US Green Building Council, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Michael serves on several nonprofit and academic boards, speaks at national and regional conferences, and has developed a sustainability leadership professional certificate. He has received awards for his sustainability leadership from the Mayor of Washington DC, the Governor of Tennessee, the Footprint Foundation and the Chamber of Commerce and he was selected to attend the Harvard Business School Young American Leaders Program.

Michael is an inspirational leader whose effectiveness is matched only by his passion for an equitable energy transition.

Stephen has over 30 years of experience across Power, Rail and Luxury industries.
Operating as a Senior Business Leader, managing P&L’s. Growing market share and transforming business performance.

Stephen managed the twenty-two Global Service Workshops for Alstom. He was a Main board member for Deutsche Bahn in the UK, managing a £200m part of the business in the UK & France. More recently Stephen was the UK Managing Director of the GE Power factories in the UK.

Stephen has a proven track record of both Business and Operational Transformation and Excellence, specialising in successfully improving day to day operations and rejuvenating under-performing businesses.

Prior to joining Emerald, his last role was the business turnaround of a unit for a Luxury Brand owned by Richemont.

Steve has over 30 years senior executive experience in the power generation industry. Before leaving GE, Prior to working with Emerald, Steve led the gas turbine services integration efforts in support of the GE-Alstom Alliance, bringing together two businesses totaling $10B in total revenue and representing 13 different gas turbine product lines. Post close, he operated as Interim VP of Alstom Gas Services exceeding all financial commitments (e.g., orders, sales, op profit, CFOA) while delivering ahead of plan on head count and cost synergies.

As the General Manager of E-Technology Gas Turbines, Steve managed life cycle product line profitability for what became a $3B+ portfolio of gas turbine power plant products and services, generating 39% growth in revenue and 44% growth in operating profit in 5 years. In addition to strong business acumen, Steve brings a wealth of knowledge in gas turbine technology having led efforts in developing both heavy duty and aero derivative gas turbine product offerings in the 40-200MW range.

Steve is excited to bring his expertise and passion to businesses seeking to grow revenues and navigate the uncertain waters of a global market. Steve is a truly global player with world-wide GT fleet market knowledge having lived and worked outside the US on two separate occasions and managing global P&Ls.

Steve was awarded a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Trine University and received multiple executive management certificates from GE Crotonville Management Institute.

Kurt is an experienced industry leader with decades of experience in the power generation equipment space. In addition to his experience as a senior financial executive, Kurt has served in P&L leadership, quality and operational excellence, and business development roles. He worked for more than twenty years for ABB and later Alstom in a variety of finance roles, up to the position of CFO for Alstom Power’s Power Plant Components division, which at the time was an EUR 2 billion business.

Kurt later served as Managing Director for a Joint Venture in China, and he then moved on to the role of Vice President of Quality & Process Improvement and Cost Excellence within Alstom’s Turbomachines group, a position from which he oversaw the work of over a thousand Six Sigma Belts. From 2011 to 2015, Kurt oversaw industrial projects and joint ventures at Alstom Power and was primarily focused on developing Alstom’s presence in the Russian market.

Rolf has held technical leadership positions for global front-runners ABB, Alstom, and GE. Before joining Emerald, he was a VP of Operations at ABB. His primary responsibility included leading the supply chain industrial partnerships for semiconductors and electrical components and organizational redesign for the new company strategy for Traction Rail and System Drives.

Rolf also was a VP of GE Power platforms, where he re-engineered and streamlined the entire product lifecycle process. Before Alstom’s merger with GE, Rolf was a VP for Product Management across the whole power portfolio at Alstom Power, where he designed and developed the global Product Management Organization.

Before joining Alstom, Rolf was General Manager for Engineering at ABB, where he established a new engineering and tendering organization for the Asian powerplant market. As General Manager of R&D at ABB, he was R&D Leader for advanced gas turbines cycles and combustion systems.

Rao has over 50 years of operation, maintenance, reliability, and supply chain management experience in fossil power plants.

After joining Detroit Edison in 1978, Rao started at a plant with 12 stoker-fired boilers using multiple fuels, six single flow turbines with 12MW capacity each. Rao performed many boiler efficiency and turbine heartrate tests and trained other engineers. He was the start-up engineer for the new waste-water system.

He progressed through various positions in Detroit Edison, such as Outage Manager, Asst. Maintenance Manager, Maintenance and Technical Manager, Supply Chain Manager for the Fossil Generation and Nuclear plants, Reliability Manager/Director for the whole fleet.

In 1984, Rao received the Alex Dow Award, the highest honour bestowed for his problem-solving skills.

After retiring from Detroit Edison in 2006, Rao was hired by Detroit Edison to implement Maximo and SAP in their gas business

Rao Palakodeti joined Alstom in 2009 as Executive Consulting Engineer and set up the Reliability Group. He developed a unique Reliability process for performing the RAM analysis/ Performed reliability modeling and assessments at various power plants in the US, Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, India.

Rao created a process known as Plant CheckUp to evaluate a power plant's health and offer improvement recommendations. Through this process, one can perform an objective benchmarking between various units and plants

Rao developed a reliability model for the boiler for a proposed biomass oxygen injection plant in the UK. The proposed plant would supplement the coal with palm kernels.

As a part of a team, performed due diligence for Arclight Partners LLC for purchasing five combined cycle plants including Hamakua power plant in Hawaii

After retiring from Alstom/GE in 2017, Rao started working for Emerald Operating Partners in 2019.

Bryan’s extensive international experience, including face-to-face collaboration with people in
thirty-six countries across six continents, enables a unique perspective and the cultural awareness required to succeed in a global environment. He is the beneficiary of world-class corporate training and can share the valuable knowledge gained from working with people throughout the world. Some significant accomplishments include:
▪ Evaluating potential acquisition targets, both internationally and domestically, resulting in closed deals
ranging in size from $15M to $11.6B.
▪ Transforming a collection of employees scattered across 9 countries into a cohesive, high-performing team
with shared vision and common processes, driving down cost of failure expense by over $30M.
▪ Providing business operations and technical training to companies in developing nations, enabling the
successful manufacture of highly technical and complex products.
As the Strategic Initiatives Leader at AFGlobal Corporation, Bryan brought 4 standalone units together to build a high-performing global supply chain (encompassing materials management, sourcing, and logistics) that saved over $18M in a 3-year period, held a strategic role in an $800M debt-shedding restructuring program, and directed the sourcing strategy for the rollout of a ground-breaking new product introduction.

At GE Power, he evaluated over 50 target companies for acquisition, resulting in 17 closed deals with an
aggregate enterprise value exceeding $19B. Bryan developed strategies and tools for integrating acquired
businesses, managed the integrations, and used effective communications to keep senior leadership up to date. In parallel, he maintained the relationships and negotiated the contractual agreements essential to successful strategic alliances (e.g., joint ventures, licensing, revenue sharing, co-engineering, contract manufacturing).

22 years as ABB Group’s SVP Head of M&A leading all M&A transactions including the 11 BUSD sale of ABB’s "T&D business to Hitachi.

Ulf is an exclusive advisor to Emerald and today sits on Emerald Group’s advisory board supporting Private Equity and Industrial Corporates deals"

Over 20 years experience 20 years of success designing and building data centers and IT.

2 years as CNet Training as an instructor. Here he delivered professional training on data center design and management to Fortune 500 companies and governments globally.

7 years at Belden Inc. provided data center design, subject matter expertise, and project management for global Fortune 500 accounts.

Over 40 years of facilities design, construction and operations experience. For the past 20 years his focus has been data centers and other mission critical facilities.

Led data center facilities design and operations at Digital Island and has consulted for Fortune 500 clients including Bank of America, Wachovia, Regions Bank, Charles Schwab, British Petroleum, IBM Canada, Iron Mountain, Royal Bank of Canada, AWS-China and Genpact-India.

Founder and past chairman of the Northern California Chapter of 7X24 Exchange International and a senior member of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)