Mary Powell

Mary Powell is nationally recognized as an energy visionary, as CEO of Green Mountain Power from 2008 to 2019 she positioned the company as a leading energy transformation company. Delivering clean, cost-effective and highly reliable power to customers all across Vermont, GMP offers cutting-edge products and service to reduce costs and carbon. For the third year in a row, GMP earned a top spot among the top ten most innovative energy companies in the world, landing at number five in Energy as Fast Company released its prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2019. GMP has achieved one of the top scores for mid-sized utilities in the East Region in J.D. Power’s 2018, 2017 and 2016 electric utility residential customer satisfaction study.

Mary initiated and implemented a strategic and comprehensive restructuring of the company that dramatically transformed GMP, and she has been the backbone of a cultural transformation and service quality improvement. Fast, fun, and effective is her motto. Under Mary’s leadership, GMP became the first utility in the world to become a member of B Corp, showing a commitment to use energy as a force for good.

Mary has delivered on an ambitious energy vision to provide low-carbon, low-cost and highly reliable power to Vermonters. As a result, GMP became the first utility to offer to help customers go off-grid, to provide shared storage services in their homes, built Vermont’s largest wind farm, made Rutland, Vermont, the Solar Generation Capital of New England, and installed smart grid technology across GMP’s service territory.

In 2012, Mary led the acquisition of Central Vermont Public Service, with a promise to generate $144 million in savings for customers. GMP has grown from serving 88,000 customers in 2008 to serving over 260,000 customers, with revenues of more than $640 million and $2 billion in assets.

And in 2015, Mary led another partnership with Tesla, with GMP becoming the first utility anywhere to offer customers the Tesla Powerwall battery.

In 2019, Utility Dive named Mary Executive of the Year for delivering storage to customers and being a top disruptor and innovator. In 2018 and 2017, Mary was named one of the top 25 Most Influential Women of the Mid-Market by CEO Connection. And Conscious Capitalism Media named Mary Powell to its 2018 list of 30 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business. In 2016 Fast Company named Mary one of the 100 most creative people in business, and in 2015 The Burlington Free Press named her Vermonter of the Year. In 2014, Mary was recognized by PowerGen as the Woman of the Year.

Prior to joining GMP in 1998, Mary served as a banking executive, an operations executive in the mutual fund industry, as a leader within state government and has founded two businesses, one that was just recently recognized by Oprah Winfrey on her annual “favorite things” list.