Ziad Alaywan

Ziad is the Founder and CEO of ZGlobal headquartered in Folsom, CA. With 34 years of experience in engineering, market analytics, and project development, Ziad formed ZGlobal in 2005 offering energy consulting services that would strengthen the grid, benefits the environment, and contribute to the community and state-wide goals.

As a certified professional engineer, Ziad has held numerous leadership positions; including the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) where he was instrumental in designing and implementing the first wholesale energy market in the west. He also managed a $150 million development budget and obtained

the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) balancing authority certification, hired staff and handled vendor management for the formation of the CAISO.

Subsequent to CAISO's successful start-up in 1998, he assumed various leadership roles including Director of Engineering and Managing Director of Market Operations. His responsibilities included oversight of grid operator plans for the transmission system and the operation of the CAISO markets. Additionally, he worked for 10 years with Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) holding various positions such as Transmission Planner, Senior Operations Engineer, Transmission and Generation Dispatcher, and having managed real-time operations of the PG&E control area.

Ziad holds Bachelor's and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from Montana State University with post-doctorate work in HVAC Power System Applications, Optimization, Production Model, Unit Commitment and Power Economics; Montana State University. He also completed a Management Program at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley and has written over fifty publications on a variety of academic subject matters. He is a certified Professional Engineer in the State of California and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).