Executive Team

Ms. Zibelman formed Viridity Energy after more than 25 years of electric utility industry leadership experience in both the public and private sectors. Ms. Zibelman is a recognized national and international expert in energy policy, markets and Smart Grid innovation. Prior to forming Viridity Energy, Ms. Zibelman was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of PJM, a Regional Transmission Organization that operates the world’s largest wholesale power market and serves 14 states throughout the eastern United States. While there she was responsible for all aspects of PJM’s transmission planning, market grid operations and corporate administration.

Ms. Zibelman was previously an executive at Xcel Energy, Inc., where at various times she oversaw transmission operations and planning, energy market trading, risk management, fuel procurement and renewable energy development. She is a former General Counsel of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, and has participated as both a counsel and an expert in numerous electric utility proceedings before state and federal regulatory and legislative bodies. She has testified before Congress and federal and state agencies on the benefits of power markets and Smart Grids to consumers. Ms. Zibelman has served on the Boards of numerous entities responsible for assuring security and reliability of the nation’s power system, including Reliability First and GridWise Alliance.

Ms. Zibelman earned her Juris Doctor degree from Hamline University Law School. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the Pennsylvania State University.

Alain Steven is an internationally recognized expert in development of market systems and brings forty‐one years of experience in the development, management and implementation of large real‐time mission‐critical IT solutions for the electric utility industry. Mr. Steven was the former Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of PJM Interconnection, and President of PJM Technologies, Inc. He held executive level positions in several corporations serving the electricity industry for nineteen years.

Mr. Steven was the President and CEO of ESCA Corporation, a leading supplier of energy management, distributed management, and SCADA Systems. He held senior management positions at both ABB and Combustion Engineering where he founded the Power Automation Simulation Division and served as Vice President and General Manager. Following the acquisition of Combustion Engineering by ABB, Mr. Steven headed ABB’s worldwide simulation business specialized in the manufacturing of power plant training simulators. Mr. Steven is former Chairman of the University of Washington’s Electric Energy Industrial Consortium (EEIC) and former Vice President of the Pacific Northwest French American Chamber of Commerce. He also held positions on the Board of the Washington Software Alliance. Currently, Mr. Steven serves as Secretary General of the international association in the electricity industry - Very Large Power Grid Operators Association (VLPGO).

Mr. Steven graduated from the University of Liege, Belgium as an engineer physicist.

Mr. Young comes to Viridity Energy with over 25 years of sales management experience within the energy sector. Most recently, Mr. Young led Ice-Energy’s sales efforts which focused on providing electric utilities with a distributed thermal storage solution.

Previously, Mr. Young held the position of Senior Vice President – Sales at Direct Energy Business located in Pittsburgh, PA. The company provided energy commodity solutions to commercial and industrial customers across North America. Prior to Direct Energy, Mr. Young was the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Strategic Energy, also Pittsburgh, PA and the Vice President of Retail Sales at Aquila, Inc. in Kansas City, MO.

Mr. Young earned both a MBA degree and a BA degree in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA.

Ken Laughlin brings over 30 years of national and international electricity markets experience to Viridity. He was the Vice President of Markets for PJM where he led all market development efforts from 1993 through 2004. Mr. Laughlin has discussed successful electricity markets in over 20 countries, before representatives of almost every state and before the FERC. He was the founding Chair of the Institute for Large Electrical Power Systems committee on Markets and Regulation, in which over 75 countries participated. 

Mr. Laughlin held various management positions at PJM with responsibilities including interchange scheduling, generation commitment and market accounting. In his role as Vice President for Market Coordination, he created standards for the synchronization of PJM’s markets, transmission planning and operations with those of neighboring regions. Mr. Laughlin is the founder and former president of Environmental Information Services, a PJM company formed to separate and track environmental attributes of generation in support of various governmental renewable portfolio standards. Mr. Laughlin was a director of the Association of Power Exchanges and was a founding chair of the North American ISO/RTO Council’s committee on markets. 

Mr. Laughlin received a Master of Science in Engineering Management and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, both from Drexel University. he is a graduate of the management development program at Pennsylvania State University.

Allen Freifeld joined Viridity Energy as Senior Vice President, External Affairs in June 2009, after twenty five years of regulatory and industry experience including five years as a member of the Maryland Public Service Commission from 2004 through 2009. During his tenure on the Commission, Mr. Freifeld led the effort to enhance participation of energy efficiency and distributed resources in regional markets.

Mr. Freifeld served as Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Mid Atlantic Distributed Resources Initiative and was also a founder of the Organization of PJM States, Inc., a group of fourteen State Public Utility Commissions working toward regional solutions for electric grid issues. Prior to his appointment to the Commission Mr. Freifeld served on the Staff of the Commission for over twenty years both as a Hearing Examiner and as Chief Staff Counsel. Mr. Freifeld also served as chief regulatory counsel for MCI Telecommunications in the mid‐Atlantic region during the period following enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Mr. Freifeld is a graduate of SUNY Binghamton, with a degree in Economics, and the University of Maryland School of Law.