TWM Episode 238: How CEA Is Helping Clients Deploy Solar and Storage Solutions Worldwide - with Andy Klump

In this interview with The Worldly Marketer Podcast host Kathrin Bussmann, CEA’s Founder and CEO, Andy Klump, shares his personal career journey of relocating to China from the U.S., adapting to the local business culture, and eventually launching and scaling his own global company. He explains what the core purpose behind CEA is, and how he manages his growing international team. He also talks about some global and regional trends he’s seeing in solar energy, and his perspective on the solar supply chain going forward.

Podcast Transcript

Kathrin Bussmann:

You're listening to the Worldly Marketer podcast brought to you by Verbaccino.com.

Welcome to the Worldly Marketer Podcast. I'm your host, Kathrin Bussmann.

In the digital age, brands of all sizes are building their global presence by leveraging the right market research, positioning online channels and localized content. On this show, I talk with a variety of experts who specialize in helping brands expand internationally and succeed in today's increasingly digital social and multilingual marketplace. Join me as I explore this ever-evolving landscape of global possibilities.

About Andy’s Experience

Kathrin Bussmann:

My guest today is a renewable energy executive with nearly two decades of experience living and working in Asia. He is the founder owner and CEO of Clean Energy Associates, or CEA, a solar energy and storage advisory firm that specializes in technical due diligence and engineering services. Established in 2008, CEA now employs over 175 professionals around the world and has completed solar energy and storage projects in more than 65 countries so far.

Originally from the US, my guest has a background in Economics and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He relocated from Atlanta to Shanghai in 2002 and has been based in Asia ever since. Prior to founding his own company, he served as the vice-president of business development for Trina Solar, where he headed the company's international expansion plans, covering supply chain, international business development, capital raising and corporate development. Over a two-year period, he and his Trina solar management team successfully raised nearly $500 million in capital during the company's IPO and follow-on offerings on the New York stock exchange.

In addition to his role as the head of CEA, my guest is a current board member of a couple of renewable energy startups, Ion Ventures and Solar Inventions, and he has served as a board member of the US Solar Energy industries Association. He is also a co-founder and board member of the healthcare-focused nonprofit organizations IDefine.org and K.I.D.S. IQ Project.org.

Andy Klump, welcome to the Worldly Marketer podcast!

Andy Klump:

Wonderful! Thank you for having me, I'm very happy to be here.

The Beginning of Andy’s International Career

Kathrin Bussmann:

It's a pleasure to have you on the show, Andy. I'd like to start off by letting you tell us a bit more about yourself, because it's a very, very interesting story, I'm sure.

So, tell us a bit more about where you're from originally, your cultural influences growing up, the languages you speak, your educational background. In other words, how did you come to be living and working in Asia and doing the work you're doing today at CEA?

Andy Klump:

Excellent. Thanks very much for that question. I grew up in a small suburb of Saint Louis, Missouri. I really had no international aspirations at the time, nor did I really have much of an idea of what I would be doing in the future, but I will say one thing that influenced me a great deal was my father's ongoing subscription to the National Geographic. I would, really, live vicariously through those magazines, and that really inspired me to think more globally and look around the world. But by the time I was 15, the only three states I'd been to were Missouri, Illinois and Kansas. And Kansas was just because I went to Kansas City on an eighth-grade graduation trip and just begged my dad to drive over into that state for 10 minutes.

So, I really was not a global traveler growing up, but I had that wanderlust, I had the desire to explore and see different parts of the country or whatever environment I was in. So, I later then traveled to 49 states, just driving, mostly myself in high-school and college. And really, I just had that opportunity to then travel first to Europe and then, later, right before business school, I made a trip to Asia, and I became immediately hooked. And I just said, “I have to explore Asia.”

So, if you asked my educational background, the irony is the school I went to in high school was actually one of the first schools in the Midwest that offered Chinese. And I thought to myself, “why would I ever study Mandarin?” It just was such a crazy concept, growing up in the nineties, I said I wouldn't have any interest in doing that.

So I took French cuz my sister was taking it and you know, meanwhile, fast forward to when I went to Asia the first time, I then looked at different options like India and South Korea. And I said, “I have to be in China”. And so I started studying Mandarin fairly intensely while I was getting my MBA, and that helped spawn a path to travel to China and to pursue business there, where I've more or less been the last 19 years. So, once again, I had a lot of influences from my upbringing, but none really directly led me to China per se, but definitely I had an idea and a concept to say, “I wanna explore, invest in myself and my education,” and that's what growing up in Missouri, in St. Louis, was like for me.

The Start and Expansion of Clean Energy Associates

Kathrin Bussmann:

So now you of course have been based in China for almost 20 years now. Um, you're about to relocate to Thailand, you were telling me, which is exciting. You did work at a solar energy company based in Shanghai before you founded your own company, Clean Energy Associates, in 2008.

For anyone who's not familiar with CEA, tell us a little bit more about the company, you know, what's the story behind it. What's the core purpose? Where are you based? You know, where do you have offices? Where are your different stakeholders, your employees, and, um, where in the world do you take on projects?

Andy Klump:

Absolutely. So, to back up, prior to founding CEA, the story of CEA really was rooted into my previous background in solar. And, I even have to back up prior to that. So, when I first traveled to China in 2001, I noticed the massive transformation that the country had had over the course of the last several decades of just many, many, many people. And you say many, it's literally hundreds of millions of people who grew from abject poverty to an emerging middle class. And it just left me with such an inspiration. I didn't interact with that many Chinese companies at first, but one of the things I noticed is very few Chinese companies were able to go global. And so, as a result, I thought, “wow, it would be amazing if I could really help a Chinese company globalize.”

And I think that would be a fantastic transformation to be a part of, but I said, I couldn't do that right from the get-go, cuz I didn't speak the language, nor did I understand the culture. So, I first wanted to start with a multinational. And so that's why I ended up first working briefly with Intel and then later with Dell Computers, and after a kind of a career in the high-tech sector, I kind of transitioned from high-tech to cleantech, and that's where I made my first jump to actually working for a Chinese company. And so I spent the better part of two years based in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, which was about two hours from Shanghai by train at that time. The town of Changzhou was still very small, not well-known, it was arguably a fourth-tier city in China.

And over the course of those two years, I started at Trina Solar with just 500 total team members, and the company ramped to roughly 5,000 over the course of those two years. And we had pretty much had two 10x growth on every other financial metric. It was a phenomenal experience. I learned a great deal about the supply chain, the solar industry globally. We measure it in terms of watts or in that case, um, you know, gigawatts today. But there were 1.6 gigawatts in the entire industry when I joined, and now the industry has expanded over 200 gigawatts. So, it's literally grown over 100 X in the last 16 years.

So really, the basis of my experience at Trina was based on the fact that supply chain was the biggest challenge, and the company did not have all the upstream raw materials, namely polysilicon, to feed its ingot furnaces. And so, a good part of my time was really spent traveling around the world, looking at different polysilicon facilities and trying to convince different major manufacturers of existing polysilicon plants and emerging plants to work with Trina, which at that time was a tier three player that no one knew. So, the reason that Trina grew so aggressively is I was able to secure a lot of the supply. We managed a very large team that secured that upstream material. But I also learned a tremendous amount about the supply chain, how to work with different manufacturers, how to run and scale a company within China.

So, when I went off on my own, I said “that background would be extremely valuable.” And I ended up really setting up CEA with a very different business plan. I set up the company in late 2008, during the global financial crisis, and I realized that all my plans had to be thrown out the window and I had to focus on what the real immediate needs were for different people in the industry. At that time the industry was starved for information, the pricing was dropping so dramatically that deals were getting repriced and many, many different companies were going out of business or facing a lot of chaos. So, I was really helping some of my ex-Trina clients just with solving basic problems about pricing and contracting and arranging shipments. I was doing some of this for free and they kept asking for help, but I said, “I should start charging for these services.” So, with that, CEA was born in the fall of 2008 and here we are 14 years later, the company's ramped, actually we're right at around 200 team members in 13 countries globally.

The Importance of Establishing a Clear Purpose and Core Goals

Andy Klump:

So, we've continued to grow and expand with the needs of our clients. But to answer a question about our core purpose, we have a very clear core purpose, and this is what drives me personally, but we believe that by helping our clients and stakeholders deploy solar and storage solutions worldwide, we are creating a better future. And it's something I, every month I have an all hands meeting with my teams in Asia and then the teams with the US at two different times, but I stop and I pause at the start and I really try to remind everyone of our team that this is what drives me.  And this is what drives all of us, because at the end of the day, we have to think about the next generation. I myself have four daughters and I want to create a better future for them, but also for the next generation. And solar energy is absolutely part of the solution to fight climate change, reduce CO2 emissions. And so I'm very proud to be part of that industry. With that, I could talk about a lot of other facets of origin stories of the company, but that is really the best way to encapsulate it.

Kathrin Bussmann:

Fantastic. Yeah, I love that core purpose. I really relate to that too, as a parent, it's what drives me, <laugh> as well, to do what I'm doing now, focusing on, you know, helping cleantech companies expand internationally, from a content strategy point of view.

Andy Klump:

And I'll comment further on that point because I admit I was my own worst enemy. At the time I started CEA I did not, I was in a panic mode in the middle of a financial crisis. I did not set out the company's core values or core purpose with a real clear vision at the start. It really, it wasn't until 2011. We had a few people, and an intern came to me and said, “what's your vision? Where's the company going?” I said, “hey, that sounds like a great intern project. Why don't you, you know, let's get the team together and let's talk about it for an hour or two.” And so, we went through and gave some of those concepts a brief review, and we set up four or five values as a company. And we talked a little bit about our mission, but pretty much all that, sat on the side and was collecting dust for several years because I didn't believe it in the full sense of the word, I didn't really reinforce that.

And so it wasn't really until we had scaled to about 40 or 50 folks that I finally realized I needed help. I needed to build a stronger foundation. I wanted to grow the company much beyond the current team. And that's where I found executive coach, and where that individual really worked with me was on the foundational piece of like, “what are your core values and what is your core purpose?” So, on top of that core purpose, we have eight core values, we have “we are family”, “have fun”, “unending curiosity”, “be humble”, “do the right thing”, “results matter”, “own it”, and “perform above and beyond.” And really with those areas as the foundation, that's how we've grown and expanded. So that's where, what's again, growing roughly five times in the last seven years, from that foundation of roughly 40 professionals. I feel very proud of the team that we have. We have very strong alignment top to bottom around that core purpose, around our core values. And so that's what I enjoy doing is really leading and building a great team.

So the other point you had mentioned and alluded to at the very start, yes, I have been living and working in China for the last 19 years, but I'm right now in the process of relocating my family to Bangkok. Starting August 1st, I will be there on a full-time basis to start to build our team in Southeast Asia, but also to travel a little more freely for the sake of meeting with our team members in the United States and other countries. And then also seeing the suppliers in different markets around the world. So asked about our stakeholders, we absolutely have a very strong team of roughly a hundred professionals in China, but also a hundred professionals outside of China, scattered in 12 other countries. So, I'm constantly on late night calls or early morning calls to connect with them, but it's part of a function of how to run a company with a strong global presence, so it's been a lot of fun.

The Challenges of Running a Global Business

Kathrin Bussmann:

Yeah. Case in point, I think it's going on midnight for you right now as we speak <laugh> so I appreciate your flexibility with the timing of this interview. You mentioned your team, which is now very global, and you know, they're based in over a dozen different countries. What are some of the challenges that have come with leading such a globally dispersed team and what are some of the considerations that you have to keep in mind now with regards to internal communications? Can you give us some examples of those challenges, you know, whether they're linguistic challenges, cultural, you know, business etiquette, logistical time zones, of course. What have you against internally and how have you addressed those issues?

Andy Klump:

Yes. So once again, I kinda alluded to the fact that we have a monthly all hands meetings, but that's part of a very methodical communication routine that we have. And when I went through the transformation of the company seven years ago, part of what we did was change our communication rhythm, and it took several years to really get everyone to fully comply with that.

But everyone in the company has a, is involved in a daily huddle, that lasts no more than 15 minutes. So anywhere from five to 15 minutes, every respective group talks briefly about how they’re contributing to the core metrics, where they’re stuck and how else can their leader help them. So, it's a very simple routine, but we pretty much run this throughout the gamut. All my senior executives are actually located in the United States, so I tend to wake up very early at, you know, 4:30 or 5:00 for a 5:30am call with them. I like to start my day talking with the executives, get the latest update about what they've encountered so far, help them work through any challenges.

But then once a week, we have a longer team workshop, which focuses on all the more, I'd say, longer term and midterm initiatives, all of our priorities that we set through the quarter, which we have a top-five priority list for each quarter and each year. And we have a clear communication routine that happens once a month, we go through a four-hour workshop with our external coach. And once a quarter, we have a one day in-person or, recently, due to the traveler restrictions in China, I've had two days at four hours each to go through all the financial metrics and the broader issues.

And then once a year, we get together for a three or four-day summit kind of planning our angle strategy. So we have this clear routine. Then once again, as I alluded to, we have our leadership team with monthly workshops and then also monthly calls all hands meetings with our team globally. So once again, the challenge is really how do you get everyone together? And so the best way to get the whole company at the same time is really the Asia team goes late, the European team is middle of the afternoon, and US is first thing in the morning. So it is a challenge with some folks, so we do pride ourselves in trying to care for our team members, but once again, it does make it tough when you have a late night call one night and then early morning the next day. I try to really limit the amount of folks who go through that.

So we schedule internal meetings at times that are hopefully not too difficult for some folks, but it does require extra commitment to ongoing communication, but that communication up and down the organization allows us to operate so efficiently. And so whenever there's a tariff change or, you know, a customer issue, all this gets reported up to me very, very quickly, and that's what really allows us to grow and scale effectively. At the same time, you know, we've grown out of the need for our clients to have us in many different markets. So once again, you mentioned 65 countries, but we've had clients or client projects in 69 countries to date. And that is really a function of the fact that our clients are global and we have to be global with them. So that requires us to work in a lot of different time zones. So once again, we really do pride ourselves also on delegating a great deal. We invest a lot in our own systems and processes that allow us to grow and scale. We have our own ERP system, and a lot of our methodologies are kind of spread throughout the company to attest to customer satisfaction and billing. A lot of other internal processes have helped us grow and scale a great deal over the last 14 years.

About CEA’s Public-Facing Communications

Kathrin Bussmann:

Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, let's talk a bit more about CEA's public-facing communications, including things like marketing content, for instance. To what extent does CEA adapt its communications, you know, its content, for buyers or other external stakeholders in different languages, cultures, geographies?

Andy Klump:

Yeah, so, it's interesting. We used to have a website with about seven different languages. We've always had folks from different nationalities throughout the company, I think there's over 25 that are represented in the company today. So, we went down the path of having a very, very multilingual website, and now with the advancements of technology, you know, anyone can translate the website to whatever language. So we've actually simplified it some ways just to English, but we do have some of our market materials in several different languages, but there's so many things in our industry that are changing and dynamic, so that's very hard to send out brochures and different languages, with all the changes that are happening. But what we've also found is that most everyone really migrated to digital communication, so a lot of our materials are now distributed through HubSpot, so we can measure the open rate and, you know, get direct feedback on different digital metrics, so all that is extremely important.

But once again, we have teams who speak languages, you know, wherever our clients are. So that's where, you know, I'd say the customer facing roles of sales and marketing, they often are happening in the language of the respective clients. And so yes, it does require some translation of time and dealing with more complex multicultural issues, but that's part of the fun. So we really enjoy working with clients and, and also, one has to understand the solar industry, solar energy storage industry is very dynamic. You may find a case where there's a project that's happening in Texas, but it's with a Spanish buyer that has a co-developer that's from, you know, from Germany and they are actually using an EPC from Greece, and the financers may come from Germany and the United States. And so, all of a sudden, you're dealing with four or five different constituencies from four or five different countries, and that's where our teams in all these different locations really make a difference.

So it does require someone who's willing to work across different time zones and across those different complexities. And I will definitely say it myself, growing up in the Midwest, I did not come from that international background. I did not speak multiple languages until I came to China, but I learned the importance of adapting your business culture to your clients. And so I think a lot of the approach, a typical American direct business style, that does not work in a lot of other regions. And so I had to adapt my own style, but also hire folks who are very culturally sensitive to work across different nationalities. So I think it's anything from basic mannerisms to topics of pricing or how the sensitive contract issues are dealt with. And, you know, we just learned to adapt and grow to whatever our clients' needs were.

Andy’s Insights into Life in China

Kathrin Bussmann:

Mm-hmm, so that's a great segue to my next question, actually. So, you've lived and worked in China since 2002, over the course of those two decades. What are some of the important insights that you've gained into Chinese business culture compared to American business culture? Have you experienced some, some major aha moments along the way? And can you share some examples?

Andy Klump:

Yeah, absolutely. The challenge, I think with a lot of Chinese companies is there's a lot of top-down command and control request, so you know, everyone kind of listens to the leader and they don't want to stand out. That's looked down on, it's kind of frowned, if all of a sudden you raise your hand and say, “I wanna be the first one to do X, Y, Z”. So, I was in that experience where I worked at Dell Computers and I was the only foreigner in a 900-person sales organization. So, when the Head asked for questions, you know, I raised my hand with questions and I saw no one else did. And people were kind of looking down at me, like, “why do you do that?”

So you don't wanna stand out, it's better to blend in. And I just naturally was open to asking questions and I had to learn the style was much more subdued, never conflict with your leader, your boss in an open meeting, any type of conflict in a broader setting was seen as a potential loss of face. So one cannot be successful if you take that approach. So, all those things, I made a lot of rookie mistakes early on, but I learned to adapt and adjust overall. And when I went to Trina Solar, I worked for hard-charging CEO who is very globally minded, Mr. Jifan Gao, and I think he actually liked my international style and openness about being direct, but I also learned to make my comments after the team session was over and discuss and debate different topics after the fact. I found that was a better way of gaining consensus and influencing ideas.

So that was something very different, whereas I think the traditional American style of just putting all ideas on the table, let's let the data speak for itself, and it's okay to disagree with someone, but just once you disagree, you come to a conclusion, then you move on. So those are definitely habits I had to adjust in a pretty meaningful way because I was often taking the U.S. clients to meet my boss at the time, Mr. Gao at Trina, and so even with a board member who was a big investor who had a very direct German style. I was actually doing the translation and I literally just had to tone down the language on both sides to get them to come together, and so I learned a lot about how to navigate between Chinese and international business culture during the tours of Trina, and then a lot of the skills then translated to when I dealt with clients and other suppliers in the early days I was setting up CEA.

 

The Experience of Starting a Company in China

Kathrin Bussmann:

Another good segue to my next question. So before founding CEA, your Chinese work experience already included roles at Intel and Dell computers, and what you were just talking about, your role as VP at Trina Solar. How did all those roles prepare you to start your own company, you know, based in China, were there advantages, were there things that you would only have been able to know going into founding your own company because you had spent as much time as you already had in China by that point, and how is starting and running a company in China different from starting a company in the U.S., for instance?

Andy Klump:

Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned that, yeah, my background was some of these larger multinationals, like Intel and Dell, and it was very interesting because even though I thought, “okay, this is a safe environment to set in, they would appreciate some of my international background and perspective.” And even the head of Dell, China, when he hired me, he actually brought me directly to a new team that was dealing with international clients. And so I thought, “okay, yes, there's a few foreigners in these companies, so maybe you can connect with them.” I was assuming that everyone on the team was somewhat more international, but they were actually very, very localized. And a lot of the decision makers were also local Chinese, so it was very tough for me to distinguish how to take an international approach in that environment. I had to learn and relearn some of the same mistakes I was mentioning before to you as well.

But the reality was I did learn how to deal and adjust my style with the foreigners, and they took, in some ways, they kind of took pity on me being the only foreigner in a 900-person sales force. So I did earn a lot of respect, the fact that I was able to survive in those early days, but I did come across many times where I, you know, I did step on some toes. Um, but I think that that background was very helpful when I went to Trina because the CEO did appreciate the fact that I spoke Mandarin at that time. That was very important, it was a crucial skillset to have, to be able to convince him at a senior level that I would add value, but I would still follow along with his kind of commandment control style, but still build consensus among others in the team.

And so that was one of my key takeaways. It’s just, you know, there was this hybrid approach of both international and local that Trina adopted, you know, they were still emerging as a tier three company that eventually became a tier one over the course of my two plus years there. So it was also very tough to be in this tier four city of Changzhou, where I just proposed to my wife. I barely saw her for this first year, and she was very patient with me while I was away. Just simple things like, you know, I was getting ready to board the train on a Friday afternoon, hadn't seen her since Sunday night when I left, and to have to tell her that “no, our CEO just called an all-management team meeting and we're gonna do an offsite this weekend.” And then, you know, we'd finish on Sunday night and then everything would start on Monday, so I would have to see her next week.

So I had to learn to give up certain expectations on my personal side. Whereas, obviously at CEA we don't have that same practice, I always said to myself, I would never want my team to be forced to work weekend or at the last minute. So I very much embraced more of the virtual work environment that many are used to, as opposed to a lot of face time, which was very crucial at that early relationship-building time at a local Chinese company. So those are kind of some of the anecdotes we had to face at that point in time.

But in terms of running and starting a company from China, yeah, the process was very convoluted on setting up the China entity. The Hong Kong entity, where I first set up in 2008, was actually very simple and it took more or less an afternoon to set up, go through the paperwork, set up the bank account and put $10,000, that was very simple. On the China side, I had to basically go through a multi-month process of a lot of paperwork back and forth. And I'm sure that the process is more simple today, but it was very important to register the company with the right indication for how we were going to be paid.

At the time I had a non-compete with Trina, so I chose to set up our business platform as basically working with downstream developers and owners of solar assets. So, we actually did not have any Chinese clients, but I effectively had a one-year non-compete with Trina when I left, so as a result, I chose to work with international clients. So, you know, there were some nuances about how we brought capital into the country and how we had to declare certain tax obligations.

Andy Klump:

So it was a variety of things that took a little bit of investigation, but I finally set up the China entity, you know, about a year and a half later, around 2010. And then later we set the U.S. entity and then consolidated around the U.S. So, there are a lot of stories about those early days of starting up in China. It was a challenging time, but one that I will definitely never, never regret. It was a fun time, and I explored and learned a lot about international business through that period.

Renewable Energy Trends Around the World

Kathrin Bussmann:

Well, Andy, from your vantage point now, as CEO of a global solar energy company, have you found that conversations around the transition to renewable energies differ around the world? Are there regional trends in those conversations that you've noticed?

Andy Klump:

I would definitely say that there is a fairly united understanding that exists today, in 2022, that didn't exist several years ago about the recognition of global warming. I think there are some folks who are still really kind of fighting that, but I would say, generally speaking, there's the broad-based acceptance that there needs to be a transition to, you know, supporting renewals.

And while, if I look back at my career 15, 16 years ago, there are a lot of European subsidies that were very advantageous to developers and other folks building projects over time. Over time those subsidies really dropped dramatically, or, in some cases, it went away and the renewable energy platforms like solar stand alone on their own, or they're combined with energy storage. So, I think there's a broad-based acknowledgement that solar is an extremely cost-competitive platform that is much more effective than other forms of thermal energy, especially in today's environment where we see the conflict in Ukraine that has driven the cost of oil up quite substantially, and also the desire for significant decoupling from the oil-producing regions of the world.

So, this is one of the regional trends I'd say that we've seen in a big way: There's a massive demand from Europe right now. Our teams are expanding there significantly and we're gonna continue to grow and expand with our client needs. So, we do see solar as the type of technology that can be in every country globally. And so when I talk to our team about our B.H.A.G., our Big Hairy Audacious Goal, we believe that we wanna be the sought-out, trusted experts in solar and storage, supporting projects in every country globally, and we measure our progress to that. I mentioned 69 countries, but I think we can continue to help install solar in many parts of the world that don't have it.

And if we look at some of our clients, one in Norway, for example, actually did a 20 megawatt system in the Arctic Circle. One wouldn't think that that would be common, but actually they get the same amount of sun as other parts of the world, it's just at some part of the year it's 24/7 while other parts of the year it's hardly any, but that investment pencils out. And so I think the economic argument for solar investments is really what drives the industry, and that's one of the things that we've been very pleased to be a part of that transition.

Andy’s Advice for Expanding into International Markets

Kathrin Bussmann:

Excellent. Well, let's say Andy, that you have a very good friend and maybe this has happened to you, a very, very good friend who happens to be a globally ambitious cleantech founder. Over a cup of coffee or tea, what would be your most important piece of advice to this good friend of yours around expanding into international markets generally, and into perhaps into the Chinese markets specifically, if your friend was based outside of China? Like what would be some basic starting points or proven strategies or common pitfalls that you would tell your friend about?

Andy Klump:

Sure. I would definitely highlight some of the themes I mentioned in my own personal jury as an entrepreneur and say, um, having a core set of values that really, you know, eclipse, broader set of a geographic boundaries is important. One of the things that we've found is really identifying that common culture, you know, finding those core values that really resonate with a larger group and, you know, the core values that we are family and have fun, really work well across every geography, but once again, own it and perform above beyond results matter, many other facets, people have different understandings of what do results mean or what does it mean to own it. And so that's where we have to make sure to give specific examples, celebrate wins in different geographies and give examples that are very explicit, so people understand.

As I kinda alluded to the fact that in China, one doesn't raise their hand out in a larger group of 900 folks, so you also don't wanna stand out. Once again, to own it means you have to take responsibility to own an initiative to the end. So that's where there's a lot of sometimes cultural education that's needed across different regions, but we found that our teams in China and other parts of Asia where maybe folks are a little less proactive on things, over time with training and reinforcement, a lot of those principles are fully embraced the same way.

I think in terms of maybe a very tangible approach and just practical item, just to save time and effort, I would definitely avoid setting up entities in just any market. Obviously, I lived in China, so I had to set up the Chinese entity, but one of the mistakes we made in 2013 is we set up an entity in Chile because I thought that was a booming market and there was a lot of opportunity, and it ended being a massive time sink. There are so many other ways to hire folks by using different professional employment organizations called PEOs. So, there's many of these that can be consolidated around a service provider. It's much simpler to focus on working with someone else who has existing practices in place. So one of the things I wasted a lot of time in that effort, and I would definitely highlight to other founders is just avoid the unnecessary headaches and try, really try to focus on the key things that matter, like getting the alignment of culture, recruiting the right talent… that is far more important than necessarily having all the individual entities set up.

So, I think those are all points that are important. And once again, China specific, I think I have already listed some of those key points. I think just the cultural understanding of China and also being able to speak the language is important. I wouldn't advocate to anyone who's just going to China randomly to just learn Mandarin, it's a long journey. I spent two plus years of my life to do that, but I'm also very pleased that I chose to set the company after I had mastered Mandarin, because that was a very important part of my toolset. So those are other points that might be relevant.

 

What Lies in the Future for CEA?

Kathrin Bussmann:

Hmm. Excellent advice. Well, last question, Andy: what's next on the horizon for CEA in terms of global growth. If you don't wanna reveal too much, that's fine, but just thought I'd ask.

Andy Klump:

No, absolutely. Look, I think there's a lot of meaningful trends that are happening globally in our industry of both solar energy and storage. I think one of the key trends is deglobalization, or really the decoupling of the supply chain. China has a dominant supply chain advantage to many other parts of the world, but due to tariffs, we've seen a number of parts of the manufacturing process that have now been shifted to other geographies in other countries. So, one of the things that we see domestically in the United States is there's a mass to build out of a large manufacturing industry. And once again, it will take many years to build this out, but we've actually set up a team that's focused on manufacturing services. We do have executives and professionals with core manufacturing experience throughout the entire value chain and really helping manufacturers who want to develop operations in North America is a new area of interest.

Andy Klump:

We also have a team that's focused on e-mobility, especially electric vehicle charging stations. And so there's a lot of work around supply chain and quality assurance, charging network design that we can be a part of that. I'd say another massive growth potential is really around ESG. There's a massive focus right now in terms of understanding the traceability of the upstream materials that's impacting solar and also energy storage. So once again, environmental, social and governance is an area of massive growth potential. And I think the demand for a greater acknowledgement about where the carbon footprint of every supply chain component is coming from is also important. So we have separate folks who know carbon traceability, so we're doing a lot of that work. And once again, really from the get-go, we've just been capturing, leveraging a lot of structured data from all facets of production.

And so we have a market intelligence team that's sitting on over 135 gigawatts worth of solar experience at over 10 gigawatt hours of energy storage. So, there's a truckload going on in that market. And then I'd say there's other niches that we're also growing into, such as green hydrogen, demand for electrolyzers, both on supply chain side and quality assurance, it’s something that gives us a strong foothold is that once again, now that we've established this strong base, we've seen a lot of the obstacles of COVID that have created travel and logistics problems. A lot more folks are really coming to us and saying, “CEA, you're the experts on the ground in China, please help us to solve a lot of these problems as we need someone who's responsive to our needs and understands our market just like yourselves”.

Kathrin Bussmann:

Excellent. Well, Andy, this has been a really fascinating conversation. I'm glad we were able to connect and make this happen. <laugh> And I appreciate, again, you being so flexible with the timing, it's getting really late for you. So, I'll wrap it up here, but for listeners who would like to find out more about you and about CEA, where should they go online to find out more, which websites, perhaps blogs or social media accounts, could they follow? And I will include all those links in the show notes for this episode.

Andy Klump:

Absolutely! Our core website is CEA, the number three.com to keep it nice and short and simple, clean energy associates.com does redirect to our site, so that is the other one. But we are very active on LinkedIn, so anyone can contact me on LinkedIn, very happy to engage a new audience. And I will definitely say, I have a lot of folks who come to us, either looking for ideas and different technologies, a lot of developers and IPPs, which are independent power producers, really looking to solve challenges when around the solar supply chain, but also other questions. You know, we have a lot of bright talent that's, um, seeking new opportunities with companies with a really vibrant culture. So that's one of the things that we always love to respond to, but we have a 1-800 number on our website, but there's various ways info@cea3.com goes two appropriate team and resource.

So, once again, we're very happy to engage, but also, looking at our website and approaching any of the executives on our team. We have a lot of folks who have a deep industry experience. They're far better at their respective craft than myself, so I like to consider, I’m just playing a small part in this equation. I really have been very fortunate to have a strong team that has really deep expertise. And so any individual in the CEA team is also worth reaching out to.

Kathrin Bussmann:

Fantastic. Well, Andy, thanks again for your time today. It was such a pleasure to talk to you and learn more about CEA and how you came to launch it, and the core purpose behind it, which I love. I do hope we can stay in touch and, yeah, thanks for being on the show.

Andy Klump:

Absolutely. This has been a lot of fun and I look forward to continuing the dialogue.

Kathrin Bussmann:

And that was my conversation with Andy Klump. For more information about Andy and Clean Energy Associates, you can check the show notes for this episode, and you'll find those show notes on the Verbaccino.com website under “podcast”.

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