Building Energy Exchange welcomes new board members, Laura Humphrey, Pallavi Mantha, Brian Geller, and Jennifer Leone!
Laura Spencer Humphrey is the Senior Director of Sustainability at L+M Development Partners. Laura leads the company’s initiatives building communities with a climate-forward perspective and created a team focused on improving energy efficiency, corporate climate strategy, and distributed energy resources across building lifecycles.
Laura is a former decarbonization consultant who advised utilities and Fortune 500 companies on planning for a cleaner future. Laura has over a decade of experience leading strategies that advance energy and carbon goals in the built environment. She has spearheaded decarbonization strategies for private sector clients at ENGIE Impact, and directed energy initiatives at the state, city, and utility service territory level in roles at ICF and NYSERDA.
Pallavi Mantha is an Associate in Arup’s New York Office and Arup Americas Decarbonization Service and Skills Lead. An award-winning leader in climate and sustainability strategy, she brings over 16 years of experience in public and private sector projects. Pallavi received City and State NY’s Trailblazers: Clean Energy Award in 2024 and the CSE 40 under 40 award in 2022.
Pallavi has an interdisciplinary expertise in operational decarbonization, resilience, master planning, renewable and building energy modeling, and financial analysis. She is adept at technical storytelling and optimizing integrated solutions across a range of diverse building types from single-family homes to large commercial and institutional projects.
She served on the ACEC Greater New York Energy Code Committee from 2021 to 2023 and was a Board Member of the International Building Performance Simulation Association US Affiliate from 2015 to 2017.
Brian Geller is a Senior Sustainability Manager at The Durst Organization, where he plays an integral role in the development of new projects and in the renovation and operation of existing properties. Brian implements practices in support of the company’s sustainability policies, handles all tenant ESG data information requests, and oversees the building performance management program.
Brian was Senior Vice President of Corporate Sustainability at Citigroup and founded The Seattle 2030 District, a public/private partnership to collectively meet the Architecture 2030 Challenge for Planning across Downtown Seattle. This model has spawned an entire network of 2030 Districts across more than 24 North American cities, with over 500 million square feet of commercial building space committed.
Jennifer Bloom Leone is the Chief Sustainability Officer at NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development, the largest municipal developer of affordable housing in the country. Jennifer’s establishes sustainability policy, ensures projects address climate goals and vulnerable communities’ needs, and is the affordable housing liaison on climate legislation.
Jennifer’s key initiatives have included: development of HPD’s low carbon and climate resilient Design Guidelines, HPD’s Resilient and Equitable Decarbonization Initiative (REDi), precursor programs, and the HPD Solar Where Feasible Program which has supported over 15 MW of cost-effective solar across HPD’s scope.
Jennifer has procured nearly $100 million in grant funding and collaborated on key decarbonization research projects including: Multifamily Passive House: Connecting Performance to Financing, The Decarbonization Roadmap for Affordable Housing, and critical underwriting standards on beneficial electrification in affordable housing. Before joining HPD, she practiced as an architect and construction manager for over 20 years.
We extend a warm welcome to our new directors and look forward to their involvement in our programmatic development and organizational planning!
Written by:
Paul Rivers, Manager, Operations & Memberships