“My biggest successes have been the decisions I have made on gut instinct… The further I have gotten in my career, the less scared I have gotten about trusting my instincts and not worrying if things don’t work out as planned.”
– Elena Alschuler

“My biggest disappointment, I’d say, was landing what I thought was the job of my dreams and then realizing that I actually really did not like it… You have this whole idea of what you want your life to look like, and maybe that’s not how it’s going to turn out. And that’s perfectly fine.”
– Laura McCaffrey

“Fail early. It’s okay. You can pick yourself up and dust yourself off. And you just don’t know what direction your career is going to take you in as long as  your open to it and you come in prepared.”
– Courtney McCormick

“I think I’ve gotten to where I am for two very distinct reasons. I think I have an insatiable appetite for success, and I think I am the only person and the right person to do what I am doing right now.”
– Allison Kopf

On data and making the case for energy efficiency:

“I think a lot of people have this knee jerk reaction of ‘don’t share anything of mine.’ There are ways to get knowledge and understanding out of data without sharing the most sensitive parts of it.”
– Elena Alschuler

“The logic behind selling energy efficiency in commercial spaces would say that if it’s saving you enough money, that should be an economic decision. But even businesses who are making these purchase decisions are still people. Energy efficiency has done a really poor job of tapping into emotional purchase triggers.”
– Angela Ferrante

“I think a lot of the opportunity in energy has to do with psychology and packaging… There is a huge opportunity to bring design creativity that lacks in anything exciting emotionally.”
– Ali Adler

“If we can take the concepts of convenience and retail, high-quality customer service experience into a space that doesn’t have that, there is a huge opportunity.”
– Ali Adler

On leadership and gender:

“I always go in with a degree of ‘look I have complete respect for you, and I want to learn from you, but at the end of day I’m in charge.’ You have to communicate that too. That’s been something I learned as I went. I think that’s important for all of us. This is the new reality. So everybody just better get comfortable.”
– Courtney McCormick

“If a young man in a suit walks into a room, he is assumed to be competent. And if a young women in a suit walks into a room, she is not necessarily assumed to be competent… I think with women leaders they give you a chance and they give you something to aspire to.”
– Elena Alschuler

“When I was 23 and running a non-profit, I would bring a middle aged man from my advisory board to fundraising meetings with me sometimes to sit there next to me and hardly say anything so that the person on the other side of the table, who I got the sense was the type of person who would listen if there was a middle aged man sitting next to me, would listen.”
– Ali Adler

“How do we get more women to find that thing that she is destined to solve, that problem that there is nothing on this planet that she is meant to do more than that thing. And then help them get there.”
“Allison Kopf