I had breakfast with Marietta Larracas this past Tuesday in Ortigas. Mayette served as Commissioner on the Energy Regulatory Board after serving as Chief of its Pricing Division.
She stepped down from the Board in 2001 upon passage of EPIRA and has since provided advisory on rate cases and rate related issues for some of the regulated utilities.
Mayette knows the regulatory regime inside and out – particularly from a policy perspective, but also tactically. She is the first Filipino I met and worked for when I arrived in the Philippines in 1994.
A number of months ago one of her clients asked her to create an organization to help a number of the utilities address some of the new things happening in the industry. She told me “they must have assumed I had a lot of spare time” and she declined, opting for a more balanced life. But when I came along and finally caught up with her last week, she resurrected the idea, knowing that the headaches of starting a new business are much more feasibly handled when they are falling on more than one set of shoulders.
Mayette and I are powerfully complementary. My focus is bulk power markets and trading and contracting. Her’s is rates, regulation, and policy. We have always worked well together. I have a huge amount of respect for her.
So as of this week, we are collaborating on putting together a practice.
We don’t yet know how this practice will ultimately manifest itself – what the nature of the organization will be. Mayette and I already collaborate with some great talent in the energy sector – and we may form something that more closely identifies all of us together. We’ll see how things develop.
So stay tuned. I’ll be fleshing out our plans and how Asian Energy Advisors fits into the overall scheme right here on this weblog. It’s just my style. The advantage of doing this in the open far outweigh private strategizing. Public or private comments are welcome.
If you’re a management consultant interested in collaborating with us, please contact Mayette or me.
And if you’re a private or cooperative utility, or if you’re involved in bulk power supply or retail supply or if you’re an industrial customer, Mayette and I would be interested in talking to you about your specific issues.