Alexandra Cooley  0:00  
I had never heard of this before. And the acronym stands for face. Never heard of it before. And when as I learned about it, it kind of light bulb went off. because to me it solved a problem that hadn't been solved before.

kevin edwards  0:15  
You are listening to the real leaders podcast, or today impacts tomorrow. Solar keeps a good pace. And leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. And that excerpt was from Alexandra Cooley, who explains why many commercial properties are now adopting solar and how the leadership and hiring adjusted as their startup grew to over 40 employees. So without further ado, let's jump to your uninterrupted episode of the relators podcast with Alexandra Cooley. Enjoy. We will get started here at the sands let's bring the energy today first podcast we're doing we're bringing their energy it's gonna be the best one you ever did. Okay, we go in 5432 and one and one Welcome, everyone, to this episode of the real leaders podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. Joining me today is the co founder and chief Operations Officer of Greenwich lending Miss Alexandra Cooley. Allie, thanks for being with us today.

Alexandra Cooley  1:14  
Thanks for having me, Kevin.

kevin edwards  1:15  
So I think it's very unique that we've got a co founder on the show today, you know, I like sometimes we get some CEOs on the show, and they come in the organization, no disrespect to them all. But I like hearing the story aspect of how an organization actually started in order to go back kind of depends on like, how far we want to go back. So let's start maybe at early childhood, or in grade school alley, think back I want you to think far back Did you ever have a knack for entrepreneurship or sustainability?

Alexandra Cooley  1:48  
Well, well, we can go we can go as far back as you like, but and I think I always had I always loved being out in nature. So as a kid, I was always running around like collecting earthworms, all my friends were playing with you know Barbie dolls or whatever, and but, um, but I never really did anything with it until after college and I, after college I kind of didn't know what I wanted to do. And so I did what a lot of graduates do just go into consulting, to try and learn about a lot of different things. And and while I was there I ended up working on ended up being assigned to oil and gas projects. So I was basically the outsourced diligence analyst for looking at oil and gas investments. And I have this memory of one night I went to the Middle East a lot. I lived there for a couple months. And when they was kind of alone in a hotel room and Abu Dhabi and I couldn't sleep and I couldn't sleep because that day I had read an article about polar bears starving on ice caps because they couldn't find food because their food sources are drying up because of climate change. And I'm sorry and I you know, remember going to the zoos. I remember spending time outside as a kid. And then realizing, you know, there had to be there had to be something better that I could be doing something more aligned with my values that I could be doing with 30% of my time here on earth. And the next day, of course, I went to work and I was analyzing an oil and gas field in Egypt This time, I think it was, and I need a decision that that, you know, those two things could not exist together in my life, and I wanted to do something impactful. So that was back in, oh, gosh, it must have been like 2008 2009. 

So actually ended up deciding to go to graduate school at that time, most of the creative solutions to climate change are actually coming out of the public sector. And you don't hear that that often. And so I decided I wanted to learn more about climate change policy, and I went to grad school, and I just had a series of really lucky encounters. So while I was at grad school, I ended up doing research for someone named Brian Garcia. And when I was leaving when I was graduating from from school, and he actually was by the governor of Connecticut to start something called the Connecticut green bank. And attending a Green Bank was really a state agency startup. You know, you also don't hear that that often. And the goal was really to create structures to bring private capital into the state of Connecticut to fund Clean Energy Solutions within the seat. And he asked me to join him and several other people he was bringing on to start the state agency. And my job was to create different and new financial structures to to help scale clean energy within the state of Connecticut and really create new structures. My first day I met Jessica Bailey, who became my co founder, and she was also brought on by Brian to help the commercial real estate sector in Connecticut access clean energy, and she had spent the past 10 years passing something called Property Assessed Clean Energy Policy across the state. I had never heard of it. Before the acronym stands for face, never heard of it before. And when, as I learned about it, it kind of light bulb went off, because to me it solved a problem that hadn't been solved before. 

So if you can kind of at a macro level of climate emissions 20% of our climate emissions come from our commercial buildings in the state in the United States. And there really isn't, it's kind of the one real estate sector where there's no good financing solution available. So if you think about as a as an individual, you can go out and you can get a loan from Solar City or sunrun or whoever and get long term financing for your solar or a keylock. If you want to install energy efficiency. If you're a utility or a large scale company like a FedEx or someone that's publicly traded with a debt rating, you can go out and get long term financing to do energy efficiency or clean energy or resiliency measures on your property. If you're a government, you can go out and you can issue bonds, but they're not really isn't anything for the sub investment grade real estate market. And that's well over 90% of the commercial buildings in the country. And so I realized that this was a product that could have a significant impact. So for two years just kind of work together to build the product within the Connecticut green bank. And we met with more success than you might expect being an estate agents. And we really like to have the impact that we've wanted to have through building this product. We really had to spin it into a private company and take it nationwide so that we could see more and more deals get done more and more states adopt pace.

kevin edwards  6:36  
Okay, so maybe explain to our audience when they're hearing about this for the first time, you already said the pace its property assessment clean, clean energy act, and I'm sure it's some type of obviously greenworks lending some type of loan for a property, the commercial real estate building. She explained her audience what that what that what that looks like for them. On the property side and why this would help them save money.

Alexandra Cooley  7:05  
Yeah, sure. So Property Assessed Clean Energy is very simply a state level policy. So a state will say we believe clean energy or climate mitigation or energy efficiency is a public benefit. And therefore, we will allow private lenders like greenworks, my company to access the systems that have been used for over a century to fund public benefits like schools, sewers, sidewalks, you name it. I'm called the public benefit assessments. And what that does is it allows a building owner to basically create their own special taxing district on their property and pay back any clean energy measures that they're installing on their property through a tax assessment. And what that gets them is long term, low cost bands and because we're secured by the property itself, we're actually making loan to the owner of the building for sure. But actually our loan is to the building itself. So if the owner moves, our tax assessment is, is still on the building until it's paid off. And that's because as you can imagine, the boiler would still remain on the building, the solar panels would remain on the roof. So whoever moves into the building would get the benefit of the upgraded property. And they would continue to pay that tax assessment over time. So it starts with a policy that allows private lenders to come in and lend against a special assessment. And then it really gives the choice to the building owner to install the Clean Energy measures that makes sense for their building using this structure.

kevin edwards  8:40  
Okay, got it. So So Jessica, now you're at Green Bank in Connecticut, and they they realize the opportunity for this product to have a significant impact across the nation now. great ideas also come with great costs and great challenges you just mentioned Some policies, you also mentioned that the ownership isn't a problem. That's, that's a big problem for a lot of residential. People looking to get solar is like, hey, am I going to sell my house and yours? You know, is this investment gonna pay off? How long am I gonna have to live here for a little bit different with commercial real estate now this is this is great. So what are some of the challenges, though, for the policy, with working with municipalities, with some of the investors that are going to invest in your company as a start up to take this on? And tell our audience what it was like for clean energy back and you said 2008 2009?

Alexandra Cooley  9:38  
Sure. So. So first, on the investment side? Well, I'll start with the policy side because that's a little easier to to explain. When we started in 2015, a handful of states had passed case policy, and what we realized through the process of passing policy in Connecticut, being adopted at the state and local level We said it's a policy that doesn't really matter if the state is blue or red or purple. And democrats really like the policy because it supports clean energy. Republicans like the policy because it's a way for governments not to spend money. So these loans are all private sector low rate. My company is a private company, we raised money from institutions like insurance companies. And it allows for economic development. So we're funding projects that wouldn't get done otherwise, that local contractors and local developers are putting in the ground. And so it just kind of it. It's popular across the aisle. So we've seen that handful of states though just 38 in the past five years, we it's really kind of remarkable how much the landscape has grown and how much the environment for cases increase. So that's driven a ton of growth, for CP and for greenworks, in particular, on the investment side, certainly that was that was a challenge and we got started, but we were very lucky.

And the Green Bank, we built the product, right? So we really figured out how it was going to work with the tax collectors, right? Because we're actually asking them to fill in collect, we figured out what the underwriting needed to look like, we figured out what the pricing needed to look like. And that's the last piece of figuring out the pricing. How we did that was we actually went out to the market and said, hey, look, we've got a pool of $30 million of loans that we had originated while you're at the state. So the state of Connecticut gave us their balance sheet to start originating, PSS upon to and they're like greatly about originate these processes, see if it'll work, and then sell it get our money back. That's why the Green Bank is put into place and and so in the process of doing that, we realized that there was a huge amount of demand on the institutional investing side for ESG assets. And there just weren't enough assets that fit the credit profile for ESG investors. And if you think about who these investors are, they're their institutional investors, you really need to have something that is raised That's investment grade to go out and access the capital markets. And so we said, you know, we got some price discovery, and we said, there's gonna be a huge amount of demand for our assets if we can get to scale. And so that became the story of the company, right? It was really scaling the product so that we can access capital markets. And we were lucky to meet our initial investor who had done basically the same thing of scaling the taxing product, so that it became an institutional product. And he saw and pays what he saw on the tax. And that it was a certainly an investment grade product that just hadn't really scale yet. And he said, he gave us our first 10, the capital, and that gave us the runway to prove the concept that we could do this as a private company. We could do it outside of Connecticut, and we could really scale it across the country.

kevin edwards  12:48  
Alexander to face any challenges from like traditional energy companies or pushback from many organizations, or just any struggles with just like the competency of a CFO, but organization is trying to understand how this is going to make their money and why they would invest in solar at this time.

Alexandra Cooley  13:12  
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, every every sale is different. And certainly selling pace is not the easiest thing that you could sell. Um, but, um, one of the really nice things about the product, is that it, it allows for that feedback discussion to change, right? Because because we're secured by a tax assessment, we can lend up to 20 to 30 years, so CFOs of companies, you know, they're trying to think, Okay, I need this to get back in three to five years, typically clean energy measures, as you know, well, you know, take 10 to 12 years to pay back. And so that doesn't ever kind of crop up on the list of things we need to do. CFOs must have strategic priorities. And he's really allows that in that discussion to change because we're extending the payment over 20 to 30 years over the life of the measure. And so if you have energy saving, you're really smoothing out the cost to match this energy saving? That certainly helps. And that is what allowed us to kind of grow into this some investment grade theory market, which had previously really been underserved and not well served by the capital markets at all.

kevin edwards  14:18  
Are you finding that these property owners are doing this because it's going to save them money in 2030 years? Are they coming to you because they believe that or at least they want to incorporate sustainable solutions into their own properties?

Alexandra Cooley  14:35  
Yeah, certainly the amount of investment that needs to happen across all sectors to mitigate climate change is staggering. But that is never why a building owner comes to us unfortunately, as much as I wish it were. We we typically see two reasons there are three reasons why people come to us first, comes solar. So people do solar in certain states because of cash, but they want to cut back on their utility Bill, typically states offer great incentives. Some states offer great incentives. And paste really matches that cash flow for them, they get they get the tax benefits. And so it's really cash flow sale on the solar side. And second would be energy efficiency. This is really kind of capital improvements. So you can think about a portfolio owner of multifamily properties or office properties, and their boilers are kind of at the end of their useful life. And they see winter's coming and they and they need to upgrade, you know, 20 different boilers. And they'll come to us and say, Can I replace Lansing to install ultra efficient boilers on my properties. And then the third and the fastest growing is actually in new construction and new development. And that's a really interesting new case because a lot of developers are seeing pieces really additive to their cost of capital and their capital stack. And what it allows them to do is ring fenced funds that would otherwise get value engineered out for you know, marble countertops or something like that, for energy efficiency that would that will reduce The cost of operating the asset over time. And so we really see that being a huge value driver for our for our borrowers and future in terms of our customers. 

kevin edwards  16:09  
And you're employing a lot of different jobs. Right, a lot of new jobs are coming into the economy because of construction. Right? Because it's solar, because of I mean, this is, I guess, describe what type of impact this is having on the on solar jobs in the economy.

Alexandra Cooley  16:26  
Yeah, and that's one of the things that I'm most excited about. And then just looking here, because I have the numbers from our most recent impact report, one of one of the most, one of the things that we do that is one of my favorite things to do at the company, is we actually report on our impact every quarter, and nobody's requiring us to do this. None of our investors require it, but just Can I do it because we think it's really important for us personally, it's very motivating to see that we've created x more jobs this quarter. It's also really motivating for the people on our team. So, um, so we have to date created over 2000 clean energy jobs. So that is really exciting. For me, especially having had the experience of coming out of school wanting to do something in clean energy and not really knowing where to go, I think we're in a much different market now for talent, and there's certainly the ability to go into the clean energy space, and from all the value chain and, and then we've also reduced the equivalent of 54 square miles before us. So we've basically done the equivalent of reforesting 54 square miles for 20 years, which to me is also one of my one of my graduate degrees in forestry. So that to me is always really hitting home and I love that.

kevin edwards  17:41  
So in that so I like how you just said we're not asked to do that, but it makes us feel better. A lot of organizations nowadays are starting to realize that they need to measure things beyond the balance sheet. Maybe go in depth a little bit more about why that's important to you, and do you see this as something that investors want to see or your own internal employees want to see, or is it just for personal reasons?

Alexandra Cooley  18:10  
Yeah, so certainly we decided it was important to us personally to measure measure our impact. And I think more and more we're seeing investors think this is really attractive. And we are active issuers in the asset backed security space. So our investors are institutions like insurance companies and asset managers. And more and more, you can see a new news article every day about more and more, these institutions are moving towards ESG. And I don't think anyone's quite figured out the right criteria or framework to put into place but if there is an intentional there they like to, but that is not why we do it. And we do it mainly for us personally. And then I also we've noticed it's really motivating for our team. I think we've been able to attract a group of really talented, mission driven folks that, you know, work hard because they want to build their careers for sure. But also because impact is so central to, to the company, right? If we're successful, we will have had an impact. Like they're just they're just because the measures we're installing with our financing our clean energy and energy efficiency, and they're having an energy savings reduction, or they're having an energy savings impact. And so I think a lot of the people on our team are motivated by that impact. And I think it's just been that it's a little bit intangible. It's one of those things that you know, feels a little a little fluffy but it really isn't it really they really noticed that it helps in there is kind of more of a positive energy in the in the office after after we publish a report every quarter

kevin edwards  19:47  
with this CPS program mean like so integrated into your organization. Have you found that your employees are staying longer, these are being retained longer. have something like this because it's not just making them money, like you said improve the careers but also having that environmental impact. And and like from like the leader of this organization like, do you think this is a strategy that other organizations can adopt as well?

Alexandra Cooley  20:18  
Yeah, I really do. I think we've been able to recruit a super incredible team for the size that we are, we're certainly punching above our weight in terms of our ability to recruit managers and leaders and even individual contributors, because there is that impact component. And I, you know, I do think it probably contributes to our retention rate. I don't know how I would know that for sure. But we do have folks that have been with us since 2015. And it's not an insignificant percentage of our of our staff. I don't know how that compares to other folks in our space, but, but I do think the mission There is something about That mission, it kind of bonds you to one another and to, to the company and the mission of the company. And, and I think it just, you know, you're going to work for something more than, you know, just the career and the paycheck which hopefully you're getting ample ample opportunities with both but, um, but I think that there's a different element there for most of the folks.

kevin edwards  21:20  
as a, as a leader of the organization, what's been like one of the most difficult decisions you have had to make.

Alexandra Cooley  21:34  
Well, I can say the most one of the most difficult things about going from two people and our we're just shy of 40. And it's really been like, the skills you need are different, right? So you go from doing so I, you know, when we started, we just finished it and we divided up the world. She's like, I've got the policy side and the sales side, and you've got the finance side and the operational side. And it's a great day we're off to the races. And it was easy. It was like, not easy. It was really challenging with a lot of really late nights, but you kind of knew exactly what you needed to do. And then you go from that to kind of, you know, managing people, which is also is a different skill, right? So you have to be very clear about expectations. It's about setting boundaries and, and making sure that that folks feel supported. And then you go from one and you know, I think in 2018, we went from 18 to 36 people, we doubled in size. And I remember talking to a friend of mine who said you're going from being a large family, that's probably a little dysfunctional, but you guys all get along to an institution and that's that's a really hard week to make. And it was it was really challenging because it's more about leading and managing and more about leading and managing than doing, right? So we have a concept that's kind of become vernacular around the office, there's an article that Molly Graham wrote called "give away your Legos" and, and it's really this concept that you have to give things that you've built to other people to, you know, maybe do a better job at maybe do a worse job that while you go off and struggle doing something new, and it's hard, right like that is really hard and it's not natural. And I think if you layer on top of that the need to lead an organization that was not at all like, that was not at all natural for me, because you go from kind of direct kind of, and discussion and debate to meeting to influence and managing perceptions. And that was very challenging for me. And I think that is probably something that most people in our in our position struggle with.

kevin edwards  23:45  
So during that growth, it was giving up those responsibilities to people who can do a better job was probably the most challenging thing, just that trust factor?

Alexandra Cooley  23:57  
Well, that was challenging because it's more just like Yeah, it's worth not knowing what like, the next thing is, right? So you're like, Okay, I gotta move on to the next thing. And then it's also just, you know, is it going to go well, or like, I can't own it anymore? Right? So is it going to go? Well, is this thing I built gonna continue to exist? And what does it mean now that I'm not going to be involved in every decision? And it just, it just, it's just different? You know, I think that I think having done it now several times, it gets easier and easier, because, you know, it just ends up better than it was before. Right? Like it One example is, I used to manage every interaction with our, with our institutional investors, every single one. And, you know, I was like, you know, I'm pretty good at this. I like I raised this money and I know, I know the investors and I'm actually having moved it to someone else on my team. It's so much better. It's so much smoother, she's implemented a schedule, she it's much more organized, you know, it's just, it's just better than I expected. And it's different than I expected. And so I think having gone through that exercise, And seeing things actually improve has helped. But I think when you're first doing it, you're like, What? What happened in this? I don't want it to fall down. You know?

kevin edwards  25:09  
Definitely, definitely. So I get this just popped in my head, like as you're growing like, how is your hiring changed? Like, how is your skill training change? Because right now you're telling me, you know, I was a little worried I was really good at this job, but I had to let it go and let someone else do a better job. And you know, this person obviously needs to have some experience. They need to be well vetted in advance, and I'm sure you're helping them out with that. But like, how does that role and maybe that's a better question like, how does that role like management change and that leadership style change as your organization goes from? Two to 40 employees? for you personally? 

Alexandra Cooley  25:51  
Yes, again, it I really enjoyed being on tour like, I feel like it was an entrepreneur who's Like a small sliver of time for like a couple of years, right. And I really enjoyed that, because No two days are the same. So I would wake up and you know, there are a bunch of fires that needed to be put out and just gonna be like, hey, like, you get this one, I get this one. And it was very kind of like hand to hand combat. And now you have to be much more structured and much more thoughtful not only about what you're saying, but what you're doing and the behavior that you're that you're modeling. And just one example that I thought about as I was prepping, you know, something as simple as when I got into work every morning, I like, you know, I had a baby and at the end of 2018, and there were some mornings where I would just, you know, sit home with my baby, get through a couple pieces of work that I needed to get through because it was just easier for me to do that and to like, deal with getting out the door and I needed to focus and I knew I just needed to get these things done. And there was one morning where I got in and it was, you know, it was 11am and nobody was in and I was like, Well, no, no, sorry. It was 9:45 and nobody was in. It's like, this is a this is, you know, this is a perfectly respectable time, like, where is everyone and, you know, I realized that I was modeling, I was modeling something right. And that was never something that had crossed my mind before. And, and so just just things like that like that that really changes as you scale. And I certainly think our hiring practices have gotten a lot more professional and our training has gotten a lot more professional. And that's because our roles have gotten less and they've gotten more professional as well. Right? So you go from meeting people who are Jack's of all trades and who get a lot of satisfaction from like life, I mean, dead right from switching, switching tasks day in and day out. And you need people who are kind of happy to focus on a specific job and it's a different type of person. And so I think our hiring is change because we're hiring multiple people for a single role, right? We're as we're scaling across the country, we're building out modularly. So we have multiple people that we're hiring, and they have the same role. And so that role is more structured that training is much more structured. And we've put a lot of those in. We put a lot of that structure in place in the past year.

kevin edwards  28:12  
Interesting. Okay. Well, very cool. Now, this is just another question I have for you as well, that you and Jessica, just being so close working at another company, starting this organization. And growing it from from two to 40. How is it your relationship changed?

Alexandra Cooley  28:32  
You know, thankfully, not. Not that much. And we started as colleagues at the Green Bank and I think, you know, we got along really well. And I think the process of starting a company together has thankfully brought us really close. We've become very close friends, our families know each other very well. And I think that that has made a huge difference. I think starting a company can be very, very lonely and I just feel so incredibly lucky. I was able to do it with someone who I Continue to get along with so well. It just it makes it not lonely. It makes it fun. We can laugh about things that are challenging and it just helps keep everything into perspective. Because, you know, you have a few days we have down days just like anything else, but it just feels more intense when it's you know your company. And I think having someone that I can call and just we can laugh about the absurdity or we can laugh about x y&z and still know that we're going to figure it out, but just have a moment where we can decompress together has been. It's been awesome.

kevin edwards  29:32  
Amazing. Alexandra, going from a Rhian article about polar bears in Egypt to now at the helm of an organization that's is really changing the landscape of amongst commercial real estates around the organization reducing those greenhouse gases to save those guys up there in the Arctic. It's been quite the transformation. What would you say now? Your definition of a Real Leader is after all these years?

Alexandra Cooley  30:04  
I know he told me you're gonna ask that question, but I still don't have a great answer for you. 

kevin edwards  30:10  
There's no one answer.

Alexandra Cooley  30:10  
I think, for me that the as I've, as I sat down and thought about it, I think there's an element of authenticity. And so one of the things that I try really hard to do and and, you know, Jessica tries hard to do as well is think about, you know, being as as as transparent as we can about the struggles that we're facing and what we're trying to do to fix it and hopefully inspiring people by our actions. And so I think that that would be one and then I think, an alignment between your personal values and what you're kind of the whatever you're doing and the the how of what you're doing every day. So tying those three things together. I think. I think be my definition.

kevin edwards  31:01  
beautifully played examinable excellent. Appreciate you coming on the show today. I hope our audience enjoyed it as much as I did. I learned a lot today. For Alexander Cooley, I'm Kevin our is asking you to go out there. Be authentic and authentic authenticity creates alignment folks. And always, never forget. Keep it real. Thanks, Alexandra.

Alexandra Cooley  31:19  
Thanks Kevin. 

kevin edwards  31:22  
And thank you lucky listeners for taking the time to listen to this episode of the real leaders podcast with Alexandra Cooley. And I didn't mention this on the podcast, but Green Works lending is a real leaders impact Awards Winner. Now if you're interested in seeing that list, the ranking all you need to do is go in the real dash leaders comm slash impact dash awards. And you are going to receive a free special edition which features our cover Star miyoko chinar, as well as the ranking of the 100 top and back companies. Basically People with a free digital magazine, you're gonna get a whole section of our magazine that's on newsstands. So if you're cheap like me and you want to pay for the magazine, all you can do is just go online and just read that. I think it's like 20 or 30 pages of the magazine. Anyway, good information on there. It's the full list of all these impact companies. If you're trying to get this space you're trying to see who's making waves. great resource for that. With that being said, folks, I just want to thank you. Yes, you for listening to this podcast. We've been seeing a our views and downloads skyrocket over these past couple of weeks. And we just want to attribute that all to you. And sharing that with your friends, your family members, sending it to people, it all helps and all goes a long way. So the bottom of our hearts we appreciate that. Now, how do we improve the podcast? Let us know leave a review at the bottom. Don't be afraid I can take it leave a review give me 1234 or five stars. And let me know what you think about the podcast right? It was just helped me out if you could do that. If not have a great rest of your day everybody. Hope you go out there and like we always say, keep it real.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai