Board of Directors
Paul Cusenza
Mr. Cusenza is Chairman and CEO of Nodal Exchange, LLC and Nodal Clear, LLC. He has over forty years of experience in building and managing businesses. He was a co-Founder and co-President of 23andMe, a personal genetics company, and the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Alliance Management at Perlegen Sciences. He was part of the Senior Management Team of Capital One Financial during a period of great growth in the 1990s, as the Managing Director of Value-Added Alliances and Vice President Marketing & Analysis. Prior to Capital One Financial, he was a Vice President and Partner at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman) for nearly a decade focusing on financial services. He also worked for IBM early in his career. Mr. Cusenza holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Mark Maisto
Mr. Maisto is President Commodities and Commercial Services for NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, a leading competitive energy supplier and a NextEra Energy Inc. company, the world’s largest utility company by market capitalization and the world’s largest generator of wind and solar energy. Mr. Maisto has played a significant role in developing the energy marketing and trading organization at NextEra since joining the company in 2001. Mr. Maisto previously served as president of Edison Mission Marketing & Trading, a subsidiary of Edison Mission Energy. He also was chief executive officer of Citizens Power prior to it being acquired by Edison Mission Energy in September 2000. Prior to joining Citizens Power, Mr. Maisto was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, specializing in energy financing. Mr. Maisto holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cornell University and a master’s degree in business administration from New York University.
Shahid Malik
Mr. Malik is President of WM Renewable Energy (WM, formerly known as Waste Management, is a Fortune 200 company). In this role he is responsible for managing a a large renewable energy business and oversees WM’s investments in renewable technologies such as Hydrogen and Carbon Capture. WM is investing in 20 new RNG plants to add to its existing RNG fleet as well as the 60 power plants currently in WM’s portfolio. Prior to his current position, he was President of PSEG Energy Resources & Trade (ER&T). Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) is a diversified energy company headquartered in Newark, N.J. Mr. Malik was responsible for commercial management of 18,000MWs of assets including new asset development, wholesale marketing, retail sales, trading, risk management and business development. Mr. Malik has an extensive background in the energy industry across the oil, gas, electric and renewable energy sectors in Europe and the United States. Prior to joining PSEG, he worked for companies such as BP, Entergy and Evergy. He also served on the board of directors of South Jersey Industries (NYSE: SJI) immediately prior to joining PSEG. Mr. Malik received his MBA from Rice University, Houston.
Tobias Paulun
Dr. Tobias Paulun has been CEO of European Commodity Clearing AG (ECC) since 1st April 2023. From January 2015 to March 2023, he held the position of Chief Strategy Officer within the Management Board of EEX. Tobias Paulun has been with EEX Group since August 2009, when he started in product development and later headed the strategy department of EEX. He has also been a member of the Management Board of EPEX SPOT and Managing Director Exchange at EEX. Previously, he worked at the Institute of Electrical Systems and Energy Economics (IAEW) of RWTH Aachen University with a focus on the long-term development of the European electricity market and optimization of grid expansion of electricity and gas networks.
Steven B. Perfect
Dr. Perfect serves as a Public Director of Nodal Exchange, LLC and Nodal Clear, LLC. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Finance at Florida State University teaching derivatives, investments, and portfolio management in the Masters of Business Administration and Masters of Science in Finance programs. Prior to returning to Florida State’s faculty in 2012, Dr. Perfect was with NextEra Energy (formerly FPL Group) for over a decade. He was the Senior Director of Option Trading & Quantitative Analysis at NextEra Energy Resources, where he managed energy derivatives traders and trading analysts as well as overseeing quantitative and risk analysis. He was also formerly the Senior Director of Transmission Trading for FPL Energy. Prior to NextEra Energy he worked at Sonat Energy Services / El Paso Merchant Energy in risk strategy for two years and taught at Florida State University for seven years achieving tenure while teaching at the undergraduate and doctoral level in finance. He has been qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst since 1998. He is a former Board Member of the Eastern Finance Association. Dr. Perfect earned a B.S. in Physics from Oklahoma State University and a Masters of Business Administration and Ph.D. in Finance both from The University of Texas at Austin.
Ann Sacra
Dr. Sacra serves as a Public Director for Nodal Exchange, LLC and Nodal Clear, LLC. Dr. Sacra retired from Nodal Exchange in 2016. At the time of her retirement, she was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Nodal Exchange and Nodal Clear, as well as the Chief Risk Officer of Nodal Clear. Dr. Sacra joined Nodal Exchange shortly after its creation in 2007, and was involved in all aspects of the Exchange and Clearing House development, including Nodal Exchange’s initial launch, the launch of Nodal Exchange as a Designated Contract Market, and the launch of Nodal Clear. Prior to joining Nodal Exchange, Dr. Sacra was a partner at a hedge fund and a manager at Dean & Company. Dr. Sacra holds a Ph.D in Physical Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University.
