About the Team

Meade is Founder and CEO of the Hawthorn Club. The Hawthorn Club is the International Network for executive women in the energy industry. The mission of the Club is to promote the appointment of women to senior corporate positions & boards; and to facilitate gender diversity within the energy sector.

Meade founded the Club when, as an executive in the energy industry, covering Europe, The Middle East & Africa, she realized that women were badly underrepresented. Rather than accept the status quo, she set out to change the face of the sector. Meade has demonstrated considerable entrepreneurial spirit, growing The Hawthorn Club to include branches on four continents, sponsored by some of the world’s biggest energy companies – from upstream and downstream, utilities and power, to traditional and new disruptive technologies. Her experience doing business in over 20 countries has given her a global outlook on business and life.

Previously she was Senior Advisor on Business Development for the Global CCS Institute in the Americas covering the US, Canada, Central and South America. She also worked as a Senior Advisor to Global CCS Institute’s European office in Paris for 4 years, where she was responsible for building the organisation’s relationships with Governments and Corporations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Meade is currently a lecturer for UC Berkley’s Graduate Education Program on CCS at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Meade received a Master’s degree in International Relations & Energy Security at King’s College London. She graduated with honors from University of New Hampshire, during which time she also studied at Sydney University.

Rachel began her career as a lawyer specialising in project finance and capital markets in Europe and Asia before moving to a commercial role in an infrastructure investment fund, leading Public-Private Partnership bids. She then joined General Electric, with roles spanning portfolio risk management, commercial director and M&A. In 2017, Rachel started her own business, advising infrastructure investment funds and start-ups in the energy space, from blockchain-based grid integration platforms to hydrogen storage solution as well as helping to build the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment ($20Tn AUM) before joining Shell in 2021. In Shell, she is currently leading the global strategy for decarbonisation of cities.

Rachel is fluent in English, French, Portuguese and Italian, has lived and worked in six countries across four continents. She is currently based in London with her family.

Alice is an experienced and successful policy and program manager, with a PhD, a Masters of Applied Ethics, a first class Honours degree in Philosophy, and a Business Management degree. She has managed programs and policy initiatives in more than 11 countries, costing from $3,000 to $30 million. Alice’s PhD research explored ethical leadership in the government, energy and built environment sectors; it focused on how senior leaders understand ‘ethical leadership’ from their own lived experience.

She has eight years experience with the Australian Government to Director level, across the innovation, tourism and resource sectors – where she received an award for service. She managed an 18-organisation Steering Group comprised of State governments, industry associations and unions, which required providing full range of governance support to seek agreement to decisions, and the implementation of those decisions at the Steering Group and Ministerial Council level.

In addition, she has seven years experience with the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (the Institute) where she was Principal Manager for Capacity Development. In this role Alice was responsible for developing the Institute’s capacity development strategy, implementing the capacity development program, and managing strategic relationships with other key capacity development providers, to help create a CCS ‘enabling environment’ in developing countries.

Julie, with more than 18 years of experience in clean energy and environmental markets, has a passion for renewable energy, climate change and volunteer service. She has deep expertise in developing infrastructure opportunities and deploying capital into projects and companies across 16 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Julie is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Energy practice in San Francisco. Throughout her career, Julie has taken on a variety of roles at established energy players including Cogentrix (a Carlyle portfolio company and an independent power producer), Brookfield Renewable, and E.ON Climate & Renewables, as well as startup and growth-stage companies including EcoSecurities, Dynamic Energy and Vertex Energia (which she co founded). She also completed a two-year Peace Corps service in environmental education in Nicaragua.

Julie earned a B.A. from Bucknell University in Environmental Studies, an MPA from Columbia University in Environmental Science and Policy and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

With nearly two decades of international experience, Elizabeth is a leading expert in event management and delivery. Her vision for the needs of every occasion sparks innovative ideas, while her diligent attention to detail and confident execution bring the vision to life.

Elizabeth started her career in exhibition customer service which sparked her ever growing interest in events as the essential tool of business development and personal networking. She continued her career path as an event manager, organizing large trade shows and board meetings. Most recently she was Head of Global Events at Bottomline Technologies, a Nasdaq-listed tech company, where she led a team in tradeshow management, customer engagements and event marketing.

Elizabeth is very excited to be part of The Hawthorn Club, working with the most empowered women in the energy industry. Her bubbly personality and smile will be sure to greet you at future Hawthorn events!

Sheana Rodriguez is the Executive Assistant to the Club’s founder, Meade Harris. In her role, she manages day to day operations and supports the administrative needs of the Hawthorn Club team to ensure the success of organizational objectives. Sheana has extensive experience supporting Executives, as well as special event planning and business management.

Before joining the Hawthorn Club team, Sheana supported an award-winning Chief Marketing Officer and a 12-person global marketing leadership team at Bottomline Technologies. During her 8 years with the company, Sheana was described as the “glue” of the marketing organization. As the liaison to her CMO, Sheana’s responsibilities included, day-to-day administrative support, project management, new hire onboarding, special event planning, and global marketing coordination.

Prior to her role as an Executive Assistant, Sheana spent over 7 years as a Wedding and Special Events Planner.

Sheana graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a BA in Liberal Arts. She still resides near the University alongside her longtime partner and their three young children.