Biography

José Pires serves as the Global Excellence & Innovation (E&I) Leader for Andeavor Corporation, where he oversees the global identification, prioritization and execution of mission critical business improvements and innovations that add value to the company, business partners and external clients in multiple markets.

Prior to his current role, Pires held Excellence and Innovation leadership positions in large, global companies in the electronics (Sony), semiconductor (Cymer-ASML), food (Nestlé) and infrastructure (Black & Veatch) industries. Throughout his career, Pires developed and refined E&I as an award winning program for innovation, leadership development, strategy execution and value creation globally.

Pires is an advisory board leader and keynote speaker for several global conferences on innovation, operational excellence, leadership development, strategy execution, business transformation, customer engagement and growth acceleration.

He holds a Bachelor in Engineering Physics from the University of Kansas and a Master in Business Administration focused in Investment Banking and Entrepreneurship from the University of San Diego.

Biography

Biography

Bryant Yee is the Vice President of Advanced Analytics, Performance Excellence and Automation at National Grid, US. He and his organization are responsible for driving continuous improvement and transformational change throughout National Grid’s US business.

Prior to joining National Grid, Bryant spent a little over 10 years in consulting, most notable at both PwC and Deloitte helping Fortune 500 clients design and achieve its Process and Operational Excellence objectives. Prior to that, his career has spanned multiple roles across various industries in consultative and operational roles centered around process, operational and continuous improvement.

Bryant has a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University, and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

Biography

Rami, throughout his 20+ years of service at Saudi Aramco, has been assigned to diverse assignments covering engineering, operations and maintenance fields during which he implemented various mechanisms to establish and embed operational excellence culture within the organization. As a result, he led his OpEx team to win various international recognitions such as the Global Organization Excellence Congress Benchmarking award, King Abdulaziz Quality Award as well as the Oil & Gas and Refining & Petrochemical Middle East Awards Operational Excellence Strategy of the Year. He also led the team toward being the 1st Saudi Aramco organization to successfully achieve the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) “Committed to Sustainability” recognition.

Biography

Dennis MacAleese is the Director of the Lean Capability Center within Gas Operations at Pacific Gas & Electric. He is leading the deployment of Lean Management across Gas Operations and Aviation Services. Prior to his current role, Dennis led the Gas Maintenance & Construction Department for the Northern California Region of PG&E’s service territory (over 500 employees, serving over 2 million customer accounts spread over 30,000 miles). He has been with PG&E for five years.

Prior to PG&E, Dennis worked at several major utilities on the East Coast. He has been in the natural gas industry for 21 years and held a variety of leadership roles. Dennis and his wife, Dianna, live in El Dorado Hills, California with their two teenage children and four dogs. 

PG&E Gas Operations is a distributed business with 5,400 employees and 4.3 million customers over 70,000 square miles of service territory in Central and Northern California. PG&E’s network includes 42,141 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines and 6,438 miles of transportation pipelines. The territory stretches from Bakersfield in the South to Eureka in the North and from the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Sierra Nevada on the east.

Biography

Ed is currently Vice-President of Operational Excellence Assessment and Oversight for Duke Energy. His group performs assessments of Duke operational business units, to promote event-free performance and continuous improvement in safety, reliability and efficiency.

Ed joined Duke Energy, (through legacy companies Carolina Power & Light and Progress Energy) in 1983. Over a 36-year career, he has held various operations, engineering, and strategy roles in electrical generation and distribution, including plant manager, engineering director, and fleet operations general manager.     

Ed holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.     

He has been married to his high school sweetheart for 36 years, has three grown children, and is the grandfather of twin boys. He and his wife Susan reside in Davidson, NC, where he enjoys golf, tennis, running, gardening, and reading.