OpenMinds EOY & Q4 2025 Newsletter

Dear OpenMinds Colleagues and Friends:

In 2025, we focused our resources behind three impact pillars:

1. Grid Vision (our coalition to strategically electrify America)

2. NextGen (connecting and enabling the next generation of energy and climate leaders)

3. Transformative Communication (developing unique communication tools to align global energy and climate ambitions)

We are grateful to the many experts and partners who have dedicated their time and resources to this work – our progress over the past year would not have been possible without your contributions and support.

• Public Launch: We hosted our first public summit, OM25, at MIT, strengthening our impact strategy, visibility, and member network

• Impact Focus: We completed a strategic review and focused the organization behind three high-conviction impact pillars: Grid Vision, NextGen Leaders, and Communications

• Grid Vision: In September, we convened 50+ senior leaders across industry, policy, and finance to pressure-test Grid Vision priorities, prioritize and launch actionable solutions, and set the stage for OM26 this April at Stanford University

• Network Growth: We expanded our expert network with a range of leaders whose expertise, experience, and authority directly support our impact pillars and projects

• Federal Engagement: We worked directly with senior officials and congressional leaders, informing grid enhancement and electrification policy discussions and decisions

• Organizational Development: We formalized our Board of Directors, expanded our staff and volunteer leadership for each impact pillar, and strengthened governance and accountability

• Broader Foundation: We widened our funding base to support sustainability and long-term growth

Working with experts from across the U.S. grid system, we developed and advanced a clear, non-partisan Grid Vision Plan to optimize the grid we have today while building the grid we need for the future.

• Plan: Developed an actionable Grid Vision Plan to meet accelerating U.S. load growth affordably, reliably, and securely

• Team: Aligned input from over 50 experts across industry, utilities, policy, NGOs, and academia to prioritize actions across a highly complex, multi-stakeholder system

• Action: Identified six catalyzing projects for execution within our network that will accelerate transmission build-out, scale advanced technologies, and inform required policy decisions

• Leadership: Recruited Francis Slingsby, on secondment from The Conservation Fund, as our COO and project director for Grid Vision

• Roadmap: Provided a timeline for key actions, deliverables, and metrics for success

Our 10-year ambition is to create a global network of 300 energy and climate entrepreneurs and leaders who will work together throughout their careers to solve the Dual Challenge.

• Growth: Onboarded the second cohort of 32 (NG25) and recruited a dedicated Program Director, Kristin Barbato, a former utilities executive and the co-founder of Dynamo Energy Hub, to help shape and develop the program’s impact potential

• Projects: Completed six sponsor-aligned projects now driving real-world outcomes, supporting Microsoft, Williams, Calpine, CenterPoint, Carrier, and Fervo

• Activation: Established five self-governance teams to shift NextGen Leaders from participants to operators, driving programming, collaboration, and community growth

• 2026: We’re planning the first NextGen Summit and recruiting the 2026 cohort to grow the reach and power of this community of young leaders tackling the Dual Challenge together

We launched a campaign focused on the importance of solving for energy and climate together, and the growing opportunity to do so now.

• Platform: Established LinkedIn channel with 2,000+ followers, garnering over 170,000 impressions

• Products: Published an updated P50 outlook, recorded podcasts, spoke on stages, and launched both LinkedIn articles and a public Substack to expand our thought leadership footprint

• Reach: Earned sustained engagement from more than 100,000 LinkedIn members and reinforced OpenMinds’ standing and expertise for our network, key stakeholders, and policymakers

We marked the end of the year with meaningful progress:

• Drafted our Grid Vision Plan, and discussed with senior policy leaders

• Established six Grid Vision project teams to drive implementation in 2026

• Delivered decision-worthy NextGen projects to their sponsors

• Established NextGen communications strategy for 2026

• Aligned policy leaders behind practical analysis, actively informing near-term decisions

• Began planning for OM26 with our co-hosts at Stanford University, building to our public Grid Vision launch

• Advancing Grid Vision: Present the Grid Vision Plan and accelerate project progress at and beyond OM26

• Scaling next-generation leadership: Launch the 2026 NextGen cohort, growing the community of future leaders advancing energy and climate solutions together

• Shaping the narrative: Establish OpenMinds as a leading voice on the importance and potential of addressing energy and climate together, reinforcing a pragmatic, non-partisan case for solving the Dual Challenge through collaborative action

What started as an idea became a committed network and is now becoming a movement focused on delivering progress on the Dual Challenge: more energy AND less emissions—fast.

Thank you for your continued support of OpenMinds.

OpenMinds co-founders