PJM Board of Managers

Paula Conboy is an experienced board director and former regulator with a career spanning energy-market design, regulatory systems and infrastructure governance across multiple advanced electricity markets. She has been a member of the PJM Board since 2021 and chairs the Regulatory Committee, with direct involvement in capacity market design, interconnection reform and the implications of rapid demand growth.

Before joining the PJM Board, Ms. Conboy served as a board member of the Ontario Energy Board, where she presided over more than 200 hearings on network investment, mergers, tariffs and long-term infrastructure planning, and held senior roles in regulatory affairs with a major Canadian electricity distributor. Her North American regulatory career spans both sides of the border, giving her a grounded understanding of the policy, market and investment dynamics that shape grid reliability across the continent.

Ms. Conboy has also contributed internationally as executive chair of the Australian Energy Regulator and as a member of the Energy Market Authority of Singapore. She has been appointed to expert panels advising governments on major electricity market reviews in Australia and Canada. Conboy holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Guelph, Ontario (Canada), and the GAICD designation from the Australian Institute of Corporate Directors. She is also certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).

Larry Bekkedahl recently retired as senior vice president of strategy and advanced delivery for Portland General Electric in Portland, Oregon. He has a combined 45 years of experience with Portland General Electric, Bonneville Power Administration, Clark Public Utilities, PacifiCorp and Montana Power. He is also a board member of the Western Transmission Consortium and serves on the advisory boards for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.

Bekkedahl holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Montana State University.

Charles “Charlie” Berardesco is an attorney and advocate with 36 years of legal practice experience. He retired as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), where he also served as its interim president and chief executive officer and a member of its board of trustees. Prior to joining NERC, he was senior vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary and chief compliance officer of Constellation Energy.

Berardesco holds a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University and a Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School.

Robert “Bob” Ethier has over 30 years of experience in electricity markets, market operations and planning. A longtime executive at ISO New England, his roles have included vice president of market development, vice president of market operations and vice president of system planning, as well as director of market monitoring and chief economist. He is currently a principal at Stickney Brook Consulting, working as an advisor to the New England States Committee on Electricity and other groups on planning and market design issues. Before joining ISO New England, he was an energy-sector consultant focused on the development of asset valuation models.

Ethier has a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Yale University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in resource economics from Cornell University.

Margaret Loebl joined the PJM Board of Managers in 2020 and chairs the Risk & Audit Committee, where she has overseen improvements in the Know Your Customer, Enterprise Risk Management, and Credit programs. She most recently served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of AgroFresh Solutions, Inc. She has over 30 years of professional experience holding executive employment with Fortune 500 companies in the areas of finance, accounting and risk management.

Loebl holds a Bachelor of Arts in German from Wellesley College and an MBA from the University of Chicago. While attending graduate school, she completed applied micro-economic analysis supporting antitrust litigation and then moved to a second position as an options specialist working for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange while wrapping up her MBA. Loebl has earned both the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Directorship Certification and the NACD/Carnegie Mellon Cybersecurity Certification.

David Mills is the president and chief executive officer of PJM Interconnection, which oversees the largest power grid in North America and one of the largest electricity markets in the world. He is responsible for the reliable operations, competitive markets and transmission planning for the organization serving 67 million people in 13 states and the District of Columbia.

Mills has a proven track record of strategic leadership in the power and natural gas industries as both an executive and consultant. He is the former senior vice president of policy and energy supply with Puget Sound Energy, where he also served as chief strategy officer. Mills previously worked for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). Mills is a veteran of the United States Navy, serving as a helicopter aircrewman and rescue swimmer from 1975 to 1979.

Mills holds a Bachelor of Science in economics from Portland State University and is certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).

Matthew “Matt” Nelson is currently a principal of Regulatory Strategy at Apex Analytics, LLC.

Prior to Apex, he served as the chair of the Department of Public Utilities for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and before that, he was the department’s director of the Electric Power Division. He also spent four years in regulatory policy at Eversource.

An economist by training, Nelson earned an M.A. in economics from Tufts University and a B.A. in economics from Stonehill College.

Vickie A. VanZandt is an energy consultant and president of VanZandt Electric Transmission Consulting, Inc. Previously, she served as senior vice president and chief engineer of transmission services at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), where she was responsible for the planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, marketing and management of the high-voltage transmission system covering four states in the Pacific Northwest. VanZandt previously served on the ISO New England Board of Directors.

VanZandt holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Washington, is a registered professional engineer and life member of the IEEE, and has been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. She is certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).

Le Xie is the Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he cofounded and leads the Power and AI Initiative. His research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and power systems, advancing sustainable and efficient energy solutions. An IEEE Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES), Xie has worked extensively with ERCOT, ISO New England and utilities on electricity markets, grid operations and data-driven system planning. He is a senior editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and founding chair of the IEEE PES Big Data & Analytics Subcommittee. Prior to Harvard, he served on the faculty at Texas A&M University, where he was recognized as a Presidential Impact Fellow. Xie received the NSF CAREER Award, the IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award, and multiple university teaching and research honors.

Xie holds a B.E. in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, an S.M. in engineering sciences from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He is also certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).