Carbonetworks Looks Beyond Carbon with New Name, CEO

In a nod to its years-long shift toward a broader focus on energy and sustainability management, software firm Carbonetworks rebranded itself and named a Silicon Valley veteran to be its new CEO to navigate the company through a nascent but increasingly competitive market.

Carbonetworks now goes by the name ENXSuite, while its new CEO is Beatriz Infante, former CEO of Aspect Communications and VoiceObjects, and past senior vice president at Oracle, where she reported directly to co-founder Larry Ellison.

“There’s more to a company than great product, and first-mover advantage and vision only go so far,” Michael Meehan, the company’s founder, original CEO, and past ClimateBiz.com contributor, said in an email Wednesday. “Sooner or later you need to bring on the big guns to do battle and Beatriz is certainly in that category.”

The company’s cloud-based platform can collect vast amounts of data for metrics such as emissions, energy, water and waste, among others, to develop actionable intelligence that helps organizations “run their energy and sustainability initiatives like a business,” the company says on its website.

“For instance, we are able to help our customers determine how their energy consumption, reductions, and budgets compare with the overall market, which kinds of reductions are trending positively, and so on,” Meehan said. “We can tell what sectors are taking the lead in energy, and which are lagging. It’s not about the customer’s data — this is of course private and secure in our cloud — it’s about seeing the trends in data and how it can affect your customers.”

The move comes at a time when the number of software systems to help organizations measure and manage their environmental impacts is growing as new players and established heavyweights crowd the market, such as Enablon, SAP and Microsoft. Silicon Valley expertise is neccessary to compete in Silicon Valley, Meehan said, “if companies choose not to grow organically.”

“The market is ramping so quickly that organic growth is simply impossible and we need the bench strength to grow,” Meehan said. “This starts with the CEO but also includes the rest of the executive team, the board and many other hires that you’ll be hearing about soon. It’s a very exciting time.”

Meehan will move to the role of chief technology officer and executive vice president of corporate strategy. “This role change gives me the opportunity to complete my vision for the company, which is right where I want to be and — more importantly — what will create the most value for the company and our shareholders,” Meehan said.

Meehan admits letting the Carbonetworks brand go was hard, but said it was important to focus on the big picture.

“This is a rapidly emerging market, but it’s really only in its infancy. We’re not talking about a few hundred million dollar market for a better mousetrap or the next app — we’re looking at a fundamental shift in global markets with energy and carbon,” he said. “Some analysts put this in the high billions or even trillions. So we need to ensure that our business model suits the market.”