And while attention is at the fear part of the cycle about how deep the economic and health impact will be from the Coronavirus and the Covid-19 disease it causes, there are opportunities that will emerge. Being the new head of a unit able to put in place the structure and team to seize them can, therefore, be a potentially opportune time and one hopefully Timmeko Moore Love will experience as the new boss at Entergy’s corporate venture capital unit in Texas.
Moore Love has just joined Entergy as managing director and co-founder at Entergy Strategic Ventures after five and a half years with US-based healthcare provider Mayo Clinic where she had been seen internally as a rising star.
Her previous boss, James Rogers, chairman of the department of business development at US-based healthcare provider Mayo Clinic, had nominated her for the 2017 GCV Rising Stars award and at the time said: “Timmeko Love would be great as a GCV Rising Star. She is relatively new to Mayo [having previously invested while at Best Buy Capital]. She has made a big impact in her time here on the Rochester campus.
“We recently moved her to Arizona and she is heading up our activities in the southwest. She leads our accelerator activities across the enterprise and our outside outreach. She is also responsible for our Benefactor Innovation Fund, which allows us to fund clinical trials in exchange for equity.”
And she has continued to capture people’s attention since then.
But getting through the early days could be the hardest. The disruption in the energy and utilities sector can be wide-ranging from the oil price crash, electrification, renewables and the current crisis on demand are all unprecedented for a heavily regulated industry.
According to the Energy Information Administration, US general energy breaks down as industrial (32%), transportation (29%), commercial (18%) and residential (20%).
Thus, if this isolation goes on for 3 months, it could cause significantly less energy use in the first three sectors, perhaps as much as half, according to James Conca in Forbes. This would lower energy use by about 15 quadrillion BTU, which given the average cost of a million BTU is about $25 could mean not spending close to $400bn on energy in only three months as a result of this crisis, Conca added.
It would take heroic amounts of Netflix binge-watching to move the needle given data centers and server farms account for approximately 2% of the total US electricity use.
And this is just one of the 10 main sectors, all of which are facing upheaval in their core businesses through digitalisation and innovation along with further supply and demand shocks from the Coronavirus and the staffing impacts from people working from home, becoming ill and caring for relatives and others. Members of the GCV Leadership Society from around the world and across the different sectors are joining Samsung Electronics president Young Sohn in our Covid-19 crisis forum this week.
The Forum will be held this Wednesday, March 25 at 10am PST will be under Chatham House rule so only broad outcomes will flow to non-attendees but for those wanting to share insights publicly do get in touch with news editor Rob Lavine at rlavine@globcalcorporateventuring.com
Reporter Callum Cyrus’ interview with Dominque Mégret, head of Swisscom Ventures, published yesterday showcases the insights from a venture pioneer who went the 2008 global financial crisis and has been able to adjust a unit’s organization to provide third-party capital and institutional strength aligned to strategic insights and support to portfolio companies from the telecoms parent putting him in good stead for the latest challenges.
More such role models, insights and love welcome for us all.
