The Art of Closing Billions in Wind and Solar Deals [Special Content From CohnReznick]
The Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2019
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we present a special episode produced in collaboration with CohnReznick Capital.
How do you broker billions of dollars worth of renewable energy deals — and do it again and again?
It takes grit, sure. But it also requires empathy.
And that, says Conor McKenna, is the real art of the deal.
McKenna is a senior managing director at CohnReznick Capital Markets. He’s helped close 8 gigawatts of wind, solar and biomass projects over his career.
We all know “The Art of the Deal,” Donald Trump’s 1987 book that offers hard-nosed business advice. The book includes lessons like fight back, play the game hard, and deliver the goods.
This advice has shaped our perception of real estate and Wall Street culture. But McKenna says one important lesson is missing: how to form good relationships so that everyone benefits from a deal.
“Every time we’ve seen someone focus on getting that last dollar out of an individual transaction, we’ve found that they’ve had a much harder time in repeating business and growing and scaling at the same rate as this industry.”
This isn’t a soft tactic. When you’re trying to pull together hundreds or thousands of megawatts of projects — and repeat the process over many times — you have to actually care about the people on the other side of the table.
“Those that have left money on the table and and allowed for their partners to feel successful as well, have had a lot more repeat business.”
In this episode, we look at how empathy can translate into billions of dollars in cash and push renewables further into the mainstream. Find out more about CohnReznick Capital's portfolio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What if I told you that all you need to know about finance you can learn from your kindergarten schooling? |
| 0:07.0 | Right after college I worked in Japan as a kindergarten teacher and I thought about things in terms of you want to try and treat people the way you would want to be treated and in general you should be able to try and explain things in a way in which someone should be able to understand. |
| 0:22.0 | That was actually a really big help in terms of helping |
| 0:24.8 | me develop my career. That is Connor McKenna. He's been in finance or banking for |
| 0:30.1 | over a decade and a half and in the last years, he's closed deals for 8 gigawatts |
| 0:34.8 | of wind and solar projects. |
| 0:37.1 | Before his days brokering power plants, though, he led a pretty different life. |
| 0:41.4 | He taught kids in Japan, he studied philosophy, he spent his vacations |
| 0:45.1 | volunteering around the world. In 2004, Connor got hooked up with an investment bank. He started |
| 0:51.0 | modeling risk and he liked the job, but it was a world away from the kind of altruistic |
| 0:56.2 | work he really loved. |
| 0:58.2 | And then, in 2006, he went to Haiti to help earthquake victims. |
| 1:02.6 | I remember coming out of that with two overarching feelings. |
| 1:07.0 | Number one was, wow, this was, it was an emotional roller coaster ride. |
| 1:11.8 | I'm just working with the people there and trying to do what I |
| 1:15.3 | could to help in my short period of time there. Also it was the feeling that I |
| 1:19.6 | need to do more with my life. It can't just be about making money for places that just make money. |
| 1:26.1 | He pretty quickly made a choice, a difficult one but one that just seemed right. |
| 1:31.4 | So what happened was I quit my job. I quit my job and I went and I went to |
| 1:35.2 | Columbia Business School. Connor thought maybe I can go to business school and take my analytical and banking skills |
| 1:44.8 | and marry those with a mission and some compassion. |
| 1:48.5 | And he focused on the environment. |
... |
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