Biography

Leni is an executive with 20 years of experience developing strategies to manage supply chain, subcontracts, and logistics operations. The past 14 years of his career has been with leading renewable energy firms in supply chain roles for the construction of utility-scale wind and solar power plants totaling over 1.5 gigawatts (GWs) of installations.

Leni is currently the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) at Strata Clean Energy leading the strategy for its procurement function. He began his renewable energy career at Gamesa Wind (now Siemens Gamesa) in 2008 and was responsible for developing subcontracts to support the operations & maintenance of all their US wind farms. In 2011, he joined First Solar where he led project buying for various utility scale solar farms in the US, UAE, and Australia and eventually became their Contracts Manager. Leni later joined M+W Energy as their Director of Procurement. During his tenure at M+W, he created a multifaceted procurement department that managed Supply Chain, Strategic Sourcing, Subcontracts and Estimating for all their new construction of commercial and industrial solar power plant projects in the US. He joined Strata in 2017 to structure a strategic procurement function and was promoted to their senior management team in 2022 as the CPO. For the last 5 years, he has developed and manages supply chain strategies to navigate through all the disruptions in the industry.

Recently, Leni accepted various speaking engagements for his expertise in industry discussions related to his line of work. During the 2022 Clean Tech Summit at the University of North Carolina, he participated in a panel discussion on the topic: Supply chain strategies in times of regulatory and geopolitical uncertainty. In April 2022, he was a speaker for a webinar hosted by Clean Energy Associates and moderated by SunCast Media, called: The Holistic Approach to Procuring Quality PV Modules: Contract Diligently, Test Thoroughly, Inspect Carefully. In September 2022, Leni was a panel speaker during one of the sessions at the largest clean energy conference in North America, known as RE+ in Anaheim, California, where he contributed to a discussion on The Clean Energy Supply Chain: Ensuring Ethics, Resiliency and Sustainability.

Leni graduated Magna Cum Laude from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island with his Bachelors Degree in 2002, and holds an MBA from La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 2010. He and his family live in Durham, North Carolina, with their four children and two great danes.