Jim Steffes

Jim Steffes has worked in the competitive energy industry for over 20 years.  He has served in various roles at several retail energy and wholesale commodity firms.  Jim is passionate about bringing together choice, sustainability, intelligence, and control to make energy markets work well for all consumers. 

Most recently, Jim was Chief Executive Officer of Circular Energy, an innovative solar and energy solutions firm focusing on serving commercial, institutional and light manufacturing customers with cleaner, customized solutions combining traditional grid-based power solutions with client-sited power generation.  Jim was responsible for strategy, capital sourcing and overall business performance.  

Prior to Circular Energy, Jim led the Northeast Retail region for NRG Energy and served as President of Green Mountain Energy.  In the Northeast Retail region, he significantly expanded the market footprint, brand propositions, customer solutions and product offerings of the business.  Under his guidance, NRG Residential Solutions received “the Most Innovative Energy Supplier of the Year” award from the Energy Marketing Conference.  In the commercial segment, he directed the acquisition of Energy Curtailment Specialists, initiating a customer focused transformation from acting purely as a power supplier to becoming an energy advisor.  As President of Green Mountain Energy, Jim reinvigorated the company’s mission of changing the way power is made by reaching customers in new markets and by offering new, innovative products.

Jim also spent nearly a decade with Direct Energy.  While at Direct Energy, he ran the Texas Residential segment and transformed the trajectory of the business by implementing significant operational improvements, making key acquisitions – including First Choice Power – and launching novel products, including a prepaid electricity plan which leveraged Texas’ smart meter deployment and customer’s smart phones.  Prior to the Texas Residential role, he led the Operations team in supporting more than 1.5 million customers in Alberta and Texas and built the business-to-business commodity business in the Northeast US.

Before Direct Energy, Jim worked both at UBS Energy and Enron, primarily in government relations and regulatory affairs.  Early in his career, he worked at Andersen Consulting with a variety of clients developing systems and re-engineering business processes.

Jim holds a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.  He and his family reside in Houston, Texas.