Her Story
About Shifali
I've been in the power and energy industry for 22 years, and it's been an incredible journey of growth and transformation. I started out thinking I would be a computer engineer because I was good at math and that's what everyone was doing at the time, but when I took a power class with Dr. Matt Grady at UT Austin, everything changed. The way he taught and explained power distribution and transmission really resonated with me, and I realized this was what I wanted to do. I interned at a utility in Houston and joined them full-time after graduation, and I've been in the power industry ever since. Today, I work in the consulting space where I get to work with utilities across the United States, helping them with large programs deploying advanced grid modernization technologies and capabilities. My focus has really shifted over the years from being a very technical engineer to project management and now business transformation and change management. I help utilities prepare their people, processes, and organizations for the impact of these large programs and technologies. One of my proudest accomplishments was at Encore, where we leveraged advanced metering infrastructure data to help with power restoration in a more efficient way. We came up with a way to connect customers back on remotely during storm situations, so we weren't having to dispatch crews in massive outage events. At the end of the day, the utility's goal is to keep the lights on for their customers, and being able to use data and technology to do that faster and more efficiently has been incredibly rewarding. What I love most about my work is the people - developing relationships, helping others, sharing knowledge, and learning from the teams and clients I work with. It's not just professional growth, it's personal growth too, understanding each other's stories and continuing to learn and develop together.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Shifali
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think my advice would really just to be brave, right? To not be scared about the unknowns, to not be scared about am I going to fit, is it a right fit, am I going to succeed, am I going to fail. I have been through a journey in life where sometimes it's been a failure, and then you pick back up and you keep going and you pivot. Going into industries that are not something that everybody's talking about, it might not be tech, it might be something different, but like, not to be scared of the unknown. Know that as women, and women that are educated and have the ability to pivot, you can pivot at any point. I started as a very technical engineer and now I'm more of a change management person, and it's not something I would have ever imagined my career to pivot. You can always gain the skill sets that you need and you can always make adjustments along the way. You don't have to have it all planned out a certain way, so not to be scared to make the adjustments. And I think the second to that is, as you're making those adjustments, as you're pivoting, really rely on who your supports are, your support system to help you with that, because those are the people that truly will continue to uplift you and encourage you when you aren't sure of what the future holds.
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