Who We Are
OUR TEAM
Brett A. Perlman has had a multifaceted career spanning management consulting, senior government leadership, and nonprofit executive roles.
He is the Founder and CEO of Gulf Energy Catalyst, an organization founded to accelerate the development of clean energy along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
In addition to Gulf Energy Catalyst, he is currently an Impact Fellow in Residence at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative where he focuses on strategies to address climate change as well as new energy technology commercialization. In addition, he is a Senior Advisor at Saoradh Enterprise Partners where he works with a coalition of companies, NGOs, and policymakers to strengthen and expand the Gulf Coast’s regional clean hydrogen ecosystem.
From 2017 to 2024, he served as CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future, where he led several major energy and climate initiatives, including the creation of the HyVelocity Hub, which secured a record $1.2 billion U.S. Department of Energy grant, and the formation of a coalition of more than 35 companies collaborating to build the foundation for the Gulf Coast’s clean hydrogen ecosystem.
Brett served as a Commissioner on the Public Utility Commission of Texas, where he led the state’s landmark electricity restructuring. His consulting experience includes work with McKinsey & Company as well as his own firm, advising senior executives and private equity firms on clean energy and utility transformation.
He holds advanced degrees in public policy from Harvard University and in law from the University of Texas, and was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Northwestern University.
John Flory is President of the Clean Hydrogen Buyers Alliance (CH2BA) and works collaboratively with GEC on initiatives in clean hydrogen market development. John has worked collaboratively GEC principals for several years on issues such as hydrogen carbon intensity, standardized contracts, book-and-claim and certification.
John has over four decades of experience starting up, operating and consulting with a wide range of energy and environmental commodity companies and governmental entities. He brings a unique “hands on” experience of independent entities whose market infrastructure facilitates demand growth for entities of all sizes and credit quality. Such infrastructure experience covered transactions from real-time to 20 years in tenor and embodied risk principles consistent with the guidelines of the Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Some indicative activities include:
Setting up the California Independent System Operator and California Power Exchange,
Co-founding North American Energy Credit and Clearing to be a capital efficient mechanism to bring exchange clearinghouse-style risk management practices to the physical power and natural gas markets;
Managing the use of AI systems for optimizing the use of energy storage, distributed generation, demand response, EV charging and renewable assets to reduce costs, and lower emissions while maintaining grid reliability
Hack Heyward holds degrees from universities in the US and China and has worked in the renewable energy industry for over 15 years, specializing in hydrogen fuel cells. He has an extensive background in precision manufacturing, having worked in fuel cell, electrolyzer, and flow battery production in Canada, Japan, and China. More recently Hack has developed and led trade delegations from the US to India, Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, Korea, and Saudi Arabia. He is a columnist and guest speaker for numerous energy publications, including BNEF, SPGCI, H2 View, and Recharge, and People’s Daily Shenzhen. Hack’s core value is building international partnerships across languages and cultures in the energy industry. Hack lives in Houston, Texas with his family, but travels extensively. For fun he enjoys classical Chinese literature, country western dancing, and Texas BBQ.