Episode 20: Nick Cohen
from Scaling Clean Hosted by Tigercomm
Over the last 17 years, Nick Cohen has held leadership positions in five companies, with four of them in clean energy. He's now the president and CEO of Doral Renewables LLC, which is developing the appropriately named Mammoth solar project at 1.3 gigawatts. It will be America's largest utility scale solar farm. I've wanted Nick on the show since I first talked with him last year. 01:47 – Hone in on your listening skills, and never assume you’re the smartest person in the room. The best leader is someone who can listen and enable the people around them. 10:32 – Even if you hire someone with phenomenal technical skills and experience, you are setting them up for failure without a robust onboarding process, geared to understanding how they work. Nick’s company has each new hire, regardless of position, meet him in a brief, a 5-minute introductory conversation to ensure a strong cultural fit from the start. 20:09 – Resist the urge to have a laser focus on only strategy as CEO. You need to be the biggest believer in the vision of the company. And, you need to be plugged in to the entire company’s ecosystem. 24:57 - The CEO who builds in downtime and knows how to prioritize will always outlast the CEO who works 24/7. 27:26 – If you think of the interview process as a two-way street and emphasize cultural fit as well as technical skills, you’ll have happier employees who stay longer at the company. Our thanks to Nick Cohen for sharing his experience with our listeners.
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