Alessa, Manager in sustainability solutions at ENGIE Impact

Alessa Wochner has graduated in International Energy. Coming from Germany, she is m>anager in sustainability solutions within the Paris office at ENGIE Impact, a global advisory and services organization dedicated to accelerating the sustainability transformation and decarbonization of companies, cities and governments. 

What is your role and main responsibilities?

I work in the BtB segment, serving big industrial clients across Europe, of which most have already set ambitious net-zero targets. In our strategy & solution design projects, we assess the decarbonisation levers for their industrial site portfolio and build actionable roadmaps to reach those targets.

We also take commitments by implementing the solutions we have identified! By leveraging ENGIE’s local teams across many countries and external suppliers, we manage implementation programs worldwide. I have coordinated for example a program for an automotive client, installing energy efficiency measures in an “as a service model” (meaning that we also provided the financing and are paid on performance basis) on more than 100 sites across North & South America, Europe and Asia.

In my day-to-day activities, I manage my project and team, and help build new business.

How did you secure this role?

After a first experience as Consultant in the utilities sector in France, I have joined ENGIE Impact in 2021. I applied to a job opening back then. While preparing for the multiple rounds of interviews (experience-based interviews and case studies), it was very useful to speak to current employees whom I had identified through my network (former colleagues of friends etc.).

What is the most fascinating and/or surprising aspect of your role?

One aspect working with our clients surprised me: By now, a lot of big industrial corporations have set net-zero targets – 2,400 have science-based net-zero commitments, for example. However, they need to tackle the real challenge now: how to make decarbonisation happen on several hundred sites worldwide with sometimes complex industrial processes, at speed? The fascinating thing for me is that a lot of solutions are mature (energy efficiency, renewable energy sourcing, on-site solar, green thermal assets such as biomass or biomethane projects etc.) – the challenge is to identify the right mix of solutions and roll them out in a streamlined way to the whole site portfolio. Both technical expertise, transformation and program management are needed to accelerate! 

How did your PSIA experience help you with the role?

After experiencing the truly international spirit at PSIA, I was super happy to be able to work again in an international context! Working from Paris, I interact with clients that are headquartered all over Europe, often with industrial site teams all over the world, bringing their country’s specific decarbonisation challenges.

On our projects, we staff people from our different offices in Europe, which allows me to interact on a daily basis with colleagues with quite diverse backgrounds. PSIA couldn’t have been a better preparation in terms of soft and intercultural skills!

Other very useful skills that we acquire at PSIA are good synthesis and presentation skills.

What makes a real difference in PSIA’s approach is the famous “bigger picture” – in my Master’s I learnt about regulatory, economic/financial, political and societal aspects of the energy world. Bringing those aspects together makes us well-rounded and open-minded professionals! 

What advice would you give to others? 

If you want to work in business, make sure you pitch your education at Sciences Po with very concrete examples, citing your diverse coursework. And do stress that our teaching staff at PSIA are mostly practitioners who bring real-world challenges to the classroom. 

In my opinion, Sciences Po trains generalists even at Master’s level – make it a strength. A Master’s degree is 2 years, while our careers will be much longer… There should be room to specialize during our career once we’ve got one foot in, don’t you think?

Since graduation, I have worked in quite technical (often male-dominated) environments with lots of engineers as both colleagues and clients. It can be tough at the beginning to not suffer from imposture's syndrome (“Uh, I’m not an engineer, what can I bring to the table?”). But honestly, you will note that not all engineers are both technical experts and great project managers or can research and analyze markets and regulations quickly. Our skillset is complementary, and there are a lot of “business knowledge” aspects of technologies that we can pick up on the job!

Last piece of advice: use the Sciences Po network (filtering e.g. on Linkedin on employees who graduated from our school), and don’t be shy to ask people for advice on how to get into their field, what they like about their jobs, or inquire into internship/job opportunities (being as concrete as possible in terms of your skills and the internship/job requirements early on).

• More about the Master in International Energy
• More about ENGIE Impact