Katherine Graham

Innovations in technology can help to make clean, sustainable energy more accessible to everyone, Katherine Graham believes. She is also focused on doing everything she can to make that a reality.

“I decided after college to learn how power plants operated, grids operated and learned how much technology needed to evolve to provide transparency and automation,” Graham said. “This took me to work for APX, a software company in the [San Francisco] Bay area, that provided software to wholesale energy market players and supported environmental commodities.”

She spent 15 years at APX, eventually rising to COO, before moving to MP2 Energy, a unit of Shell. The new role introduced her to the residential and commercial retail energy space, and allowed her to connect with other global Shell retail businesses and learned the similarities and differences between markets and systems. In 2022, she became chief technology officer for Priority Power, one of the largest independent energy services providers in the United States.

“My focus has always been to work within dynamic and innovative companies that strive to address energy constraints in new and impactful ways,” she said. 

Graham’s biggest influences in her life were her grandmother and father.

“My grandmother lived to be 105 years old,” she said. “She lived in a time where women were not encouraged to have careers. Despite this, she fearlessly moved from a small mountain town in Venezuela to the bustling capital city of Caracas, where she became involved in politics and fought for the rights of women and the underprivileged. Her unwavering confidence, determination and passion have been passed down to my mother, who in turn instilled them in me.”

Graham’s father, a military veteran and civil engineer from a family of Italian immigrants, built numerous projects around the world that still stand. 

At the start of her career, Graham’s goals centered around adding value to her organization through automation. As she progressed in her career, she made mentorship part of her mission in an industry struggling with increasing diversity in the workforce.

“I have throughout my life been in situations where I was one of the only females or Latinas, or both, trying to take on a role. This was true throughout my education, when I played college volleyball, on the 24x7 shift desk, in technology in the Bay Area and management teams,” she said. “While often it seemed intimidating, I always thought of my grandmother, father and other mentors. Today, the work is just as much about who you are doing it with as it is the specific role. I continue to stay driven to learn from those around me and give back to our younger girls to also have confidence to join me in this industry and make their mark. There is tremendous opportunity in this field and I want to introduce our industry to as many young people, and especially young women, as I can. The future is extremely bright for young people in this industry.”

Her career has given her a front-row seat to the energy industry’s rapid technological advances.

“I’ve been surprised at how much technology has outpaced the speed of the energy regulators,” Graham said. “I’ve seen many opportunities for technology to help solve or support the energy transition more, but the pace of change is furious. Every day, businesses are looking for better ways to be sustainable and less dependent on the risk of higher energy costs.

“I think this is the most exciting opportunity for the next 10-15 years. In technology, you have to have enough industry and market awareness to take the right risks at the right time.”

Graham advises young professionals to soak up knowledge from senior colleagues and learn as much as possible about the market.

“There are so many stories from the trenches that will illuminate lessons from the past,” she said, “which you cannot learn from a YouTube video.”

Check out the rest of Hart Energy's 2025 Women in Energy here.