With Energy in Her DNA, of Course She Is Working at Transparent Energy: Meet Ariana Ricciardi

At Transparent Energy, we pride ourselves on attracting the energy industry’s best and brightest stars, experienced professionals with a pedigree in, and passion and talent for, delivering great results to clients. These people make Transparent Energy what it is – a vital hub for not only transacting power, natural gas, and renewables, but also a place to build and advance professional careers.

So, without further ado, meet one of our latest strategic hires: Ariana Ricciardi, Senior Business Analyst.

Q: Ariana, you come from quite a lineage of energy superstars. Care to fill us in?

A: Yes, there’s no denying that energy is in my blood – and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m a Jersey girl by birth, a South Jersey girl to be specific, and an “energy brat.” My grandfather worked for Exelon as a  power trader on the Power Team, and my grandmother was an executive assistant there and brought more of the family into that side of the business. I also have an uncle who still works at PECO as a lineman dispatcher.

But I want to put the spotlight on my mother, Mary Atkinson (who made her name in the business as Mary Nendza), who is a big hero of mine. She had me when she was quite young and broke into “the family business” as a customer service rep at PECO, making $/11 hour during the customer choice pilot program in 1997. As she worked her way up, her sister – my aunt – who’s a real dynamo, too, broke into sales at Direct Energy in Pittsburgh.

So, that’s kind of the baseline, my family tree in energy.

When I was little, there wasn’t really an afterschool program for me, so the energy business kind of became my afterschool care. I’d go into Mom’s office, which by that time was at AES New Energy, and her boss would pay me $5 to organize files. So, while some kids were taking dancing lessons or playing in the neighborhood, I was getting an education in retail energy operations!

Fast forward to 2016. My mother was approached by Freepoint Commodities to help launch a retail energy company, which would become Freepoint Energy Solutions. She took the job as VP of Operations — one of the founding employees – to launch the company out of Houston, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What she has achieved at Freepoint is amazing, and she’s obviously a legend in the retail power industry. When she made that move to Houston, I had been busy trying to carve out my own career path – away from the energy industry altogether – but I wanted to be with my mother and my sister, who was born in April 2019 (we’re 23 years apart!). Because I didn’t have siblings growing up, I felt a responsibility as a new big sister to be the best role model I could be for her, and that’s when I really started to “hear the call” of energy.

I wanted in, relocated to Houston, and joined Freepoint in August 2019.

Q: Tell us a bit about your work at Freepoint Energy Solutions.

Well, I started as an intern doing a lot of clerical work, sending welcome letters to new customers, executing matrix agreements and booking custom agreements, that kind of thing. I began working closely with a data analyst there and just had a knack for it all, so was quickly given more responsibilities and began loading new bids and providing custom rates to help sales with prospects.

I soon got a full time offer and was on my way. Then, a week in or so, COVID hit. It proved to be a pivotal moment in my early career, because it forced me out of my shell and got me into a very communicative and collaborative mode with the rest of our team – of course, all done virtually – which gave me a deep dive opportunity into understanding just about every aspect of our business. And, as an added benefit of working for what at that time was a small company, I reported directly to the Vice President of Sales, so I just learned so much.

I clearly had the predisposition to be in energy, and it all just clicked for me at Freepoint: the opportunity and timing were perfect, and I put my heart and soul into it. At Freepoint, I really fell in love with the sales support role. I wasn’t responsible for closing deals – and I was thankful for that – but I had the opportunity to help my team get those deals over the finish line. I used to joke, “I want you guys to be the face to the customer, but I want to be the brain.”

What I meant by that is that I wanted to be the one doing all the data analytics behind a deal; I wanted to be the one who intimately knew all the products we offered and ensure customers were in the right one for them; and, ultimately, I wanted to be the one conveying all this information not only to our business development teams, but also to brokers and other third-parties with which we worked.

And that’s how I met Transparent Energy.

At that point in my career, I began to put two and two together and realized so much of the support work we were doing was manual and that we had a huge opportunity in front of us if we could just automate more of our processes. That’s when I began working more closely with IT and helped guide our efforts to streamline and scale our processes, making them more repeatable and efficient.

All of this work culminated in my winning an internal award for being the biggest contributor to revenue without actually being in sales. It was a huge honor for me having only been at the company for four years.

Q: So why did you join Transparent Energy, and what do you do at the company?

A: Working at Freepoint was a dream come true for me. I worked in tandem with my mother at the company and  was in the same city again with my family, which was hugely important to me. I excelled at my work, getting a first-class, “learn by doing” education in the ins and outs of the retail power business and the workings of its ecosystem.

But, I guess like every kid, I wanted to venture out of the nest and be independent and successful on my own terms. Yet it was extremely important to me that I do this the right way. And that meant being upfront with Freepoint, letting them know my intentions, and giving the company a lot of notice and working with them to ensure the transition was a successful one.

That approach worked well. Freepoint wanted me to succeed. I stayed as long as they needed me, and they helped me network and find the right fit. In fact, my BDM who worked with  Transparent Energy noticed they were hiring for a Senior Business Analyst to support their BDMs, and he recommended me.

It was a great fit. I had worked with the Transparent Energy team extensively over the last four years and knew them to be a high-integrity, highly professional crew that communicated expectations clearly and got great results for their clients. They were also fun to work with – good people everywhere you turned.

Transparent is not your typical paper-based brokerage firm that only offers standard fixed prices. What truly attracted me to the company is their innovative approach to helping customers secure their power and leverage market expertise. Their Live Auction platform is a brilliant solution for consumers looking to save on utility costs.

And my skillset and experience were a great match for the type of advanced sales and customer support they were looking for. I knew stepping into my job search that I had many choices, but what I really wanted was a home for my “behind the scenes” support skills in an exciting new context. I knew the business as a supplier, and we focused solely on power. Transparent Energy offered me an amazing opportunity to take what I knew about retail energy and how suppliers think to help clients better understand, and get the most out of, energy procurement. As an added bonus, Transparent Energy also helps clients buy natural gas – and I’m loving every second learning everything I can about that market!

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To learn more about advancing your energy career at Transparent Energy, see the following openings on our careers page or contact us at LetsTalk@TransparentEdge.com.