Lex Heslin is CEO of ENSO Infrastructure, a developer and investor in green infrastructure projects focused on decarbonization. He also serves as Senior Project Developer for Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI), a global engineering and cleantech company with anaerobic digestion (AD) and other projects to produce green electricity, renewable natural gas, and hydrogen. Mr. Heslin has extensive experience in energy and waste, advising leading institutional investors, private equity, and governments in developing green energy solutions. As an advisor to the City of Lancaster, California, Mr. Heslin has championed efforts to transform Lancaster into the first U.S. municipality to commit to hydrogen, creating a 10-year hydrogen roadmap to convert city facilities and fleets to hydrogen, encourage hydrogen-tech investment, and plan participation in large-scale hydrogen generation, storage, and distribution. ENSO is also the program manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s H2 Twin Cities Mentor/Mentee program, announced in Egypt in November 2022 at COP 27, between Lancaster, Hawai’i County and Namie town (Fukushima, Japan).
Mr. Heslin arranged Lancaster’s partnership with Namie, Japan for the first Smart Sister City program promoting mutual assistance in hydrogen advancement in July 2021. As the previous founder and CEO of Beautiful Earth Group, a solar, wind and hydro IPP, Mr. Heslin’s views have evolved to support rapid advancement of hydrogen believing that profound global decarbonization requires a mix of both electron- and molecule-based solutions. Prior to ENSO and HZI, he spent 30 years and participated in more than $8.0 billion in project and structured financing, development, and infrastructure investment at Sanwa Bank in Tokyo, then in New York at Goldman Sachs and as President of Capital Holdings. Mr. Heslin holds a BA from Emory, an MBA from Mercer, an MSc from the London School of Economics (where he received the Rotary International scholarship), and he received a Monbusho Scholarship for post-graduate study in international economics at Seikei University in Tokyo.