NRG People Power: Get to Know Greg Kandankulam
Building a brighter future with purpose, passion, and power
Every April, Earth Month invites us to consider what it means to sustain the world around us. From the Latin sustinēre — “hold up, hold upright” — to sustain means to support and strengthen, upholding what matters so it can endure. At NRG, that’s more than a definition; it’s a guiding principle.
And few people embody that principle more fully than Greg Kandankulam, Managing Director of NRG’s Sustainability Advisory.
When Greg joined NRG’s Sustainability team in 2015, the company was splitting its efforts around the topic into two branches: internal strategy, disclosure and compliance, and an external-facing advisory function. Greg currently leads the latter, helping customers shape their goals and make energy procurement decisions that align with their environmental and efficiency commitments.
“Customers can be at very different stages in their sustainability journey,” Greg explains. “Some are just beginning to set goals. Others are making bold collective commitments. Our job is to meet them where they are, and make sure our offerings support those goals.”
Greg’s approach is grounded in practicality and empowerment. Customers often indicate they aren’t sure where to get started, or they perceive sustainability as a complex process. But Greg and his team are there to assure them: it’s not something to fear — anyone can implement the basics. At its core, it’s just about making energy choices with long-term impact and reduced risk.
A typical day for Greg blends customer engagement, internal collaboration, and ongoing innovation, through supporting sales teams, building complex deal structures, or collaborating on industry thought leadership. He’s excited about bringing NRG’s sustainability platform into the future by developing AI tools that put insights at employees’ fingertips.
Amid changing market dynamics and industry complexity, Greg is deeply proud of his team’s resilience and their ability to meet their goals. Together, they launched some of NRG’s earliest retail renewable products and are now reimagining what comes next for sustainability in energy.
For Greg, that means adding diversified generation and storage solutions across more markets and staying involved in conversations around the opportunities presented by data centers and Virtual Power Plants (VPPs).
Greg’s path to sustainability began long before the word described a corporate priority — and in an unexpected place: as a nuclear field operator in the U.S. Navy. Aboard ship, he learned the nuts and bolts of energy operations, the importance of resiliency and redundancy, and the value of communities that take care of one another.
Deployments across the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean gave him a global perspective, and a deep appreciation for the universal concept that although humans may look and sound different, we all have the same mission — to live good lives with our needs met and hope for the future.
After finishing his service, Greg completed a degree in nuclear engineering from Thomas Edison State University. He went on to earn an MBA in sustainable management from Presidio Graduate School, mentored by environmental powerhouses Hunter and Amory Lovins.
Across roles in finance, policy, and consulting before joining NRG, one lesson remained constant: cultures, systems, and environments change, but the solutions should always be people-focused.
Greg grew up in New York, with Manhattan as his rebellious teenage “playground.” He looks back on his youth fondly, but when it came time to put down roots, he knew he wanted something different. “I wanted a life for my kid where nature is on your doorstep,” he said.
That instinct brought him to San Francisco, where he and his wife, Dr. Pamela Planthara, have spent two decades building a life rooted in nature and community while raising their daughter Kara, now 17.
Pamela serves as a PTSD and trauma specialist supporting fellow veterans. Her empathy and commitment to healing mirror Greg’s sustainability philosophy: strengthening what matters and giving people the tools to move forward.
That commitment shows up in Greg’s civic work, and he is a firm supporter of local engagement. He volunteered for six years as sustainability commissioner for the City of Sausalito. There, he helped draft the city’s first Climate Action Plan. “You have skills, you have hands,” he says. “If you want to put good into the world, start where you live.”
Happiest when he’s moving through natural landscapes, Greg is an avid rock climber and skier. In his rare downtime, he enjoys fresh Northern California cuisine, listens to Pod Save America, and swears that, while he’s embraced the San Francisco Giants, he’ll “never, ever give up on the Yankees.”
As conversations around data centers, AI, and responsible resource use intensify, Greg sees challenges and opportunities, and he’s excited by both. “Right now, the focus is on making sure supply can meet demand,” he says. But once that is accomplished, there is a lot of room to imagine more sustainable possibilities, to give customers of all sizes cleaner choices and solid reliability.
Greg’s mission for sustainability is to give people the tools and confidence to act. While early efforts focused on individual action, he believes the future lies in collective impact. Community climate action plans, group energy aggregates, demand response, and decarbonization initiatives all reflect the power of working together to create meaningful change.
Ultimately, Greg wants to ensure his daughter’s generation, and those that follow, inherit a world strengthened rather than strained by the choices we make today. As Earth Month reminds us, sustainability is an ongoing commitment. The work isn’t easy, but with leaders like Greg helping customers and communities navigate the path ahead, that future feels not just possible, but promising.
