Lara Olsen

Lara is an innovative and inclusive technology leader, who has led change in the energy, climate and water sectors. Since 2020, she has been the Managing Director of South East Water providing drinking water, sewerage, and recycled water to 1.8m people. Lara is also a director of Iota Services, Water Services Association of Australia and the Frankston Revitalisation Board. Lara has extensive experience in the resource and utilities sector working across Government, energy utilities, technology companies and start-ups. Before joining South East Water, Lara was the Global Head of Business Development and Industrial Products at Tesla Energy based in the USA and also led the Business Development and Industrial Products team for Tesla Australia where she was responsible for developing and extending Tesla Energy's commercial and grid scale storage business in Australia and Asia. Previous roles include Head of Strategy for CitiPower PowerCor, Head of Strategy for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Project Leader with the Boston Consulting Group. Lara also spent more than 5 years founding and leading energy start-ups including being CEO of Cool nrg (the first global company to achieve accreditation under the UNFCCC Program of Activities) and co-founding Billcap, an energy platform that served over 300,000 customers to manage their usage. She is focused on empowering people – having increased the proportion of women in senior roles at South East Water from 25% to 36% in 2 years and being the LGBTQIA+ Pride in Water Board Ambassador for the national water industry body.