Change in Leadership at SmartGridready: Maike Schubert Takes Over as CEO

Maike Schubert is taking over as executive director of the SmartGridready association effective immediately. A physicist who has played a key role in the association’s development over the past four years as its technical director, she succeeds Stefan Minder, who built and shaped SmartGridready over the course of five years.

The Energy Transition Requires Smart Grids

SmartGridready has been working on the energy transition since 2019. The association’s mission is to establish reliable and widely accepted standards for communication within the power system in order to simplify the use of decentralized flexibility. With the introduction of dynamic consumption rates and feed-in tariffs, grid intelligence is no longer an optional extra but a key requirement.

In recent years, Maike Schubert has taken on a leading role in shaping the new tariff landscape. The fact that SmartGridready is now widely recognized as an authoritative source in the field of dynamic rates—both for verifying compliance with the VSE Handbook and for providing relevant information on a central platform—is largely thanks to her dedication.

«The association is now entering a phase in which we must invest heavily in network building, representation, sales, and fundraising,» says Schubert, describing the current challenges. «I’m looking forward to continuing the work I’ve been doing for the association for the past four years in my new role.»

Moving Forward on a Solid Foundation

Maike Schubert is a physicist and has been actively involved in Switzerland’s energy transition for over ten years—both as a project manager at the Zurich-based consulting firm Weisskopf Partner and as the technical lead for SmartGridready. Stefan Minder continues to support the association behind the scenes and in other roles, but is once again devoting more time and energy to the management and development of Weisskopf Partner.

Association President Jürg Grossen is pleased with the change: «We are delighted to have Maike Schubert join us as our new executive director—she is highly competent and thoroughly familiar with the Swiss electricity landscape.» He is confident that she will succeed in achieving the next milestones: positioning the association for the future, overcoming financing challenges, widely establishing SmartGridready solutions, and continuing to drive harmonization forward.

Well-established in the Swiss electricity sector

Looking back on the past five years, Jürg Grossen pays tribute to the work of his predecessor: «Stefan Minder shaped SmartGridready both technically and organizationally, put it on a solid footing, and drove it forward.» The fact that the association is now a household name in the electricity sector and is recognized as an independent, key partner in the field of harmonization is based on Stefan Minder’s understanding and his ability to mediate between different interests and demands. «It is to his credit that he established the association as an industry- and technology-neutral platform for pragmatic and practical solutions. For this, we owe Stefan our deepest gratitude.»

SmartGridready is an independent Swiss association based in Zurich that promotes the energy transition through smart grid connectivity. The association is supported by EnergieSchweiz and counts among its members prominent organizations from the energy and real estate sectors, including grid operators, technology providers, associations, and real estate companies.

Source: www.smartgridready.ch