Adrienne Lotto

Adrienne Lotto is vice president, Chief Risk and Resilience officer at the New York Power Authority (NYPA)—the nation’s largest state electric utility. Her responsibilities include leading a team of risk management professionals who administer all aspects of risk management and resilience. As a seasoned risk management professional, Lotto has more than a decade of experience specifically addressing cross-sectional issues associated with cybersecurity, public policy, risk management, law and the environment.

Lotto joined NYPA in October 2019 as director, Energy Security and Resilience Programs within Utility Operations—the business unit responsible for generation and transmission. She advanced the knowledge of risk and resilience by facilitating the launch of AllWays Resilient, a strategic communications campaign to educate employees on resilience. In addition, she worked with executive leadership to elevate resilience as a key foundational element in NYPA’s ten-year strategy VISION2030 to achieve its vision of “A thriving, resilient New York State powered by clean energy.”

During COVID-19, Lotto served as the Deputy Incident Commander in the Incident Command Structure. She helped coordinate NYPA’s response related to safeguarding employee health and safety, and maintaining essential generation and transmission operations. Lotto worked with NYPA’s President and Chief Executive Officer to organize, facilitate and lead a weekly roundtable with more than 40 organizations including power plant owners in New York State and Canada. She also served on the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council Tactical Tiger Team which developed a widely disbursed industry-wide resource guide on COVID-19 response.

Prior to NYPA, Lotto was the acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of CESER’s Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration division. Working on behalf of the Secretary of Energy to stand up the newly formed CESER office, Lotto executed all aspects of change management, and successfully grew the infrastructure and security program from $17 M in FY19 to $70 M in FY20.

As chief of staff to DOE’s Office of Electricity, Lotto was responsible for front office operations and implementation of priority initiatives on behalf of the Assistant Secretary. Her work included the expansion of the Grid Modernization Lab Consortium and the strategic planning for the North American Energy Resiliency Model.

Lotto received a Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science from the State University of New York at Albany.