Chief Change Officer
#86 From Diplomacy to Decarbonization: Irina Filippova’s Bold Journey into the Future of Energy
Tue, 3 Dec 2024
Meet Irina Filippova, the fearless trailblazer who swapped a career in diplomacy for a front-row seat in the energy and transportation revolutions. Born in Moscow to a nuclear scientist, Irina took a hard left from splitting atoms to bridging cultures, then pivoted again—this time into reshaping the energy landscape at BP. She’s the kind of leader who doesn’t just talk about change; she makes it happen, whether she’s revamping gas stations into sustainability hubs or electrifying entire fleets. With a dash of diplomacy, a ton of curiosity, and a knack for jumping into the unknown, Irina proves that courage and a good sense of humor are key to leading through global transformations. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Moscow Roots and Global Aspirations “I grew up surrounded by science—my father was a nuclear scientist—but my passion was languages and cultures. Choosing diplomacy as a career was a bold step, especially for a woman in Moscow, but it opened doors to a world of possibilities.” A Curiosity-Led Career Path “My journey has been anything but linear. At 35, I realized I wasn’t drawn to the idea of a traditional career path. Instead, I wanted to explore different facets of energy, leading me from corporate giants to startups—and each step fueled my curiosity further.” Turning the Lens Inward “I initially focused on the need for external leaders to change, but studying psychology at the Carl Jung Institute revealed a profound truth: the change had to start within me. Only by addressing my own internal growth could I effectively guide others.” Solving the Fleet Transition Equation “Fleet owners face a daunting challenge: embracing electrification without losing focus on their core business. Our mission is to handle everything from sourcing energy to ensuring reliability, allowing them to electrify without added burdens.” _________________________ Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Irina Filippova Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 3% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI, JP 2.5 Millions+ Downloads 50+ Countries --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What inspired Irina Filippova to shift from diplomacy to energy?
Thanks for having me, Vince. It's a pleasure. I grew up in Moscow, as you know. My father was a nuclear scientist, so he was in energy. But I was not. I was interested in languages. And when the time came to choose a career, I truly wanted a career that would expose me to different cultures and the way the world works, worked as it were.
Chapter 2: How did Irina's upbringing influence her career choices?
So I chose a career in diplomacy, which was a very tall task for, first of all, a female. typically career in diplomacy would be reserved to men. But I did succeed in entering the very exclusive Moscow State Institute for International Relations.
And I was studying international law when I had the opportunity to travel to the United States and see how, if you will, human rights practices worked in reality. And this is where my big journey began, as it were. So The career evolved. I went actually on to work for a UN think tank in peace and public resolution. I did that for about five years.
And while it was a very, very interesting time in world politics, being a young person living in New York City, surrounded by all the mystery of international relations, I was looking for something more challenging and potentially even more substantive as I was thinking about my future. So I decided to apply to a business school and of course a business school like Yale School of Management.
stands out, certainly stood out for me because of their mission and the focus on leadership for business and society. And that helped me articulate where I saw myself heading as an adult, as a mature professional. I truly wanted to make a difference for society, for global society, as it were. But I also was interested in the mechanic of the business in terms of solving problems
some of the challenges that we're facing, not only the mechanism of politics that I was exposed to before, So that's how the journey started as it were. That's when we met at Yale. And when I was enrolled as an MBA student, I did not necessarily have a very clear idea of a path. If you recall, there were tracks, a finance track, a consulting track, a marketing track, a nonprofit track.
I did not see myself fully on any of the tracks because somehow that definition seemed a bit limiting. So I went on a limb. I got an airplane ticket to London during my spring break in the first year, and I went and introduced myself to BP. That was then becoming a leader in not only energy, but energy writ large.
With its new branding campaign, Beyond Petroleum, looking at alternative sources of energy, that vision really appealed to me and the company culture very much appealed to me. So that's where my journey into energy, if you will, began with that summer internship. I then got a full-time job offer upon graduation.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Irina face in her corporate career at BP?
spent some time in Chicago, moved to London, worked in upstream and downstream in a conventional energy space, but always with an eye out to that broader mandate to bring energy-aligned mobility to people in different ways, including using alternative and renewable sources. And my last project at BP before I decided to move on
actually had to do with relaunching brand and doing so in a renewable fashion. So we had this phenomenal project called Helios House in Los Angeles, where we've rebranded and revamped an old dirty gas station on the corner of Olympic and Robertson into an architectural marvel. But also it was an education project.
station that helped us showcase renewable energy technologies, solar, the use of recycled repurposed materials, and kind of a new way of looking at what was a very typical
if you will feature of everyone's life right a gas station and obviously looking at alternative fuels at that time as well so that's where my journey into sustainability began this was 2007 and i have been on that path ever since when you look back do you see any common themes or threats
Chapter 4: What role does curiosity play in Irina's career?
that link up all these different transitions and changes through all your career life so far?
I think the common path that I'm observing here is that I was always a self-starter. So even when I was working for a major energy company, I tended to work on projects that I was originating. At no point in time did I actually take over someone else's role. So every role on every project that I worked on was essentially starting from scratch.
So if you will, it was being an entrepreneur within a very established company and within a very established culture and way of doing things. So that is definitely a common theme. The second common theme was simply curiosity.
my career path is completely non-linear and that was okay by me i think for me when i reached kind of the age of 35 or so the idea of following an established career path was not at all appealing i wanted to learn about different aspects of energy i wanted to try myself in different roles.
I actually joined a early stage startup out of the UK upon leaving BP and that involved building the US presence really from scratch, from the ground up and really creating relevance in a new market for that particular company.
So in that sense, the transitions from a big established organization to being more or less independent or being an entrepreneurial advisor was not hard for me because I already thought like an entrepreneur, even within, again, an established company. The other component, again, is curiosity.
In order to be successful in being independent or running a small business, you do have to be very curious about industry trends. You have to be open to building partnerships, relationships, collaborations with others. You have to continuously find ways. in which you can create value, not just for yourself, but for others in the ecosystem.
So those components really lead, I believe, successful entrepreneurs to more success. I've also observed, I've observed a lot being in these different environments and these different spaces. And unfortunately, we don't see a lot of great examples of leadership on either side. I believe in the US culture, there is a bit of a glorification of the entrepreneur.
We hear all these great stories about unicorns becoming successful overnight. And therefore, there is this mystery and mystique of what it takes to build a successful enterprise. And I believe that unfortunately gives rise to tendencies that are not necessarily healthy and don't lead to long-term sustained success for entrepreneurs.
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Chapter 5: How does Irina define courage in leadership?
The business that we are now, for example, we're in now, the business of electrifying transportation involves two very established industries, energy and transportation, going through a transformation. And as both of them are changing at the same time and fundamentally, we're here to really bridge everything that they're going through and create an opportunity for fleets to electrify successfully.
So again, this is an opportunity and this is seeing how you can actually connect the dots in the midst of the storm, for lack of a better term, in the midst of this big major transition and transformation. I would say that most courageous leaders in my mind are those who actually stick to the promises that they make to their people, to the organization that they run.
Those who continue to deliver on the promises they made to their investors, their funders, people who back them, back their idea, and those who continue to deliver value to those who use their products and services, their company's products and services. That's called integrity. And sometimes integrity takes courage.
It means walking away from opportunities sometimes because they don't fit with the original vision for your enterprise. This also may mean walking away from certain partners or ecosystem players who are not showing up with integrity.
and standing your ground, but being flexible at the same time and seeing opportunities and bringing those opportunities to bear on shaping the mission of your existing enterprise. So I don't know if I answered fully your question around courage and leadership, but to me, again, leadership is courage and courage is leadership. One is impossible without the other.
And it really just means staying in integrity with yourself, with what you say and what you do.
Absolutely. You've answered the question with so much authenticity and truth in that. I like what you said about courage equals leadership. Leadership equals courage. Although some leaders mistake, misinterpret leadership. being courageous, meaning that they can just do whatever they want without thinking ahead of potential consequences on them and people around them.
So they are taking risk without being thoughtful about the consequences, the impact they create. That actually I call stability, not courageous leadership. I also like what you said about integrity. We've seen a lot of cases in business and politics in which leaders lack integrity in what they do and what they say.
Our world needs more leaders who are like you, who value as well as practice integrity in talk and in walk. Now, let's look at another C word, change. This podcast is called Chief Change Officer. Change is the central theme in all of our interviews.
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Chapter 6: What insights did Irina gain from studying psychology?
I know at some point in your career life, you've been a consultant in change leadership and management, working with a lot of senior leaders, CEOs, and the teams. Tell us more about your experience there in helping others to build a vision for change and to execute on it? Sure.
Well, I've ventured into this change area primarily because I wanted to see the change in leadership of large companies, leadership on the political arena in terms of achieving our decarbonization goals. And I guess I wasn't seeing enough persistence, enough integrity in getting through the transitions that we had to get through as quickly as we needed to get through them.
So I told myself something has to change, something in the way these leaders think and act has to change. But notice, I was thinking about those leaders out there, leaders that I was observing at a very senior level in corporate worlds, in entrepreneurial worlds. But what actually needed to happen, the change needed to happen within myself.
I studied psychology at the Carl Jung Institute in Zurich, and that's where I first had the insight, not without help from a very accomplished depth psychologist, to actually see the need that you're perceiving out there as being actually very internalized. with yourself.
And so really the journey for me was to use what I needed to bring into this world, all my skills, all my experiences and leverage that and share that with others and really kind of use my own experience as it were as a roadmap for someone else to embrace change, for someone else to have the courage to step up.
to act according to their beliefs rather than according to what common thinking may suggest they do. And really follow through, as it were, on the ideas that they had. So that was a period in my life where, again, this reflection around what's happening around me in the world, on the world stage, actually had to all transpire within myself.
Otherwise, I could not be effective as an advisor, as a consultant to established people. companies as well as to entrepreneurial companies and their leaders in terms of what they needed to do to make a difference, to make a difference to their strategy, to make a difference to their positioning, to create a better service or a better product for this world.
But it all again comes back to each person's individual values and the ability to live according to those values and bring those values to bear on what it was that they're building staying in integrity.
So much so about the change you've experienced and also what you believe in change. Now, let's take a step further to talk about another kind of change that you're really passionate about, which is energy transition. As we speak, you and your team are building a new paradigm in energy transition. Tell us about the vision of you and your team
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Chapter 7: How can leaders drive change effectively?
Whose problem you're trying to solve and what exactly is this problem? Inspire us, educate us. Like we're five years old. Tell us more about what you're trying to do at this moment and what's the impact you're trying to make.
As I've already mentioned, the world of transportation and the world of energy are going through a tremendous transition.
All the major automotive original equipment manufacturers actually voted in favor of electrification of ground transport, which means that they are very busy investing in battery research, investing in designing and manufacturing new models of electric vehicles from class one to class eight. So from passenger vehicles all the way to to the semis and buses.
This revolution in transportation is happening and it's aided by the revolution that's happening in parallel around energy, the source of energy for this transportation, which is no longer your conventional oil and gas, right? This is now a switch that's happening from conventional oil and gas to electric power.
You could argue that the sources of electricity may come from conventional sources as well. That is true. However, as we've seen over the past two decades, renewable sources of electricity are continuing to grow, making it cheaper, making it liable, and of course, making it cleaner, most importantly.
So for us, the biggest challenge right now is to help solve this energy and transportation equation in a way that does not create a burden for owners of large fleets who are actually trying to embrace this revolution in transportation, revolution in logistics. What we're trying to do is offer them the opportunity to focus, continue to focus on their core business.
Once they made the decision to electrify and enable us to take care of the rest so that they don't have to think about where the energy for these new vehicles is coming from, how it's being delivered at what cost, how to maintain it, how to essentially have the same level of reliability and uptime for the electric fuel that these new vehicles are requiring that would match their current experience with conventional vehicles.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Irina have for future leaders?
So essentially we're coming up on stage to say, we are the providers of that electric fuel for this new transportation that you're embracing, that you're about to transition to. And we're going to be an end-to-end provider. So you don't have to worry about where the electrons are coming from, how they're being delivered to your vehicle, whether it's reliable and how much it costs.
We took care of everything, all that you do. It means you pay us your electric fuel costs the same way that you currently pay your conventional fuel costs out of your operating budget.
So basically, you are an all-in problem solver for me if I'm one of those transport companies. Is that correct?
That's correct. That's correct. And I'm also saving you from potentially your biggest challenge. And that is doing it yourself. Procuring electric vehicle charging infrastructure the way you would be procuring appliances is the wrong way of going about it. Unfortunately, we've seen a lot of companies try to go that way.
Try to just order chargers thinking that chargers is easy and ubiquitous and available. That is not true. We're still in a very nascent industry. Charging infrastructure is something that requires a lot of nuance. Otherwise, you're going to run into major costs and delays in terms of deployment of that infrastructure, which is why we're very focused.
A lot of us are utility experts as well as energy and transportation experts. Because this is what we do day to day. A typical fleet is going to be a company focused on logistics or manufacturing and logistics, right? This is what they do best, potentially delivery. We are in a business of energy.
And what we're telling our customers is that we're going to provide them with a solution that's going to work well, going to work reliably. It's going to work for them over a long period of time. And this is where we come in with our value proposition so that they continue to focus on their core business of logistics.
Let me be a devil's advocate for the moment. If I were the CEO of a prospective client you're trying to pitch, you come to me with the full solution. One question, major question comes up in my mind would be if I rely on you to provide me with a full solution, what if something goes wrong? Basically, I expose myself to the counterparty risk of you that is not controlled in-house.
So what would you say? What would you respond if I ask you this question? How you managed the situation, the set of risk that I may expose myself to if I sign up for your service?
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