Only four of the entrants in Windpower Monthly's first list of influential people still feature today. Iberdrola's Ignacio Galan, Suzlon's Tulsi Tanti, Mainstream's Eddie O'Connor and Goldwind's Wu Gang win the longevity award, from 2011 to 2015.
Many of the departures happened in 2012-13, when the industry entered a period of readjustment. The US production tax credit was due to expire, and the Chinese government was cracking down on over-development. Many of this year's ten new entries are industry insiders.
In 2015, prudence has replaced the hell-for-leather expansion of the 2000s, and the list reflects this.
Anders Runevad, number one this year, is a good example. Unlike his predecessor Ditlev Engel, who won in 2012, Runevad has kept a fairly low profile, yet Vestas has delivered solid results, avoided technological gaffes and is still the biggest manufacturer. Three years ago, amid gearbox failures, lawsuits, losses, factory closures, and the inevitable boardroom bloodbath, the company looked like its shutdown mechanism had failed.
The assessment for the Top 30 was carried out in the same way as in previous years. We asked our correspondents, industry experts and, of course, our readers, for their views on which manufacturers, developers, policymakers and financiers, have wielded significant influence over the course of the last year.
We applied more relevance to the manufacturers as we see them as representative of the state of the industry, more so than the financiers, policymakers and developers, who of course all have a vital role. Geographical bias will always be an issue, particularly with politicians, but we were looking for people who have a global impact on the way the sector works.
Sum of the parts
With a few notable exceptions, this list is as much about the companies, the employees and sometimes their predecessors. Nordex CEO Lars Bondo Krogsgaard earns his position through the strides the company had made to be competitive in emerging markets and low wind.
This is, as always, a subjective list and the rationale for our choices are listed on the following pages. Feel free to disagree. We invite you to note your own list on the comments page of this feature. We look forward to reading them.
