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Tesla hires SolarWorld VP and former GE exec to lead Tesla Energy sales

We have been covering a lot of departures from Tesla’s executive team lately.  Tesla’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Deputy General Counsel, James Chen, left the automaker earlier this month. Chen left after two other VPs did the same just a few weeks before, VP of Finance and Worldwide Controller, Michael Zanoni, and Ricardo Reyes, Tesla’s VP of Global Communications.

But now we change the pace as we learn that Ardes Johnson, a long-time former GE sales executive and more recently SolarWorld’s Vice-President of Sales in the US, joined the automaker to lead the new sales team in its ‘Tesla Energy’ division.

Johnson updated his LinkedIn profile this week to reflect the change. His new title is “Director of Americas Sales Tesla Energy”.

He held the role of Vice President of Sales at SolarWorld, a photovoltaic panel manufacturer, for the past 3 year. Johnson is a US Navy veteran and he has a background in engineering. He holds a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from the Texas Tech University, as well as a MBA from Cox School of Business.

Prior to joining SolarWorld, he had a decade long career GE, most recently in its energy division.

Johnson is joining a growing team at Tesla Energy led by the division’s Vice-President, Mateo Jaramillo.

Earlier this year we published a profile on the team leading Tesla’s energy storage efforts:

Featured Image: Tesla’s newest product “Powerwall” is unveiled on stage in Hawthorne, Calif., Thursday, April 30, 2015.  (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

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Comments

  1. Nøderak - 8 years ago

    “Director of Americas Sales Tesla Energy”. shouldn’t that be American instead of Americas? I know the powerwall is for sale in Australia and EU, but i don’t know about South america.

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