RYAN ULK
The Woodlands,TX
Summary
Dynamic and results-driven professional with over 15 years of experience in the energy sector, currently serving as the Head of Wholesale Supply & Trading at Hanwha Energy, a global leader in cleaner energy solutions. Expertise includes leading retail supply generation, optimizing asset performance, and managing proprietary trading teams to drive profitability. Proven track record in developing high-performing teams, effectively managing P&L, creating robust financial models, and analyzing portfolio risks to deliver actionable market insights that support sales and operations. Strong business acumen complements a comprehensive background in energy markets, M&A valuations, risk management, load forecasting, and settlements, consistently achieving financial targets.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Head of Wholesale Supply & Trading
Hanwha Energy
04.2024 - Current
- Responsible for leading the retail supply generation asset optimization and proprietary trading teams
- As the head of the Wholesale Supply and Trading function, enabling the growth of our retail business, this role oversees all retail supply management activities
- Identify and expand supplier, mid-marketer and broker relationships to maximize the market coverage and trading liquidity
- Ensure all retail risks are priced appropriately to strike a balance between profitability and sales growth
- Develop and execute hedging strategy that minimizes total retail supply costs
- Ensure compliance of all approved risk limits with close monitoring of position and mark-to-market reports
- Responsible for monetizing company's generation assets through execution of structured transactions and origination efforts
- Collaborate with marketing to create and launch highly profitable retail products to enable sale growth
- Design, develop and implement a Proprietary Trading Platform that complements the retail and generation businesses
Senior Director, Trading & Strategy
Shell Energy
03.2021 - 04.2024
- Responsible for wholesale price exposure and retail position management for regional power exposure
- Capture complete retail gross margin as well as additional profit opportunities in term and cash markets
- Execute trading hedges with all wholesale intermediaries
- Profitably cover open risk exposures with approved risk management tools
- Understand risk book structure and execute trades for reporting and performance benchmarking
- Interface with Risk Management, Sales, and Mass Market groups to discuss hedging strategies and fundamentals
- Work with markets analytics to build tools/reports to explain/uncover risk and present opportunities
- Provide market commentary and insight - as needed, assist with sales presentations and customer interactions
- Assist regional price curve creation
- Price wholesale exposure to retail contracts
- Lead the development and assist in the validation of key risk models and methods
- Oversight on forecasting, wholesale trade capture system, position management/exposure, financial pro-forma modeling, Mark-To-Market, and other key mid/back-office systems & models.
- Oversees the development, testing, and validation of quantitative models used for Mark-to-Market, and Risk Management
- Cash Month reporting to the Board
- Support the Wholesale teams to properly book standard and non-standard transactions
- Advanced analytical/quantitative skills to conduct forecast variance analysis (forecast vs actual)
- Assist with the build out of SES's shadow-settlement system
- Leads in evaluating and identifying model risks and reaches conclusions on strengths and limitations of all models used by the company
- Perform statistical analysis around historical and forward commodity price
- Quantitative analysis of risk and trading strategies that mitigate retail exposures and protect retail gross margin
Senior Director, Energy Supply, Operations & Marketing
National Gas & Electric
03.2015 - 03.2021
- Responsible for the development and management of the Supply Team for power and gas in U.S. deregulated energy markets and management of the staff.
- Optimize, hedge, and manage risks associated with the natural gas, power, and renewables portfolio.
- Responsible for the execution of wholesale purchases and swaps to optimize gross margins.
- Actively monitored market pricing and positions of the retail book in order to optimize hedging opportunities to grow P&L while remaining competitive in the marketplace.
- Ensured retail supply pricing for residential and commercial pricing matrices are created daily, monitoring market movement and validating the results.
- Built power and gas pricing models from scratch and developed procedures for on-going back-casting of load forecasting system, ISO invoices, and other attributes which serve as inputs in all models (Capacity, NITs, Losses, Ancillaries, etc).
- Power and Gas position reporting to supply counter-parties.
- Natural gas scheduling on a daily basis depending on the market structure, and execution on the monthly base load requirements. Also, created a model to value our Storage inventory in order to value our storage assets once we withdraw in the winter.
- Technical analysis on the cost and market risk of different wholesale supply options.
- Established metrics and prepared monthly reports for the executive management team.
- Led cross-functional teams to address business process improvements initiatives; development, testing, and maintenance of the company's load data.
- Responsible for the evaluation and development of new markets in relation to energy supply and risk.
- Led the M&A valuation analysis for the company
- Led the direct mail campaigns incorporating Eligible Customer Lists, vendor management, postcard artwork, and call center development.
- Managed online shopping sites and ongoing online brand management on different platforms
- Led the financial planning and analysis for the company
Manager, Energy Pricing & Structuring
Just Energy
05.2014 - 03.2015
- Leading a team responsible for retail pricing for domestic and SME electricity and gas customers across North America. The team is responsible for owning, developing and updating pricing models, analyzing the key risks to gross margin, understanding competitor positioning and creating value added strategies to help Sales achieve company targets
- Developed a successful and efficient pricing framework to support the constant and ever-changing pricing requests made by the business, while developing a visible model that underpins tariff analysis to ensure margins are commercially driven to support revenue optimization goals
- Translated complex Utility pricing structures into system developments and easily understood reports and competitor information
- Managed the development of robust pricing and competitor analysis campaigns based upon sound business cases that use accurate analysis
- Developed products for Electric and Gas customers which create a value proposition for the customer and create a long term value proposition for the company from a financial perspective
- Support product and services expansion in the new and existing markets and modify products in response to demand and profitability
Senior Energy Pricing & Structuring Analyst
NRG Energy (Formerly XOOM Energy)
05.2012 - 05.2014
- Responsible for coordinating price offerings for customized quotations for electric and natural gas Commercial and Industrial customers in the 15 states and 70 markets which XOOM Energy is currently serving in. Also, responsible for conducting ongoing pricing and structuring of XOOM's suite of products for all mass market sales channels in each of the 70 markets
- Work closely with Energy Supply and Load Forecasting to maintain pricing models that incorporate load shapes, wholesale and retail market costs, forward pricing curves, and other related fundamental and technical data for each utility
- Monitor current market conditions to seek opportunities to maximize margins and minimize risk, and research appropriate tariffs to understand market rules, procedures, and pricing risks related to products for existing and new market launches
- Utilize wholesale market data to understand wholesale gas and power costs including energy, transportation, storage, congestion, losses, capacity, and transmission to insure efficient retail pricing and risk control
- Research appropriate tariffs to understand market rules, procedures, and pricing risks related to products.
- Coordinate with Operations, Sales, and Energy Accounting on pricing, billing, position reporting, contracts, and new product development.
- Develop electric and natural gas pricing models for each market incorporating and staying current with the pricing components. Also, research and assist in implementing new technologies and systems for pricing and structuring
Retail Power Pricing Analyst
PPL Corporation
08.2010 - 05.2012
- Evaluated larger potential retail clients within the states of PA, NJ, MD, and DE. Helped determine what structured electricity products to offer those clients that would best fit their needs as well as evaluating what price at which to sell those products. Decisions were based on market conditions and an evaluation of risk and profitability.
- Exposed to the ever changing energy markets, commodity markets, retail competitive markets, risk analysis, portfolio management, sales and marketing strategy, and product structuring.
- As an analyst, we most commonly interface with our traders to follow the market, with our marketing team to ensure that we are properly setting up customer opportunities and with Salesforce to push our products. We also work with our contracts team, and our credit department, to lesser degrees and occasional work alongside any number of one hundred plus PPL EnergyPlus team members among the various teams that work on the trading floor.
- Highly competitive internship which I obtained my Senior year of college. I earned a 4.0 both semesters my senior year while working this internship. I was granted a full time position at PPL immediately following my graduation from Moravian.
Education
Master of Business Administration -
The University of Alabama - Manderson Graduate School of Business
01.2014
Bachelor of Arts - Accounting/Economics (Double Major)
Moravian University
05.2011
Skills
- Commodity trading SME
- Risk management
- Financial modeling
- Power market operations
- ERCOT & PJM market rules
- Cash & term trading
- Analytical trader
- Technical Analysis
- Weather derivatives
- Forward thinking energy leader
Timeline
Head of Wholesale Supply & Trading
Hanwha Energy
04.2024 - Current
Senior Director, Trading & Strategy
Shell Energy
03.2021 - 04.2024
Senior Director, Energy Supply, Operations & Marketing
National Gas & Electric
03.2015 - 03.2021
Manager, Energy Pricing & Structuring
Just Energy
05.2014 - 03.2015
Senior Energy Pricing & Structuring Analyst
NRG Energy (Formerly XOOM Energy)
05.2012 - 05.2014
Retail Power Pricing Analyst
PPL Corporation
08.2010 - 05.2012
Bachelor of Arts - Accounting/Economics (Double Major)
Moravian University
Master of Business Administration -
The University of Alabama - Manderson Graduate School of Business