Ben Hertz-Shargel is President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU). Governor Sherrill nominated Hertz-Shargel in June. Prior to becoming a part of the Sherrill administration, Hertz-Shargel served as Global Head of Grid Edge at Wood Mackenzie, where he advised energy, technology, and financial firms on grid modernization, electrification, distributed energy resources, and emerging energy technologies. Prior to his role at Wood Mackenzie, Hertz-Shargel served as Head of Data Science and Demand Management at Rhythm and as Vice President of Advanced Grid Services and Analytics at EnergyHub, where he designed and built core demand response optimization technology and served as a lead technical expert in stakeholder engagement before state public utility commissions.  

 

In addition to his private-sector leadership, Hertz-Shargel served as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, an Advisory Committee Member for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Energy and Environment Program, and in advisory roles with Pew Charitable Trusts on distributed energy resources policy. 

 

Hertz-Shargel earned a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Northwestern University in 2001, a Master of Science in Mathematics from New York University in 2006, and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2010.