ENFRA partners with Stewart Center to launch executive leadership program

The Stewart Center for Professional & Executive Education at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business recently welcomed the inaugural cohort of the Elevate Executive Leadership Program, a new professional development program created for employees of ENFRA, the Metairie-based energy infrastructure and Energy-as-a-Service company.

The 12-month program for current and rising leaders in the company combines MBA-level coursework, executive masterclasses and collaborative peer learning opportunities to prepare future-ready leaders with the skills needed to grow the company. The initial cohort comprises 22 ENFRA managers drawn from company operations across its national footprint, including Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona, Alabama, Florida, Utah and other locations.

“The Elevate Program came out of our recognition that the company is evolving,” said Rob Guthrie, ENFRA’s CEO. “To get from where we were in our previous chapter, which was a regional firm with a mandate to prove Energy-as-a-Service as a concept, to being a truly national company with a proven concept, we have to scale, and scaling requires a lot of different skill sets. It’s going to require everyone to step outside their comfort zone, develop new skills and talents, and position themselves to confront the challenges that come with this next chapter.”

The program kicked off on Sept. 26 with a two-day meeting on Tulane’s uptown campus featuring presentations from company leadership as well as Freeman faculty-led sessions on people leadership, executive communication, the energy ecosystem and data analytics. Over the next year, participants will complete a sequence of cohort-based online courses covering energy policy, marketing, leadership, negotiations, finance and strategy before returning to campus in September 2026 to present their capstone projects and complete the program.

“Collaborating with the ENFRA leadership team to create a curriculum and program structure specifically for their needs has been incredibly rewarding,” said Ashley Francis, assistant dean of the Stewart Center.  “They are a smart, driven group of professionals with an eagerness to advance their business skills together beyond their already demanding workloads. That’s a testament to the company’s strong culture and growth mindset.” 

That growth mindset is a driving force behind the program. Guthrie said the curriculum is designed to broaden the skills of current managers, giving them the tools they need to operate effectively in an increasingly decentralized organization. 

“When you scale a business, there are new types of decisions that have to be made, things like weighing in on P&L decisions and understanding the rationale for making certain investments,” Guthrie said. “We’ve got to be able to make decisions downstream of the corporate leadership team, so that’s part of why we have this program.”

Elevate is the latest initiative to come out of ENFRA’s relationship with Tulane. In 2022, the company launched Project Rise, a 30-year Energy-as-a-Service partnership with the university designed to optimize energy use on its uptown and downtown campuses and significantly reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions. Later that year, ENFRA announced the 360 Promise, a commitment to hire 360 Tulane graduates over the next 30 years, with a special focus on working with the Tulane Energy Institute, a center of excellence based in the Freeman School.

When ENFRA recognized the need for professional development, Guthrie said he was excited to turn to the company’s longtime partner.

“There’s just some magic to it being here on our home turf,” Guthrie says. “It’s a great setting, Tulane is a wonderful school, and people enjoy being in New Orleans. We knew we would get a good hit rate from our employees who are outside Louisiana who would want to participate.

“We’re really excited about this first class,” he concludes, “and we’re looking forward to making it an annual program.”