Exiled: Yinghuang JI, MN8
Today’s Exile is Dr Yinghuang Ji, Vice President and Head of Structuring at MN8 Energy. Yinghuang cites her hometown in North-East China as her biggest career inspiration - coming from China’s largest oil field taught her early on the importance of balancing fossil fuels with alternative energy solutions
Welcome to Exiled: Dealmakers on a Desert Island, a podcast where we ‘strand’ a guest on a remote island and ask them who from their professional past, present, and future they’d choose to be stranded with. After all, it’s people that make a profession.
Today’s Exile is Dr Yinghuang Ji, Vice President and Head of Structuring at MN8 Energy. Yinghuang cites her hometown in North-East China as her biggest career inspiration - coming from China’s largest oil field taught her early on the importance of balancing fossil fuels with alternative energy solutions. Her chosen guests map her path from engineer to project financier, bringing together leaders who champion strong networks and the convergence of energy and infrastructure.
From her past
Yinghuang’s first guest would be David Sandalow - her professor at Colombia University. Although an engineer by training, Yinghuang developed a keen interest in the political and economic factors behind the energy transition, which Sandalow helped her to form into a career in the power markets. The tough transition from ‘hard core engineering’ was made possible by having a professor like David.
From her present
Yinghuang’s second choice of island guest is Brian Potts, Partner at Husch Blackwell. She describes him not just as a fantastic lawyer in the transmissions space, but as a ‘connector of people’. He helped shape her view on the future of the energy market, and supported her to build a network as she sought to transition her career away from engineering and into the industry itself.
From her future
Having seen him speak at conferences, Yinghuang chose Waldemar Szlezak, Partner and Global Head of Digital Infrastructure Investment at KKR, as the guest from her future. Yinghuang admires Waldemar’s boldness, the ability to speak his mind and disagree where necessary, and, ultimately, his approach to power markets.
Bonus round
Even if she could only take one friend to the island with her, Yinghuang would have to pick her dog, Simba. Brought together as if by fate, Simba brings peace and joy to Yinghuang’s life - so much so, that he even joined her in Nashville for Proximo’s US Congress event!
This week’s episode was recorded live from Proximo US Congress 2025 in Nashville. As a subscriber, you can access all of the recordings from the event here. You can also tap into Exile’s AI Tool, Flow, to interrogate Yinghuang’s top take aways from her panel on power markets here.
Tune in next week, where we’ll be speaking with our next Exiled guest.
