2004 John Monash Scholar Lara Olsen has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of energy firm Cool nrg. Cool nrg designs and implements major projects to conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions, and has been active in the UK, Australia, and more recently in Mexico.
Lara leads a team of 12, based in Brunswick, Melbourne. Cool nrg International has been bidding for international energy conservation projects. Lara participated in the international climate change action forum in Cancun (Mexico) in December 2010.
Lara has an engineering degree from the University of Melbourne, and undertook an MBA at INSEAD in 2005 using her John Monash Scholarship. After completing her MBA, she worked with the Boston Consulting Group in London until 2007 before becoming Head of Europe for Cool nrg International Pty Ltd. In her first spell at Cool nrg International she helped grow the organization to 17 people at $24m turnover, and led the “The Great British Light Switch”, distributing 4.5 million light bulbs to more than 12,000 stores in a single day. She returned to Australia in 2009 and founded Energy Return Pty Ltd, an innovative carbon and energy auditing business based in Melbourne. She rejoined Cool nrg in Australia at the end of 2010.