About

A member of the executive leadership board at the Alberta-based utility company ENMAX, Robert Hemstock has his say on important strategic issues for his company. ‘My boss is the CEO, so I am involved in all discussions related to the strategy of our company’ he articulates. ‘Once we have established our strategy, the policy advocacy component of what I do is key to implementing the strategy. We have to ensure that the regulatory environment actually materialises as our strategy contemplates. My role once we’ve established the strategy is to mitigate the risk that our strategy cannot be employed, based on externalities’. As vice president for legal services of the company since March 2006, Hemstock has done a lot to ensure that any kind of legal and regulatory advice is focused on the strategy of his company and is not done in isolation of ENMAX’s wider goals, ensuring that each lawyer thinks about business objectives and what the separate departments and units are doing to achieve the long term corporate goals. In addition, Hemstock receives praise for expanding the legal group, primarily using business cases to justify the positive economic benefits of having a strong legal force. When elaborating on the most impressive achievements in his career, Hemstock points out his work on the commissioning the Shepard Energy Centre, the biggest natural gas plant ever built in Alberta’s history, after seven years of planning. Another major achievement in Hemstock’s career is the introduction of formula-based rates in Alberta; ENMAX was the first utility in Alberta to propose that it operates under performance based rates, with the Alberta Utilities Commission subsequently mandating that all electric and gas utilities in Alberta follow similar rates. Prior to joining ENMAX in March 2006, Hemstock spent certain time working at Direct Energy Marketing, UBS Warburg and Enron in various in-house positions.