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Michelle Klassen Merrigan founded MK Advisors (formerly LkM Solutions) in 2015. She acted as the company’s guide, face, and greatest advocate for four years. When Michelle involved herself in the private equity world—and later the US Department of Defense and international relations—she modified her signature to “MK.” That change helped to eliminate any unhelpful gender-based biases that she encountered in the industry.

MK Advisors means, first and foremost, Mana Kalani. This phrase describes the essence of our work. “Mana Kalani” means “the power of the sky.”

But the power we develop goes beyond the literal application of electrical power, and the sky does not just describe how we support wind and solar. Sure, those are a part of who we are, but they’re hardly our entire purpose.

Power means industriousness, praxis, and self-determination. All of these are qualities that are limited in communities and markets that lack access to reliable or resilient sources of energy. Bringing the latter enables the former. Electrical power brings with it personal and communal power.

The sky means more than light and wind. The sky means breadth and limitless scale or unlimited potential. This is what our extensive ecosystem of professionals, advisors, and advocates has brought not only our team, but our customers, too. Our ecosystem provides access to proven expertise at every level of the energy community, both domestically and abroad.

It’s this passion that inspires us to seek out unique technology solutions and financial models that can spur meaningful impacts on communities around the world.

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Our Advisors

We rely on our team of experts to help empower people and communities around the world.

The story of our collective is the story of its individuals. Each of our advisors has led an impressive life, and the stories of how they all met and how they maintained and built their relationships together are just as important and inspiring as their accomplishments in business and industry.

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Erika Bolton

Erika Bolton draws from multi-industry experience and a talent for pattern recognition and synthesizing disparate ideas to cross-pollinate, inform and enrich pathways to deep, wholistic impacts. Her lifelong humanitarian work has led her through journeys in South Africa, Nepal, India, Thailand, Mexico and in the USA. Erika designed, led and participated in sucessful advocacy and outreach programs that increased Black and African American men and boys engagement with suicide prevention, and increased turnout for BIPOC men seeking mental health services. She advocated for and achieved: increased education access for low-wealth mothers, and collaborated in initiatives that remedied barriers, expanded support services, and access to services for domestic violence survivors.

“What will my great grandchildren say about me?” isn’t the test question. “What will someone else’s great grandchildren say about me?” is the test question for being regenerative and just.

As a facilitator, Erika pioneered open dialogue in global communities that faced stigma and taboos around publicly discussing violence in the home; she supported communities in addressing gender-based violence and domestic violence (DV) against women and children. She furthered her work and began leading healing roundtables for survivors of domestic violence as a certified DV counselor.

Through her strategic thought leadership, she guided growth for businesses, media projects and nonprofits. An achievement highlight is when she built a foundation of deep listening and trust to synergize and guide collaboration between 250 organizations, across 5 counties in Metro-Detroit, through leading, designing, and implementing a data-driven, food insecurity service insights platform, program and training.

Her current efforts include leading and designing work streams for USAID’s AmpUp program. This program is tasked with designing the utility of the future. At MKA, she is leading programs that advance clean energy, accelerate new clean technologies, and catalyze innovation, especially within and coming from underinvested and marginalized populations. Additionally, Erika is a storyteller, creating immersive experiences, arts and entertainment that pull from her music talents, classical training in dance, and love for the fantastical. As a neurodiverse business leader that merges honor of culture and wisdom traditions with future-thought wholistic, systems design, she has an unwavering commitment to inclusivity of world-view and neuro diversity, to amplifying the power of joy and love in all endeavors, and to co-building prosperity for all through peace.

“Human flourishing requires plasticity and regenerative practices in wholistic systems design. Wholism asserts that technology cannot be divorced from culture. Not only is culture an enabling environment, it is both shaping and being shaped by technology. Culture reveals what technology becomes in our hands. As with all times of great challenges and change, we must take this moment to invigorate our contribution to the new paradigm transition of what’s next for humanity and the planet. As futurists in research and development, we are excited to be on the frontier of designing harmonious ecosystems that encompass nature, technology and human-centered thriving.”

“That’s the whole challenge of life – to act with honor and hope and generosity, no matter what you’ve drawn. You can’t help when or what you were born, you may not be able to help how you die; but you can – and you should – try to pass the days between as a good man.”

– Sam Damon

Kevin Merrigan

Kevin Merrigan is an independent consultant specializing in US Department of Defense with an emphasis on tactical wheeled vehicles and C4ISR including Cyber, AI and Electronic Warfare.

Mr Merrigan retired from General Dynamics Mission Systems in January 2019 following a very successful 12-year career. During his career at General Dynamics he held multiple key leadership positions including vice president of business development for the Department of Defense market. His responsibilities included developing strategies that create new business opportunities and support existing DOD programs. He was responsible for overseeing everything from strategy development through program win and customer engagement.

Prior to this, Mr. Merrigan was vice president and general manager of a $500M per year Battle Management Systems line of business responsible for the overall executive management of complex command and control and information systems for the U.S. military.

Programs under his leadership included the Army’s Command Post of the Future (CPOF), Prophet Enhanced tactical signals intelligence system, Tactical Airspace Integration System (TAIS), Consolidated Product Line Management, the US Marine Corps Combat Operations Centers (COC) and Common Aviation Command and Control Program (CAC2S) and USSOCOM’s Ground Mobility Vehicle as well as others.

Mr. Merrigan joined General Dynamics in 2006 following a distinguished 24-year career as an Army infantry and special operations officer. A recognized and trusted leader, Merrigan directed counter-terrorism missions for the commanding general in Afghanistan. His final assignment was with the U.S. Army Training Doctrine Command (TRADOC) overseeing the integration of battle command systems from the soldier, to the platform, to the command post.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in General Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1982. Mr. Merrigan is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master’s degree in National Security Studies from the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

Aurelia Van Eeden

Aurelia Van Eeden grew up in a coal-mining town in South Africa and witnessed the destruction of the Earth’s resources around her; smoky air pollution, muddy contaminated waters and devastating mine dumps and excavations.

As an enthusiastic 10-year-old visionary, she set to find solutions to these environmental crimes, and bring awareness to others. Aurelia imagined and “designed” a utility-scale vacuum-cleaner and a drape for power-station chimneys to rid the air of the pollution. She shared her ideas of a better and sustainable future with whoever stopped long enough to listen. Her childhood experiences coupled with a natural and insatiable curiosity about how the world works laid the foundation for her future.

Fast-forward 20 years; the ideas she dreamt about as a child have been piloted and tested (albeit by other like-minded geniuses).

The curious 10-year-old is now a confident and driven woman with a fierce determination to positively impact the environment and work alongside others for an environmentally restorative, socially just, and economically inclusive future.

Aurelia completed her MSc degree in International Environmental Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Her thesis contributed to a multi-country research consortium and the book, Flows and Practices: The Politics of Integrated Water Resource Management in Africa, that features a chapter on her work.

Aurelia has gained valuable experience working abroad, liaising with executives and decision-makers at all levels in government, civil, and private sectors. She has advised CEOs, MDs and MPs on issues ranging from carbon reduction and sustainability to renewable energy and circular economy business models. Aurelia has lived and worked in many different countries and socio-economic environments.

During her time in Norway, she was chosen as Board Leader for FIVAS – the Norwegian Institute for International Water Studies – a position that is a positive reflection of her leadership skills and commitment to team spirit and cooperation. Her most notable achievements include a nomination for Future Leader in Industry – Water and Energy Award (Africa Utility Week, May 2016); Woman in Energy and Water Award (Africa Utility Week, May 2016); and being awarded the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans Award under the category ‘Environment’ (2014) and MAC Consulting Award for ‘Best Project Team’ for the Exxaro Energy Growth Account (2010).

Aurelia is experienced, passionate, driven, and above all, committed to lead a purposeful life that strives to improve people’s lives while helping and healing the planet.

Kate Hoffner

Over the last two decades, Kate Hoffner has held leadership positions in the environmental and clean tech sectors. Among her roles, Kate was the CEO of Prieto Battery, an advanced Li-ion battery technology, with its roots springing from Dr. Amy Prieto’s academic research at Colorado State University. While at Prieto, she raised signiﬁcant rounds of capital, including from two major strategic investors, Intel Capital, and Stanley Ventures.

She was also part of the team that won an $11M US Department of Energy grant for the City of Ft Collins. She spearheaded the campaign to pass the ﬁrst solar feed-in tariﬀ policy in the State of Colorado and was part of a leadership team that staged the ﬁrst major Hydrogen Energy education event in the USA. Kate was also co-owner of Sustainable Conferences, an event company focused on promoting green building practices and solutions to mitigating climate change. In her most recent fundraising eﬀorts, she’s helped Mana Paciﬁc reach some of their goals in accelerating the adoption of renewable energy in the Paciﬁc Islands.

Consultant | Senior Advisor | Fundraiser.

In her current role as Senior Advisor, Kate uses her skills as a strategist and training from the Presencing Institute (founded by MIT Lecturer, Otto Scharmer) to help teams understand new capabilities required for profound societal transformation and how new forms of collective leadership, collaboration, and innovation can fundamentally shift systems.

Kate is also the guardian of her Aunt Lydia Ruyle’s art collection of over 300 banners of the Divine Feminine. Kate has curated many pop-art exhibits around the world since her aunt’s passing in 2016. She uses this art form as a way to spread the energies of ancient images of the sacred feminine and to elicit discussion of being more inclusive of HERstories alongside the modern-day conversations of myth and storytelling.

Kate’s education includes an MBA from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) and a BA dual degree from Sweet Briar College, where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Kate is a 4th-generation Coloradoan and grew up in open space and on the back of a horse.