When Arevon Energy needed someone to lead financing on Nighthawk, a 300-MW/1,200-MWh battery storage project the company had been working on when Nimmi Kavasery came onboard as the managing director of Project Finance, she made “a battlefield promotion,” handing the lead role to Jack Southard—someone she’d only observed peripherally and who had never run a deal of that scale before.
“I just had to take a chance,” Kavasery said. Of course, that didn’t mean she just handed him the keys to the project. She worked closely with him, but she could see he was very knowledgeable and felt confident in his ability to get the job done.
That bet paid off. Nighthawk closed with $920 million secured through a debt facility, preferred equity investment, and a tax credit transfer commitment—one of Arevon’s largest storage financings to date. It’s one of several reasons Southard, vice president of Project Finance at Arevon (Figure 1), was selected as POWER’s 2026 Rising Star Award winner, which recognizes emerging leaders making an early impact on the energy industry.
Southard’s fingerprints have been on Arevon’s growth almost from the start. His work predates the company’s official 2021 spinout from Capital Dynamics, and by late that year he was helping lead underwriting for a large California battery storage portfolio, laying groundwork for projects that have since reached or are approaching operation. He later helped secure $350 million in financing for the Condor Energy Storage Project, a 200-MW/800-MWh facility designed to power up to 257,000 homes for four hours during peak demand—a hybrid tax equity structure that was among the first of its kind following passage of the now-defunct Inflation Reduction Act, and one that won Proximo’s 2024 Deal of the Year. Southard also led Condor’s later domestic content optimization, upsizing the tax credit transfer after the project entered service, and contributed to financing for the Vikings solar-plus-storage project.
But what stands out to Kavasery isn’t just the deal volume—it’s how Southard carries himself. A lot of people his age “are really trying to showcase their confidence,” she said. “But Jack has a quiet confidence.” That composure showed up externally too. In negotiations with lenders during Nighthawk, Kavasery said Southard knew exactly when to loop her in rather than overreach on his own. Internally, he’s posted the highest scores on Kavasery’s team in 360-degree reviews—including from analysts and associates ranking him above Kavasery herself.
Although no longer in the role, Southard was a major force in Arevon’s staffing program and took the job very seriously. He tracked each junior team member’s development on his own spreadsheet. “He was diving in with each of the analysts and associates to see: What are their needs? Where can he help?” Kavasery said. “He was constantly advocating for them.”
Kavasery, who has more than 15 years of project finance experience and joined Arevon in 2024, has since closed more than $5.1 billion in project financing and advanced multiple gigawatts of solar and storage capacity with her team. She continues to expect great things of Southard going forward. “I really think there’s just no stopping him,” she said. “He’s a very unassuming young man, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s getting this recognition.”
—Aaron Larson is POWER’s executive editor.
