Action Learning
Sustainability
Sparking change: Students help startup expand EV solutions in cities
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Atlanta, Georgia-based EnviroSpark Energy Solutions designs, installs, and operates EV charging solutions, typically at multi-family housing and corporate office centers. As the growing startup continued expanding its national footprint, they enlisted MIT Sloan Enterprise Management Lab (EM-Lab) students Annie Zhang, MBA ’25, Connor Fox, MBA ’25, and Sarah Schmid, MBA ’25 for recommendations of which markets to target first.
The trio created a decision matrix to identify market potential for EV and multi-family and office segment growth, identifying key metro areas for expansion with an eye to local regulations, such as utility incentives; economic growth, such as median household income and apartment demand; and market demand for EV vehicles. EnviroSpark Senior Vice President James Patteson, MBA ’19 —a repeat EM-Lab host—oversaw the team.
Gaining valuable experience in sustainability and project scoping
The project was a success—in fact, Fox has already accepted a summer internship in product management with the company. He was drawn to the project after years spent in manufacturing and as a mechanical engineer.
“I was attracted to getting experience on the consulting side,” he says.
Zhang worked in software engineering prior to MIT Sloan and was eager to branch beyond tech.
This was something that was sustainability-focused and a physical product. Everything else I had been working on had been digital, and that drew me in.
Schmid was eager to take on the role after a career in sales and business development at a digital marketing software company.
“EM-Lab allowed me to do something project-facing and to collaborate with other people, and I was also attracted to the project because our host had gone through the EM-Lab. I knew he’d be engaged, having hosted for five consecutive years,” she says.
Indeed, Patteson met with the team weekly for updates and was instrumental in setting up meetings with EnviroSpark team members who could assist with market research; meanwhile, Dr. Sharmila C. Chatterjee, EM-Lab lead faculty member, academic head of the Enterprise Management Certificate, and senior lecturer in marketing, held classes directly applicable to the students’ weekly deliverables and project scope.
“Each week, classwork was tailored to where we’d be in our project: We had classes on how to do research or how to do an in-depth interview. It blended very nicely,” Fox says.
As a key part of the Action Learning experience, the team also received expert guidance from Senior Lecturer and EM-Lab Faculty Mentor Donald Triner.
Providing key insights to the C-suite
Thanks to strong host and faculty support — and committed collaboration — the team was able to deliver surprising and valuable insights to the executive team before wrapping up the project.
“Initially, EnviroSpark was unsure if they could expand to certain cities that were already dominated by other EV charging companies. Through all of our research, it became evident that there was no real reason that they should avoid those settings. That was a key insight for them,” Zhang says. “Our host told us that, after our final C-suite presentation, their minds were changed completely.”
Patteson was pleased with the EM-Lab team’s work.
It was great to have an objective team who could take a bunch of different data sources, overlay them against our company's operational constraints, and adjust for execution risk in order to challenge prevailing narratives which had been largely driven by anecdotal experiences. As a result, we ended up prioritizing market entry into several cities which we had previously dismissed.
As a result of the students’ recommendations, EnviroSpark has completed sales blitzes and is ramping up hiring in several markets.
Takeaways from the project
After this triumph, the trio feels energized to take on similar challenges.
“I’d never really done this type of project, where you have a problem, scope it, and see it through from beginning to end. I had always pictured it as massive and overwhelming. The experience of realizing it was achievable, and going through the steps in class with faculty mentors, was really instrumental,” Schmid says.
“The project helped me learn to trust my team. In previous places, I was either an individual contributor or else had a boss. This was not the case here. I was learning alongside other people, which was really fun,” Fox says.
