Alaina Bookstein
Senior Vice President and Head of Business Development, GridCARE
TEACHES:
ISEN 495-26: Data Centers, Artificial Intelligence and Electricity (0.5 credit)
Alaina Bookstein is an adjunct professor within Northwestern's Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability (MSES) Program.
In addition to her academic role, Bookstein is Senior Vice President and Head of Business Development at GridCARE, where she leads strategic partnerships with major data center developers, hyperscalers, utilities, and energy stakeholders to accelerate grid interconnection and unlock latent grid capacity needed to support AI-era infrastructure growth.
Before joining GridCARE, Bookstein led corporate development and strategic partnerships for energy at Amazon Web Services, where she spearheaded partnerships with leading utilities, renewable developers, and clean energy innovators, helping drive cloud-enabled transformation across the energy sector and consistently generating approximately $1 billion in annual revenue.
Earlier in her career, she spent ten years as Managing Director of Bridge Strategy Group, the management consultancy she built into a trusted advisory firm serving CEOs of leading electric utilities and energy companies, before successfully selling the firm to Houlihan Lokey. Under her leadership, the firm became known for advising on grid modernization, clean energy investment, and strategic transformation.
Bookstein began her career at McKinsey & Company, where she developed the strategic foundation that has shaped her leadership across consulting, entrepreneurship, and corporate innovation.
She holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Northwestern University. Across her career, she has focused on helping organizations navigate major shifts in energy, technology, and infrastructure, with particular expertise in the convergence of electricity systems and artificial intelligence.