Dan Guatto
C.Dir. '21
C.Dir. '21
The Directors College
2021
By: Izabela Shubair
Dan Guatto (C.Dir. ’21) remembers when he realized electric vehicles (EVs) would scale in Canada. It was 2010, and Burlington Hydro — where he was COO — launched the country’s first all-electric commercial fleet vehicle. Since then, Guatto has led numerous initiatives supporting Canada’s EV transition.
“It didn’t take long to see EVs were the better technology for transportation,” Guatto says. “With lower operating costs and clear environmental benefits, if we were starting today, we’d discard gas-powered cars without a second thought.”
For more than 30 years, Guatto has worked as an executive in the electricity sector, specializing in modernizing local distribution companies.
At Burlington Hydro, where he also served as VP, Engineering and Operations, Guatto led several major initiatives. Among them were the launch of the GridSmartCity Co-operative — a consortium advancing a smarter, more efficient grid — and the deployment of intelligent SCADA systems to monitor and manage the grid in real time.
His career also includes leadership roles with EY Canada, Halton Hills Hydro Inc. and Southwestern Energy Inc. Today, Guatto is executive advisor at Dunsky Energy.
From that vantage point, Guatto says utilities must evolve from “poles and wires” companies into energy management and service providers.
“There will always be infrastructure upgrades as demand grows,” he says. “But utilities need to embrace grid-edge technologies to manage energy and meet changing customer expectations. This supports EV adoption while directing capital where it’s needed, rather than chasing overloads or replacing infrastructure prematurely.”
Throughout his career, Guatto has also served on numerous boards, including Plug’n Drive, the Electricity Distributors Association, and Electric Mobility Canada (EMC). In 2021, he enrolled in The Directors College Chartered Director Program to strengthen his board work.
Looking back, he says the impact went further.
“The biggest benefits were seeing how other boards handle difficult challenges and how it guided my efforts in bringing additional diligence to the functions of the EMC board,” Guatto says. “For leaders in infrastructure and sustainability, governance literacy is absolutely, unquestionably critical. The energy transition is bringing about fundamental changes to the scope of their businesses and solid, capable, heads-up governance is essential to be successful.”
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