The Nuclear Company, a fleet-scale nuclear development company, on October 28, announced the hiring of Vice President of Regulatory and External Affairs Jhansi Kandasamy, an official news release said.
A fixture in the industry, the Indian-American has a long history through both the US Women in Nuclear and Women in Nuclear Global nonprofits of broadening the nuclear workforce through both the advancement of women into leadership roles and the recruitment of trades.
“Jhansi has touched on every aspect of nuclear power through her engineering work on reactors, development of public-private partnerships and significant work building up the strong workforce that The Nuclear Company will rely on to build more nuclear power across America,” said The Nuclear Company Chief Development Officer Juliann Edwards, who also serves as chair of US Women in Nuclear.
Kandasamy most recently served as executive director of Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL) Net-Zero program, which is focused on bringing the organization to net-zero emissions by 2031. Highlights of the work already underway included the introduction of the first electric motor coach at a federal facility, a project that earned the group a 2024 US Department of Energy Sustainability Award.
She also led a cross-functional team bringing together organizations including the US Department of Energy, Nuclear Energy Institute, Electric Power Research Institute, power utilities and reactor development companies (General Electric, Oklo and Westinghouse Electric Company) to build out a nuclear roadmap specific to INL.
“The public-private partnerships that are core to The Nuclear Company’s unique business model are what most attracted me to the company,” Kandasamy said. “This fresh approach to financing and building nuclear power is what the United States has long needed to keep pace with foreign countries that are rapidly building out more nuclear infrastructure.”
The Nuclear Company emerged from stealth mode in July with the mission to address America’s surging energy demand driven by AI data computing, onshoring manufacturing, and the electrification of everything. The International Energy Agency projects global electricity demand will increase nearly 30 percent by 2030 — the equivalent of adding the energy requirements of another United States and European Union combined. Despite the need for nuclear’s zero-carbon power, the biggest challenge facing the industry is that one-off nuclear projects almost always are over budget and behind schedule. The Nuclear Company’s model seeks to avoid these pitfalls.
The company’s fleet-scale model combines using proven, licensed technology and a design-once, build-many approach to lower costs and minimize delays. The model is anchored by the Industry Working Group of partners that include utilities and independent power producers, hyperscalers, nuclear technology suppliers, and private equity. By joining together, each Industry Working Group member helps mitigate risk and make nuclear power an attractive investment.
Before joining INL, Kandasamy served as vice president of engineering services at GE Hitachi, overseeing more than 350 employees focused on nuclear reactor design and operational support. She also worked in leadership roles at PSE&G, Exelon and Bechtel, overseeing work including regulatory assurance and project management.
Kandasamy serves on the board of Women in Nuclear Global and is a past chair of US Women in Nuclear. She co-founded the organization’s Nuclear Executives of Tomorrow (NEXT) program that mentors female leaders for executive roles and this year saw its largest cohort to date. Kandasamy also co-founded VIEW (Vision for Inclusive Engineering Workforce) that is helping close the diversity gap in engineering. She also serves as managing director of Sri Nagalakshmi Ammal College of Sciences in a rural village of southern India that provides no-cost/low-cost education for underprivileged students.
