John A. Chesser serves as Chief Financial Officer for Talen Energy Corporation. In this role, Mr. Chesser leads the Company’s finance, M&A, risk management and treasury activities. He is also Chief Financial Officer for Nautilus Cryptomine, a 300 MW bitcoin mining facility he helped to form as part of a joint venture between Talen and TeraWulf Inc.
Mr. Chesser has served as treasurer for multiple private and public companies and led financial and operational turnarounds for individual assets and companies. He also has led or supported mergers and acquisitions affecting more than $20 billion of assets, including post-acquisition integration and complex situations.
Prior to being appointed Talen's Chief Financial Officer in 2021, Mr. Chesser served as Senior Vice President of Finance, Treasurer and Head of M&A, leading the Company’s capital allocation, financial planning (FP&A), bank relationships and financings, investor relations, and M&A activities. From 2017-2019, he served as Divisional Chief Financial Officer, managing six gigawatts of generating assets and helping to deliver more than $400 million of annual cash flow improvements.
Before joining Talen, Mr. Chesser served as treasurer of TerraForm Power Inc., a contracted renewable power infrastructure company. He played a key role in driving growth and the ultimate sale of TerraForm to Brookfield Energy Partners. TerraForm created an asset base of 3,000 MWs of contracted renewable power assets, generating significant cash flow, dividend growth and shareholder return, resulting in a $6.3 billion enterprise value at the time of the sale to Brookfield Infrastructure in 2017, and a $12.1 billion enterprise value at the time of its subsequent merger into Brookfield Energy Partners in 2020. TerraForm generated total shareholder returns of over 340% in its initial 2017 sale to Brookfield and over 890% by the time of its 2020 merger with Brookfield Energy Partners.
Prior to his tenure with TerraForm, Mr. Chesser worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers for almost a decade advising private equity sponsors. He joined General Motors ("GM") during its 2008 financial crisis-driven restructuring and eventual IPO, performing various roles including the formation of General Motors Financial which today is GM's $100 billion auto finance platform.
Mr. Chesser holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a Masters of Taxation degree from the University of Alabama and an MBA from Harvard Business School.