Scott Seu
President and CEO of Hawaiian Electric
Serving as the current president of Hawaiian Electric, Scott Seu attended Kamehameha Schools for 13 years and graduated in 1983. Directly after, he attended Stanford University, where Scott received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in fluid mechanics. He stayed in the Bay Area upon graduation, and worked for a year at Westinghouse Electric Corporation as a mechanical engineer. Upon completing this year, Scott relocated to China, where he taught English at Sichuan University for a year and a half. This experience was a pivotal moment in his career, as after experiencing the high levels of pollution and its negative impact in China, Scott realized he wanted to work to protect the environment. With this goal in mind, he returned to the Bay Area as an environmental consultant for Acurex Environmental Company, where he focused on air pollution controls and tested utility power plants for emissions, and researching alternative-fueled vehicles. These activities led him to to environmental engineering. This career progression gave him the opportunity to return home to Hawai’i two years later to serve in the environmental department of Hawaiian Electric, where he has been since 1993.
During his 28-year long tenure at Hawaiian Electric, Scott has worn many hats. He worked in the environmental department for ten years, then managed other areas such as customer projects, renewable energy contracting, and energy planning. He became vice president in 2010, oversaw electric system operations for several years, was promoted to senior vice president in charge of public affairs starting in 2017, and became the president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric in February of 2020. In his current position as president, Scott leads the company to provide electric power to 95% of the population in Hawai’i. He tries to deliver value to the customer by ensuring his staff have the resources and support required for success, communicating with board members, and building up infrastructure to transition off fossil fuels in the future. Throughout these activities, Scott learns something new every day from and about the communities he serves, which he thoroughly enjoys.
When Scott was young, he loved airplanes, which he thinks may be due to his father being a pilot in the air force. Following in his father’s footsteps, Scott attended Stanford on an air force engineering scholarship. Because Scott was placed into the reserves after college, he was able to focus on exploring environmental issues, renewable energy, and sustainability throughout his career.
Scott attributes his sense of duty to the environment and Hawai’i to his time at Kamehameha Schools. At Kamehameha Schools, he learned about what it means to serve and have a sense of duty to a higher purpose from a young age, from the curriculum and Princess Pauahi’s will. Additionally, it was required to take junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) when Scott attended, and his ROTC instructors reinforced the idea of working towards a purpose larger than oneself. This sense of servitude and his love for Hawai’i brought Scott back to work for Hawaiian Electric, which is a local company that has existed for 130 years, and the Hawaiian values instilled in him from a young age continue to guide him today as a Hawaiian engineer.
Reflecting on his career, Scott was always capable of doing his work, but never considered himself an expert in any one thing, especially earlier on in his career. This worried Scott, until he realized the amount of potential for positive impact in being a jack of all trades, as it allowed him to create connections between people. With his love for people and serving, Scott works to center humanness and empathy in all positions he fills at Hawaiian Electric. He focuses on creating human connections within the company and between the company and its customers, which Scott has come to realize to be his strength over the duration of his professional career.
When asked about his life philosophy, Scott recommends for rising and practicing Hawaiian engineers to pay attention to both the yin and the yang; to be strong but also compassionate; to be intellectual and physical; to focus on the human as well as the technical elements of a project. By following this mantra, Scott finds it gives him a sense of balance and places him in the intersection of different groups, allowing him to serve more people.