QIB 2026 Speaker Lineup

Janet Rehberg was named EPB President and CEO-elect in September 2025. With more than two decades of engineering, operational and strategic leadership in the electric industry, she is focused on strengthening EPB’s mission to enhance quality of life and positioning Chattanooga for the future.

Rehberg originally joined EPB as President of the Strategic Initiatives business unit, where she led efforts to operationalize long-term strategies that advance Chattanooga’s leadership in next-generation energy and fiber optic technologies. During her tenure, she has helped expand the community’s national reputation for innovation through partnerships that brought commercially available quantum computing to Chattanooga while preparing the region for the evolving energy landscape.

Prior to EPB, Rehberg served as Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President of Engineering for Tri-County Electric Cooperative in Aledo, Texas, where she was responsible for formulating strategy and oversaw a wide range of departments including operational and engineering groups. She previously held leadership roles with American Electric Power, where she helped lead grid modernization initiatives to strengthen system reliability and support emerging technologies.

Rehberg earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tulsa and a Master of Business Administration from Capital University. She serves on the board of the Hunter Museum of American Art and has contributed to numerous nonprofit, community and professional organizations.

Niccolo de Masi is an experienced public company chief executive officer and board member with expertise in deep tech, mobile, and creating enterprise software-hardware ecosystems. He has served as IonQ’s CEO since February 2025 and was named Chairman of the Board in August 2025. Prior to that, de Masi served on IonQ’s board of directors since 2021.

Over the course of his career, de Masi has served on the boards of 14 public companies including IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), Xura (NASDAQ: MESG), Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU), Monstermob (LSE: MOB), Rush Street Interactive (NYSE: RSI), Genius Sports Group (NYSE: GENI), Resideo (NYSE: REZI), Planet (NYSE: PL), and six dMY Technology Group blank cheque vehicles. He has immense public market corporate governance experience having chaired or served on compensation, nominating and governance, and audit committees for over a decade. de Masi also has extensive global market experience as a three-time public company CEO and a three-time private company CEO, and was appointed ChiefExecutive Officer of Glu Mobile and of Monstermob before the age of 30.

de Masi has also served on several private boards including Chairing Carlyle-backed Jagex and General Catalyst-backed Ares Interactive. He has helped lead and consummate approximately 50 mergers and acquisitions and has helped raise over $5 billion in equity to support public and private companies he has led. He began his career in roles at JPMorgan, Siemens, and Technicolor.

de Masi received first class B.A. and M.Sci degrees in physics from Cambridge University where he specialized in quantum mechanics and next-generation electron-beam lithography. He has been a member of the Leadership Council of the UCLA Grand Challenge for nearly a decade.

Tim Kelly is the 66th mayor of Chattanooga. He grew up in Chattanooga and attended undergraduate school at Columbia University. Upon returning to Chattanooga, Kelly expanded his family’s automotive dealership and launched several successful ventures, including co-founding Chattanooga’s professional soccer club.

He later earned his MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business. Kelly has always been active in the community, serving on boards for multiple nonprofits and even teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Since being elected mayor in April 2021, he has made great strides in his vision to create One Chattanooga — a city where every resident has the opportunity to thrive and prosper.

Dr. Shaun S. Gleason is the Director of Partnerships at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), responsible for mission areas including technology transfer, commercialization, economic development, industry and non-DOE partnerships, and research security. He has more than three decades of service at ORNL across three different directorates (Energy Science and Technology, Computing and Computational Sciences, and National Security Sciences).

Shaun has 35 years of experience in R&D leadership, applied image processing, data science, and machine learning for energy, industrial, security, and medical imaging applications. He earned the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has authored and coauthored 120 publications, four book chapters, and has been issued 10 patents in the field of electrical engineering, computer vision, and machine learning. He is a fellow of AAAS, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and served as chair of the East TN Chapter of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

Evann serves as Vice President of Government & Community Relations at EPB, where he leads efforts to strengthen partnerships that expand opportunity and innovation.

A Chattanooga native, Evann has played a central role in initiatives like HCS EdConnect, providing internet at no charge to more than 28,000 K-12 students and their family members while also advancing Chattanooga’s position as a national leader in fiber and quantum technology.

Evann serves on multiple state and regional boards, including the Fiber Broadband Association, Tennessee Municipal Electric Power Association, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, and the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, where he focuses on building coalitions that connect economic growth with community impact. Prior to joining EPB in 2020, he held various roles with former U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, collaborating extensively with local, state, and federal stakeholders.

Charlie Brock is CEO of the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative, where he leads efforts to drive economic growth and workforce development through quantum technology and position Southeast Tennessee as a national innovation hub.

He brings more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and ecosystem builder, including leadership roles as CEO of Launch Tennessee and CO.LAB. He also co-founded the Chattanooga Renaissance Fund, the region’s first angel investment fund, and has launched and scaled multiple companies.

Dr. Rick Mukherjee joined the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in December 2024 as the inaugural Director of the Quantum Center and an Associate Professor of Physics. He earned his PhD at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and held research appointments at Rice University, Harvard University, and the University of Hamburg, with expertise spanning AMO physics, optimal control, and machine learning applied to quantum science.

He has authored nearly 40 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, holds patents in quantum optimization, and actively contributes to the field through NSF service, scholarly reviewing, invited talks, and his role on the board of the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative.

Mayor Wamp Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp is a former early-stage venture capitalist and the founder of a fiscal policy nonprofit. As the Chief Executive of Tennessee’s fourth largest county, Wamp is responsible for a budget exceeding $1 billion annually. In his first two years as mayor, Wamp has led historic investments in public schools, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize facilities, prioritized investing in roads and infrastructure improvements, and is restoring career and technical education to downtown Chattanooga.

He and his wife, Shelby, live on Signal Mountain with their five young children, who attend Hamilton County Schools.