Built to Scale: Terawatt VP and Controller Clarissa Han on Accounting for a New Asset Class
Ask what goes into building charging infrastructure and accounting rarely comes up first. At Terawatt, though, it's part of the work from the start. Every charging depot we build is a physical asset that has to be tracked through acquisition, development, construction, and then during live operations. It’s a structure that involves a growing number of entities, and requires reporting in a way lenders and investors can rely on.
This is the second in our series of conversations with employees across Terawatt about what they're working on and what keeps them energized. We started with Software Director Nasrin Sadeghian. This time we're sitting down with Clarissa Han, Terawatt's VP and Controller. Her team customized an ERP system to suit business needs and supported this year's $300 million five-year senior secured debt facility, a deal lenders had not negotiated before for an asset class this new. Here's what she had to say.
Tell me about some of the unique and interesting challenges that come with running the accounting function at Terawatt.
There’s always a new opportunity to solve hard problems, which I love. That's really what we do all day, because we're pioneering an industry. Customer contracts, financing arrangements and procurement never look the same, and we get to explore unmarked territory and set the standard over time.
What sets our team apart is our agility. We move fast, adapt quickly, and thrive when priorities shift. One day we might be building out a detailed set of financials, and the next we're reimagining our reporting entirely to meet a new need. That's possible because we've customized the ERP system to suit our needs and a thoughtful approach to recording every accounting transaction, giving us the flexibility to report however the business needs.
It's a place where no two weeks look the same. You'll tackle a wide range of problems, think strategically, and help shape plans well before they're put into action. If you love variety, big-picture thinking, and seeing your work directly influence how a growing company operates, you'll feel right at home here.
Your team is growing. What are you looking for in new team members?
We're looking for natural problem solvers, people who light up when they're handed a tricky puzzle and can't wait to figure it out.
Finding the right people to enhance our team is challenging but very rewarding. What I love about Terawatt is our culture. Everyone’s ideas are valued, and we’re always encouraging people to find efficiencies and improve processes. We want to shape the future of this industry, and that starts with our people. We're growing a team that's proactive, driven, and genuinely enjoys working together.
The company is buying assets and deploying significant CapEx, split across a multitude of entities. What's it like running accounting across that structure, and how does the accounting and reporting work differ from that of an infrastructure or SaaS company?
Running multi-entity books takes forward thinking. You can't just close the month and move on. You have to build processes and reporting from the ground up that will scale across every entity we add. That means our financial statements are designed to be standard and repeatable across all of our entities, not tailored to just one. It also means a lot of cost allocation decisions, which keeps our accounting team in constant conversation with other departments, far more than you'd see at a traditional SaaS company.
The biggest difference from SaaS is that we're infrastructure heavy. We build real, physical assets, so our books look a lot like a construction general ledger. During construction, we're tracking CapEx and construction in progress across multiple entities and then componentizing when the sites are live. The work doesn't stop once a site is operational. Maintaining real assets adds another layer: we manage inventory and critical spares to keep sites running, and we track gross margin on our site operations business.
Put together, our accounting team spans construction, asset management, and operations. That means reporting in different ways and making judgment calls on how to apply the relevant standards. For someone who wants to grow their technical accounting skills, it's hard to find a more interesting place to do it.
Tell me about what it took from the finance team to reach the milestone of Terawatt’s $300 million five-year senior secured facility this year.
The capital markets team really led this effort, and they deserve credit for the huge accomplishment. It took a lot of tenacity across the organization to meet all due diligence requests. Having strong accounting records was very helpful to deliver that quickly.
Because this is a new asset class, the lenders had never negotiated a deal like this before. It involved operating assets and assets in construction in conjunction. We layered in an entire fleet with assets in different stages.
How do you see the new asset class of fleet-scale charging evolving next, in ways that directly impact your team?
What I'm most excited about is seeing that our model actually works, and that we've set industry standards for contracting, building sites, and operating them. My goal is for accounting at Terawatt to be world class. We hold ourselves to the highest standard today so that as the company grows, our processes and reporting are already built to scale with it.
Interested in joining Clarissa’s team? We’re hiring a Senior Technical Accounting Manager. Apply here.