Cleantech Group

Adam Behrens

Adam has spent his career developing and translating technologies in the areas of food, agriculture, healthcare, and nutrition.

Previously, he was a postdoctoral associate in the Langer Lab at MIT where he managed several projects focused on improving healthcare and nutrition in the developing world.

He was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2017. Adam holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Bioengineering from the Kofinas lab at the University of Maryland.

Adam Forni

Adam Litle

Ahmad Ghahreman

A serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in developing cleantech technologies for processing and recycling of resources, Ahmad is the CEO, President, and co-founder of Cyclic Materials. Ahmad is among the early co-inventors of Jetti Resources Inc. technology and is a Board of Advisory member of Li-Cycle Corp (NYSE: LICY).

With dedication and a strong passion for a sustainable environment, Ahmad Ghahreman leads the company’s vision to transform the rare earth elements market with ethical, economical, and sustainable sourced metals available for the global market.

Ahmad Ghahreman has earned his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the University of British Columbia and has co-invented more than 15 patents.

Alexei Beltyukov

Amanda Hall

Amanda Hall is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Summit Nanotech. A professional geophysicist with more than 20 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, mining industry and as a laboratory scientist, Amanda brings her technical and industry experience to her leadership role in clean energy, shaping the clean technology sector and energy transition. Her passion for the environment and finding innovative solutions to make operations more sustainable and efficient, helped her transition to extracting lithium, a key metal for the global energy transition. Amanda has been named the $1M winner of the MaRS National Women in Cleantech Challenge in 2022 and a Top 25 Women of Influence in 2022.
Amanda earned her Bachelor of Sciences majoring in biology and minoring in physics from University of Toronto and her Bachelor of Science in Geophysics from University of Calgary.

Ambarish Mitra

Anderson Barkow

Andrew Symes

Co-founder and CEO of OXCCU, a spinout from Oxford University, specialising in converting CO₂ into fuels, chemicals, and plastics via novel catalysis. Former climate tech VC investor at IP Group (Kiko) and BP Ventures, focussed on accelerating the world’s transition to net zero. Prior to this, commercial roles in BP’s commodity trading business and first-class MChem degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.

Anna Rath

Anthony DeOrsey

Anthony manages Cleantech Group’s research team, delivering critical insights on new cleantech innovation and opportunities for engagement to Cleantech Group’s clients in the industrial, investment, and policy communities. He is based in the U.S.

Anthony joined Cleantech Group in late 2019 after over 8 years of work in US-China cross-border expansion consulting and start-up venture funding roles, including 5 years living in Shanghai.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from University of Rhode Island, a Masters in Sustainability from the Harvard Extension School, and he an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

Apurba Pradhan

Arindam Bhattacharya

Ben Abadi

Ben Shepherd

Bob O’Connor

Robert (Bob) O’Connor is a corporate partner with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Bob’s global practice focuses on the representation high-growth enterprises, with an emphasis on those innovating in the energy, infrastructure, mobility, consumer products, and sustainability sectors, as well as the representation of venture capital and private equity firms, corporate venture groups, family offices, and impact investors that finance them. Bob serves as strategic partner to his clients and their boards of directors through a broad range of complex financing and strategic corporate transactions at all stages of their development, from inception through exit.

Bob is credited with having founded the firm’s energy and infrastructure practice in 2003 and co-leads the firm’s industry initiative today, which includes a cross-disciplinary team that is widely viewed as being among the preeminent energy and infrastructure practices in the country. Nationally recognized as a thought leader in the sector, Bob is a frequent speaker at prominent industry events nationally, and he is a go-to strategic partner to universities, laboratories, and accelerators committed to technology commercialization directed at energy and infrastructure innovation.

Prior to founding the firm’s energy and infrastructure practice, Bob founded and served as managing partner of the firm’s Salt Lake City office, during which time Bob represented many of the leading venture capital and private equity investors and technology enterprises in the region, including Altiris (sold to Symantec), NPS Pharmaceuticals, Omniture (sold to Adobe Systems), and Overstock.com.

Bob also serves on the board of directors of the WSGR Foundation, a philanthropic vehicle for the firm’s partners to support charitable and other community organizations.

Brandon Hurlbut

Buff Lopez

Carter Shoop

Cheri Corbett

Chris Zegarelli

Chris Zegarelli serves as GaN Systems’ Chief Financial Officer. In this role, he leads all operational finance, accounting, investor relations, treasury, tax, HR, IT and M&A activities. Chris is a seasoned finance professional with a career spanning two decades with progressive leadership experience spanning both publicly held technology companies and startups. He has held several leadership roles throughout his career, most recently as CFO of Thermal Engineering International. He has considerable experience in semiconductors, with prior roles with indie Semiconductor, Broadcom, Qualcomm and Intel. He ran investor relations for Broadcom for years, where he revamped Analyst Day, streamlined messaging and broadened the investor base. He also led Financial Planning & Analysis for Broadcom through the Avago acquisition. Prior to Broadcom, Chris held strategic finance roles with Qualcomm and Intel. Chris holds an MBA in Finance from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a BA in International Politics and Economics and Russian from Middlebury College.

Christina Houlihan

Claes Kollberg

Craig Lange

Daniel Kopp

David Hsu

David Victor

Davoud Zamani

Dennis Gakunga

As the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chula Vista, Dennis leads the City’s Office of Sustainability and Smart City campaign. His responsibilities include managing the implementation of a wide range of sustainability programs and smart city initiatives. His previous experience includes serving as a department director and assistant director for multiple municipalities and public agencies in Texas and California. Dennis has also worked as a management consultant for Deloitte Consulting and PWC Consulting. He holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University and a B.S. in Information Systems and Management Sciences from the University of Texas, Arlington.

Douglas Johnson-Poensgen

Douglas Johnson-Poensgen is founder and CEO of Circulor

Circulor’s platform brings traceability to complex industrial supply chains, to underpin manufacturers responsible and sustainable sourcing efforts, measure inherited scope 3 emissions in real time and to produce digital product passports.

Doug has 25 years international experience working both in leadership roles for large corporates as well as starting and growing companies.  Before Circulor, he held leadership positions at Barclays Bank and BT with his earlier career spent in management consulting and the military.

Doug Miller

Emilie Mazzacurati

Emilie Mazzacurati is a climate tech entrepreneur and investor with 18 years of experience working at the intersection of climate change and capital markets. She is the co-Founder and Managing Partner of Tailwind, an innovation studio focused on accelerating innovation for climate adaptation and resilience solutions. Tailwind runs innovation challenges, advises funders, and invests in startups in climate risk, climate data, and adaptation and resilience.

Previously, Emilie was the founder and CEO of Four Twenty Seven, a climate risk analytics firm that pioneered the use of climate science in financial decisions. Four Twenty Seven was acquired by Moody’s Corporation in 2019, and Emilie took a role as Managing Director, Global Head of Climate Solutions to spearhead the integration of climate risk analytics in credit risk models. Before that, Emilie was Head of Research at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, where she directed research and modeling on carbon markets and decarbonization.

Emilie is a Board Member of Climate Resilience for All, a gender-focused climate adaptation nonprofit dedicated to the protection of people and livelihoods from extreme heat and all its impacts, and an Advisor to the Global Adaptation and Resilience Investor group (GARI), which she helped co-found in 2016.

Emilie has published extensively and is a frequent public speaker on the impacts of climate change in financial markets, climate risks disclosure, and on adaptation opportunities. Emilie taught at the University of California, Davis Executive MBA on Business & Climate Change from 2013 to 2019. She holds a Master’s of Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and a Master’s of Public Policy from UC Berkeley. She has received multiple awards for her work, including the Berkeley Visionary Award and Top 100 People in Finance.

Eric Beaumont

Eric Beaumont is a Director with Roland Berger focused on a sustainable energy transition with over 25 years in the energy and utility space.  Prior to joining Roland Berger in January of 2023, he served as the lead equity analyst for North American Power and Utilities at Barclays.  Previous roles include VP of Strategic Business Development at American Water, team analyst at Barclays, Portfolio Manager roles at UBS O’Connor and Copia Capital (energy focused hedge funds).  Eric started his career as a nuclear engineer at Commonwealth Edison performing safety analysis on the boiling water reactor fleet.  Eric earned an MBA from the University of Chicago in Finance and Strategic Management as well as a BS and MS in Nuclear Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.

Erica Nemser

Erika Boeing

Erik Scher

Frank Bryan

Gabriel Kra

Gabriel Kra co-founded Prelude Ventures in 2013 after almost 25 years as an investor, entrepreneur, scientist, activist, and ski-bum. Before launching Prelude Ventures, Gabriel spent four years as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank in its solar and semiconductor groups. He also was an early employee at venture-backed telecommunications and semiconductor start-ups, where he was instrumental in raising money, launching products, developing technology, and getting acquired. Gabriel’s early experience working a summer at Yellowstone National Park and for Greenpeace sparked his lifelong commitment to fighting climate change.

Gabriel holds MBAs from the Columbia Business School and the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, an MS in atmospheric chemistry from SUNY Stony Brook, and a BA in philosophy from Columbia College. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for Activate and The CREO Syndicate and the Advisory Board for Prime Coalition and Carbon180.

Gabriel is still an avid skier and spends as much of his free time as possible in the mountains with his wife and four children. Gabriel now roots for the San Francisco Giants after years as a New Yorker, and his favorite guilty pleasure, much to his wife’s chagrin, is Clash of Clans.

Gareth Burns

Prior to joining bp to lead bp Ventures, Gareth Burns led Equinor Ventures, Equinor’s corporate venture capital activities. Before establishing Equinor Energy Ventures in 2016, Gareth was senior vice president for business development and has almost 30 years of experience within the energy industry. He held various management positions throughout his career with Equinor and has worked in all areas of the energy value chain. Gareth is the vice chair and trustee (“director”) of Stewardship Services (UKET) Limited where he participates on a number of sub-committees. He is also a trustee of his local church. Gareth is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and has a BSc in Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics from Heriot-Watt University in the UK. He is an Irish citizen, a keen cyclist and lives with his family in London, UK.

Gina Domanig

Gina Domanig is the Managing Partner of Emerald Technology Ventures, a globally recognized investor in the areas of energy, water and materials, having invested in sixty companies to date. In 2000, she founded Emerald which is one of the largest industrial technology-focused venture capital firms in Europe and North America. Gina currently serves on the boards of GeoDigital International Inc, Metgen Oy, TaKaDu Inc, and Ushr Inc.

In addition to Emerald activities, Gina serves on the board of Die Mobiliar Genossenschaft, the fourth largest insurance company in Switzerland, and u-blox AG, a global leader in wireless communications and positioning semiconductors.

Gina has over 30 years of international business experience including banking, M&A, strategic development, and venture capital. Prior to starting Emerald, she was senior vice president at Sulzer, a Swiss multinational, responsible for strategic planning and M&A. Gina holds MBA degrees from Thunderbird in Arizona and ESADE in Barcelona and is fluent in English, German and Spanish. She is based Emerald’s Zurich, Switzerland office.

Gordon Orlikow

Gordon is a Canadian Sr Partner in the firm’s industrial practice with an emphasis in Cleantech and Resources. He partners closely with clients across the entire value chain from resource extraction and clean energy generation to commercial end-user applications. Clients range from TSX50 to entrepreneurial start-ups whose talent needs are typically at the C-suite or board and/or those needing organizational or human capital advisory support.

Greg Fallon

Greg Twinney

Hafiz Rahman

Hendrik Tiesinga

Hendrik is the CEO of Climate Edge, an innovation studio specialized in climate technology. In this role, he supports corporations, governments, and nonprofits on catalyzing climate-tech innovation and building bridges with startups. He is also a Senior Advisor at Novarium, Canada’s premier hub for blue economy innovation. At Novarium, Hendrik spearheads Ocean Edge, an international open-innovation platform dedicated to ports and maritime corporations.

A seasoned co-founder, Hendrik has been instrumental in establishing and developing innovation and startup organizations focused on sustainable development. His experience spans globally, having built and led innovation hubs and ecosystems in diverse locations across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.

Holly Stower

Holly is a Senior Associate leading Resources & Environment research at Cleantech Group and is based in the UK. She is focused on emerging innovation and trends, including those in water, waste, the circular economy, natural resources, and corporate sustainability. ​

Prior to joining Cleantech Group, Holly was a Public Affairs & Communications Executive with the Solar Trade Association and the Association of British Insurers. Before this, Holly worked in advocacy for climate and wildlife charities. ​

Holly earned an Undergraduate and a Master’s in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia.

Hugo Leandri

Ian Dunderdale

Ian Hayton

Ian is a Senior Associate leading Materials & Chemical research at Cleantech Group and is based in the UK. He is an engineering and business professional with a passion for technology, innovation and the environment. Ian is experienced in strategy, marketing, business support, and R&D activities​.

Prior to joining Cleantech Group, Ian held several roles at Exergy, including Business Process Improvement Manager, Chemical Process Engineer, and Chemical Research Engineer.  ​

Ian earned an MSc degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Manchester​ and a BSc in Biomedical Science from The University of Sheffield.

Ignacio Bincaz

Jeanette Jackson

Jeanette Jackson is the CEO of Foresight, Canada’s cleantech accelerator.
Foresight works with innovators, industry, investors, government, and academia
across Canada to identify, develop, and commercialize cleantech solutions.

Jeanette is an entrepreneur with broad experience across multiple industries. She
founded a tech company and built it into a thriving business before a successful
exit. She has secured millions in investment dollars, project funding and revenue,
led cross-functional teams, and developed innovative programs for entrepreneurs,
industry, and investors.

Since taking on the role of Foresight CEO, Jeanette has led the organization
through remarkable growth, expanding accelerator programs from one province to
national, building a vibrant Innovation Challenge program, and launching a sectoral
approach to cleantech innovation. Recognized as a leader in cleantech, both in Canada and internationally, Jeanette is a frequent speaker, media guest, and
advisor to industry and government.

Jeff Osborne

Jeff Osborne is a Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst covering the Sustainability and Mobility Technology sectors.  Mr. Osborne brings over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, including 20 years of sell side and 5 years of buyside coverage of various technology and industrial sectors. Prior to joining TD Cowen in 2014, he was a Managing Director covering the Cleantech, Industrial and Environmental Services sectors for Stifel/Thomas Weisel Partners. He holds a B.S. in Business and Economics from Trinity University and a M.B.A from Wayne State University.

Jeffrey More

Jeff More is a seasoned CEO, with a particular focus on intensive growth mandates. His experience spans a diverse set of industries, including environmental services, electronics recycling, telecommunications, robotics, and engineered materials. This is coupled with extensive expertise in global markets, including China, India, Japan, South America, and Africa.

As President & Chief Executive Officer, Jeff is responsible for the strategic and overall leadership of MineSense Technologies. His primary mandate is to bring to market the company’s disruptive, value-creating technology.

A company builder with a proven track record in both large companies and entrepreneurial environments, Jeff brings a dedication to bringing transformative technology to critical industries. Jeff holds an MBA, as well as a B.Eng in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University.

Jeffrey Spector

Joe Zhou

Joe Zhou is the CEO of Quidnet Energy, which develops and deploys geomechanical pumped hydro solutions for low-cost long duration energy storage. Prior to Quidnet Energy, Joe worked at Green Charge Networks, a California-based energy storage project developer that was acquired by Engie in 2016. Joe started his career in advisory for heavy-industry capital projects at McKinsey, and in process engineering at ExxonMobil. Joe holds a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering and a MBA.

Julia Waldman

She is a member of Korn Ferry’s Renewable Energy and Clean Technology team and the Sustainability and ESG Center of Expertise. Since joining Korn Ferry in 2019, Julia has worked on searches throughout the energy value chain including in Renewable Energy, Electric and Gas Utilities, Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream as well as Energy Infrastructure and Services.

Julia conducts a wide variety of senior level assignments, including Board of Director and C-suite level searches for leading global energy corporations, both public and private. Her clients range from Fortune 500 organizations to portfolio companies of leading private equity firms.

The unifying theme of her work is the development of talent strategies for organizations that are making strides in the areas of sustainability and decarbonization. Julia’s focus is supporting her clients navigating the energy transition through the recruitment, assessment, and development of outstanding talent.

Prior to joining Korn Ferry, Julia spent several years as a certified public accountant providing tax and advisory services to businesses and high net worth individuals.

Julia holds an undergraduate degree in business from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Justin Briggs

Dr. Justin Briggs is the co-founder and COO of Antora Energy. Antora converts low-cost, intermittent renewable electricity into a reliable, on-demand source of zero-emissions industrial heat and power. Backed by leading investors including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital, Antora’s thermal batteries are the lowest cost, fastest, and most credible path to decarbonize industry.

Dr. Briggs holds a B.S. in physics from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University. During his Ph.D., Dr. Briggs developed next-generation renewable energy technology and conducted research on high-temperature materials for energy generation and storage applications. At Antora Energy, Dr. Briggs has played nearly every role required to build an energy storage company from the ground up, from technology to operations to policy.

Karin Burns

Karin Burns is currently the Chief Executive Officer of San Diego Community Power, the second largest community choice aggregator in California, serving nearly a million customers. Under her leadership, she is responsible for ensuring sufficient and reliable clean power procurement and developing and executing the organization’s strategic plan. A veteran clean energy executive and environmental champion, Burns is a passionate leader for innovation and clean energy investment. Previously she was the Regional VP and VP of Corporate Strategy for Franklin Energy and the Chief Executive Officer of Build it Green (BIG), where she oversaw a portfolio of energy programs across California.

Karin speaks several languages, was a Fulbright Scholar in India, and spent several years overseas in emerging markets from Brazil to China in international finance. She holds Certificates in Energy Innovation and Innovation & Entrepreneurship from the Stanford School of Engineering, an MPA in International Development from Harvard University, an MBA in Finance from Edinburgh Business School, and a BA from Duke University.

Kei Honda

Kelly Belcher

Kevin Feldis

Kevin Feldis is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Perkins Coie LLP and a leader in the firm’s Climate Tech practice.  Kevin works with clients in the energy, transportation, maritime and technology sectors, among many others. He regularly advises corporate executives regarding strategic business decisions, regulatory compliance, corporate due diligence, supply chain issues, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Kevin’s team at Perkins Coie assists both startups and leading Corporate VCs, and has decades of experience working on renewable energy and clean technology projects. During his 30-year legal career, Kevin has worked throughout the United States and around the world, including as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice and as a international legal advisor for the U.S. State Department.  Kevin earned a B.A. in Economics & Political Science from Yale University, and his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Khalid Rasti

Lauran Madden

Lauran has her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.  She has significant multidisciplinary experiences in the design and development of novel biomaterials, cell expansion methods, and 3D tissue fabrication to generate 3D cell-based products.

Most recently, Lauran was a Scientist at Organovo, a national leader in the design and development of functional human tissues using 3D bioprinting technology.  She worked on multiple platforms incorporating stem or primary cells and natural biomaterials into 3D systems. She spearheaded the development of a new 3D intestinal model, and made key contributions to the optimization of primary cell expansion, formulation of bioinks, and the validation of new assays.   This led to  the generation of new intellectual property, and the peer-reviewed publication she authored, titled:  ‘Bioprinted 3D primary human intestinal tissues model aspects of native physiology and ADME/Tox functions.’

While a postdoc at Duke University, Lauran worked on the development of microphysiological systems for improved drug screening as well as an alternate to animal testing. Her work focused on optimizing satellite cell expansion and differentiation methods for primary human skeletal muscle cells, including those from disease donor. These efforts resulted in the first contractile model of 3D human muscle and was validated by both electrical and chemical stimulation as described in her publication, ‘Bioengineered human myobundles mimic clinical responses of skeletal muscle to drugs.’

During her graduate studies at the University of Washington, she pursued the development of implantable stem cell derived cardiac tissue using 3D scaffolds for the treatment of heart failure. In this project, she applied synthetic and bioconjugate chemistry to develop and test biocompatible materials that could support cell survival and function as well as implantation.

Lauran is an avid trail runner, rock climber, and overall outdoor enthusiast who wants to see new technology protect the environment and provide consumers with safe seafood.

Lee Evans

Lisa-Ann Pinkerton

Lisa Ann Pinkerton is founder of Women In Cleantech & Sustainability, a San Francisco Bay Area group dedicated to the advancement of women in various environmental and technology sectors.  She is also Founder and President of Technica Communications, where she handles marketing, social media, content production and public relations for cleantech and biotech startups.  Additionally, Lisa Ann is Co-Founder and Marketing Chair for the Global Cleantech Cluster Association, an international speaker and moderator and documentary filmmaker.  Lisa Ann is a former award-winning broadcast journalist who reported for National Public Radio, PBS Television, WPXI-NBC, American Public Media, and Free Speech TV.

Maciek Lukawski

Maddie Morris

Maria Guercio

Mark Verhagen

Mary Hayes

Matt Gregori

Matt Gregori serves as a Technology Development Manager for Customer Applications in the SoCalGas Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) group. His team seeks out new natural gas and hydrogen technologies that are ready for deployment at the pilot or demonstration scale. His portfolio includes technologies in transportation, power generation, and residential, commercial, and industrial thermal applications.

During his career in the clean energy field, Matt has built and operated various types of clean energy projects, from biodiesel production facilities to food waste anaerobic digesters.

Matt earned a B.S. in Chemistry at The California Institute of Technology and an MBA at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Meghan Bader

Mich Hein

As an inventor, entrepreneur and corporate executive, Mich has 35 years experience in technol­ogy development and commercialization. In addition to his role at Electrochaea, Mich is a Partner at Focus First and a Manag­ing Partner of the Nidus Partners (St Louis, MO). Prior to starting Fo­cus First, Mich served as Executive in Residence at the University of Chica­go’s Office of Tech­nology and Intellectual Property, and as Chief of Staff at the Illinois Medical District where he managed the Chicago Technology Park. He started his career as a research chemist with Mon­santo and then PPG Industries before joining the faculty at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Mich’s investigations into mucosal immunology and plant-based proteins led him to found Epicyte Pharmaceutical, Inc which was acquired by Biolex, Inc in 2004. His entrepreneurial career also included positions as CEO at Chromatin, Inc and as founder of Heliose. Mich holds a BS degree from the Honors Tutorial College of Ohio University and both an MSc and PhD in Plant Physiology from the University of Minnesota.

Michael Wood

Michelle Brechtelsbauer

Mike Laufer

Mike Nagus

Mishal Thadani

Mohammad Doostmohammadi

Mohammad Doostmohammadi is the founder and CEO of pH7 Technologies, leading the company’s strategic vision and business and technical activities.

As a serial entrepreneur with a passion for sustainability, Mohammad has been committed to exploring new technologies that make existing processes and systems more environmentally-friendly, as well as economically viable for wide-scale industry applications. He advocates the value of working collectively to make an impact, advancing solutions that can bring about positive outcomes today, and for future generations.

Mohammad brings with him a deep background in science and complex chemical processes, having spent over 15 years working on mineral extraction, mineral processing, metal extraction, and wastewater management. Prior to pH7 Technologies, he had managed the development of five different processing plants globally, overseeing the projects from ideation and R&D, all the way through to commercialization and launch.

Mohammad holds strong industry relationships built on shared values and goals, envisioning a future where the environmental footprint can be eliminated through the adoption of innovative chemical processes. At pH7 Technologies, this mission is realized in the company’s production of green metals that have the lowest carbon footprint.

Molly Yang

Molly joins Breakthrough Energy’s Innovator Fellows program from Hgen in Los Angeles, California. She brings to the company her expertise in scaling industrial and consumer energy products, having previously worked as an Energy Product Lead at Tesla. At Hgen, Molly is responsible for the strategy, product, and business development of their innovative hydrogen electrolysis technology.

Hgen’s technology uses renewable electricity to break water into clean hydrogen energy at higher-efficiency with lower costs. Hgen’s system is uniquely designed for renewables integration, and will help overcome current technical limitations –notably the intermittent power losses –that hinder clean hydrogen production. Through the Fellows program, Hgen will leverage their integrated, modular design to focus on reducing costs and scaling their technology.

Molly fell in love with remote and untouched places while traveling, which spurred her interest in natural ecosystems and climate technology. Previously, she worked in product management and venture capital, providing her with the foundation to scale technologies that enable clean and sustainable energy. Molly earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Secondary in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Nagi Suzuki

Nagi Suzuki is a Vice President of Marunouchi Innovation Partners. Ms. Suzuki started her career at Mitsubishi Corporation in Water Business Dept., where she worked in project development and equity investments. Upon acquiring shares of South Staffordshire Plc in 2016, a water service/engineering provider in the UK, she was seconded to the company for 3 years as the Regulation Manager, where she was involved in devising mid-term business plans/water utility bill forecasts. Since 2020, she worked at Investment Management Dept. within the Corporate Division of Mitsubishi, where she provided assessments for investments and divestments proposed at Mitsubishi’s Investment Committee for over 2 years. Ms. Suzuki holds a B.S. in Environmental Sciences from University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University

Naynika Chaubey

An experienced energy project finance, private equity, and venture capital professional, with cross-sector expertise in early and late stage hard-tech companies, Naynika most recently managed a portfolio of deep tech VC investments at a private family office.

Previously, Naynika helped manage a portfolio of clean power and infrastructure investments at US Renewables Group. She is also a proven company builder and was on the founding team of two startups in the energy project development and finance space: SoCore Energy, a solar project developer acquired by Edison International in 2013, and Common Assets, a renewable energy bond platform acquired by SolarCity in 2014.

Naynika is currently on the board of Evok portfolio company Summit Nanotech and has actively served on boards of companies in the power generation, advanced materials, telecom, AI hardware, biotech, energy storage and biofuels spaces, helping advance several toward private and public exits.

Naynika earned an A.B. in Physics from Princeton University.

Nicholas Parker

Nick has pioneered and championed sustainability ideas, ventures and initiatives around the world for over three decades. He’s currently Chairman of Parker Venture Management Inc. through which he makes catalytic investments (presently in solar, fintech and analytics) and provides strategic advice, particularly to private wealth holders. Nicholas is also Founding Managing Partner of Global Acceleration Partners Inc. (“GAP”) a financial enterprise accelerating cross-border deployment of technologies and business models into emerging economies, especially China where Nick has been active for the past twelve years, to achieve “exponential impact” against major sustainability challenges.

Nick coined and introduced the “cleantech” concept to the finance and business community in 2002 while launching Cleantech Group (“CTG”), a market-leading research and advisory platform that he chaired until the end of 2013. Under his leadership as “Mr. Cleantech”, CTG helped create a global innovation ecosystem, mobilized over $6B in private equity and convened thousands of decision-makers, while serving influential businesses and institutions in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. In this role, he spoke at hundreds of top events and was regularly featured in most major media.

In recent years, Nick’s contribution to advisory boards includes the Singapore Economic Development Board, Ontario Premier’s Climate Change Advisory Panel, Centre of Excellence for Commercialization of Research and the Clinton Global Initiative where he was principal energy and climate advisor. From 2003-08, he was Chair of E+Co, the award-winning impact investment company for clean energy enterprises in frontier markets. Nick is currently a Distinguished Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and serves as Treasurer and Board Member of the Centre for Mindfulness Studies.

Nick earned a BA Tech, Hons. (Carleton University, Ottawa) and an MBA in International Business (City University, London). He has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America while currently residing in Toronto. He’s authored or edited many publications and articles related to cleantech, sustainability, finance and international business, starting with Investing in Emerging Economies in 1993, co-published by The Economist and the International Finance Corporation. Nick’s a keen swimmer, soccer fan, outdoor enthusiast and happy parent.

Nigel Carr

Ofer Shochet

Olivia Dippo

Paige Carratturo

Paige Carratturo is the Co-founder and CEO of Sea Change, a talent venture firm that provides advisory, business intelligence and retained search services to climate tech investors and their portfolio companies as well as some of the largest global corporations that are transforming their executive teams in order to meet the complex demands of moving to a more sustainable and climate-focused operating model. At Sea Change Advisors, she drives thought leadership and leads advisory services and C-level recruiting. Paige co-founded Sea Change as an evolution of the Enertech Search Partners brand, which was founded in 2009. Paige is a thought leader and frequent speaker about topics related to talent strategy, leadership development, acquisition, and retention.

Parker Meeks

Parker joined Hyzon Motors as Chief Strategy Officer in June 2021.  His experience spans traditional energy, decarbonization / energy transition, infrastructure and transportation, serving clients and leading operations across 4 continents, 15+ countries and 25+ US states.

Parker most recently held full P&L responsibility for a nationwide 900-person, $150M revenue design and construction management business in the infrastructure, water resources and energy transition / climate change end markets within TRC, a 6,000-person $1 billion revenue firm.

Prior to TRC he was a Partner with McKinsey & Company, where he was a global leader in McKinsey’s Energy and Capital Productivity & Infrastructure Practices. Additionally, he was the Managing Partner of McKinsey’s Houston office.

Parker has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, an MBA from Rice University, and serves on the Advisory Board for Rice University’s Chemical Engineering department.

Paul Nahi

Paul Nahi became CEO of Global Thermostat in September 2022 to make the company a leader in the circular carbon economy, and an instrumental part of the solution to keeping the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C. Mr. Nahi served as CEO of Enphase, one of the most successful cleantech companies in history, for 11 years. He took the company public and grew it from a small startup in 2007 to a major solar company with over 1,000 employees and $325 million in annual revenues by 2017; today it has a market cap of $38 billion. Mr. Nahi has recently been Founder and CEO of Solidspac3, a construction technology company reducing re-work and the carbon footprint of the construction industry. Before Enphase, Mr. Nahi served as President and CEO of Crimson Microsystems, developing the world’s most integrated synchronous optical networking and synchronous digital hierarchy (SONET/SDH) system-on-chip solution. He founded Accelerant Networks, delivering the world’s first 6.25Gb/s and 12Gb/s serial backplane transceiver. Mr. Nahi also had roles at NEC Electronics and Diamond Multimedia.

Peter Bogin

Peter is a Sr Partner in Korn Ferry’s New York office focused on executive search assignments for clients across the energy spectrum, from VC-backed start-ups leading the energy transition to clean fuels and decarbonization to conventional hydrocarbon companies.  Peter brings a global perspective to search having been based in Europe and the Middle East earlier in his career with organizations such as the International Energy Agency and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).

Phil Anderson

Ratu Mataira-Cole

Richard Youngman

Since January 2016, Richard Youngman has been CEO of San-Francisco based Cleantech Group (CTG). This followed 7 years of driving the growth of CTG’s activities outside North America, especially in Europe and Israel, and Asia, based in CTG’s office in London.

Richard has more than ten years’ experience researching cleantech innovation, venture capital markets, and start-ups across Europe and globally. He is a regular keynote speaker at major cleantech events and is the driving force behind the annual Global Cleantech 100, a list of the world’s most promising private cleantech companies.

Ricky Sakai

Ricky is Senior Vice President of Investment and Business Development at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, where he focuses on decarbonization of the energy sector. Since joining MHI in 2006, Ricky has held a number of roles across MHI and one of its Group Companies, Mitsubishi Power, including as a project engineer and as a leader on the Oil & Gas business development team. Ricky graduated from Kyoto University with a degree in environmental engineering technology and from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business with an MBA.

Robert Craig

Robert Craig is Sector Leader for the firm’s growing Renewables & Clean Tech practice.  Rob partners with clients across verticals including industrials, energy, power and utilities, and renewable energy / clean tech. His clients range from Fortune 500 organizations to portfolio companies of leading private equity firms, with a focus on talent assessment, development and recruiting, as well as identifying optimal leadership strategies for growth companies managing through a transformation or seeking to successfully scale a platform.

Robert Schuetzle

Robert Schuetzle is the founder and CEO of Infinium, an established clean fuels innovator backed by Amazon, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NextEra Energy, SK and AP Ventures. Infinium’s unique class of synthetic electrofuels are an ultra-low carbon alternative to jet fuel, diesel and naphtha that significantly reduce CO₂ emissions compared to traditional fossil fuels.

Robert’s prior experience includes leadership roles at Infinium parent-company Greyrock; Synterra, a biomass to liquids platform; Sunexus, a solar reforming technology funded by the US Department of Energy; the Renewable Energy Institute International; and technology leaders EMC and Accenture.

Robert holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and a computer engineering specialty from the University of New South Wales. He has been awarded multiple patents and is a widely published expert in the cleantech space.

Russell Zishiri

Saad Dara

Dr. Dara is an entrepreneur with a track record of taking research from the lab bench to a commercial scale.

Sarah O’Connell

Shai Kalansky

Shai Kalansky focuses his practice on corporate and transactional matters, including mergers, acquisitions, venture capital financings, and securities offerings, for public and private companies. His clients are U.S. and non-U.S. entities in the climate tech, life sciences, healthcare, hospitality, and technology industries. Shai is a member of the firm’s Israel practice.

Shai has extensive experience representing startup to late-stage private companies in the climate tech and sustainability space. He provides corporate and finance advice in connection with equity and convertible debt financings, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, reorganizations, and joint ventures. He has extensive experience working with sustainable infrastructure companies throughout their lifecycle. Shai regularly advises investors on investments, acquisitions, and dispositions of climate tech companies. He is also a member of Morrison Foerster’s global Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) steering committee.

Shelby Buso

Steve Oldham

Steve Oldham is a prominent entrepreneur and carbon removal advocate. He currently serves as CEO of Captura where he is leading the commercialization of Direct Ocean Capture – a climate solution that combines innovative technology with the natural carbon removal powers of the ocean to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere at scale.

Steve’s career has focused on bringing ground-breaking technologies to market in a variety of domains, including robotics, aerospace, and climate. Steve was previously CEO of leading Direct Air Capture (DAC) company, Carbon Engineering, where he grew the company from ~15 to ~150 people and established the partnership with Occidental that led to their acquisition of Carbon Engineering in November 2023.

Steve also served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development for MDA, a leading Canadian technology firm. At MDA, Steve held a variety of senior executive positions across Canada and the US, covering General Management, Business Development, and Strategy, and secured financing from Government and commercial sources for a variety of complex technologies, including several large satellite programs.

Stwart Peña Feliz

Stwart is a former ExxonMobil process engineer and holds an MBA from MIT Sloan Business School. His skill set includes manufacturing, design, and process operating experience of large-scale units, including plastic pyrolysis operations from his time at ExxonMobil. He has scaled up technologies from the bench scale and also held leadership positions at a previous climate tech startup that went on to raise a $30M Series B round.

Suzanne Andersen

Ted McKvleen

Tim Boeltken

Tim Boeltken (PhD) is CEO and co-founder of INERATEC and combines science and industry expertise with business skills. Being a Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) educated chemical engineer, he has worked in the field of hydrogen production, catalysis, and petrochemistry. He has been awarded with the Peter-und-Luise-Hager prize for the best PhD at KIT, as well as Business Punk ”Top 100 Innovators in Germany”.

Todd Allmendinger

Trevor Best

Trevor Best is the CEO and Co-Founder of Syzygy Plasmonics. Syzygy is pioneering a new type of chemical reactor designed to produce industrial chemicals at lower cost and with fewer carbon emissions. Their novel technology is driven by light rather than combustion, enabling a substantially more efficient process. Critically, Syzygy’s technology supports energy security and expansion through resource efficiency. Recent publications show Syzygy’s core components can be made without using rare earth materials, adding to the company’s value as a sustainable technology provider.

Before starting Syzygy, Trevor worked for the oilfield services company Baker Hughes. There he held a variety of management positions and gained expertise in technology development, project and personnel management, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. He is originally from Midland Texas and is a graduate of Texas Tech University.

Vaughn Blake

Virginia Klausmeier

Will Mosley

Will is Chief Commercial Officer at RayGen. Will leads RayGen’s fundraising, strategic partnerships, analytical modelling, project development and pipeline. He has been with RayGen for over 7 years. Prior to RayGen, Will worked at McKinsey and Company and has a Mechanical Engineering degree, majoring in thermodynamics.

Zach Jones

Mr. Jones is the co-founder and CEO of C-Zero, a California-based company that has developed a process for producing low-cost, zero-emission “turquoise” hydrogen from natural gas. The company’s technology can be used to decarbonize a wide array of industries including electrical generation, process heating, and the production of commodity hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, ammonia synthesis and refining processes. C-Zero’s publicly announced investors and partners include SK Gas, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Eni S.p.A., AP Ventures, SoCalGas and Pacific Gas & Electric. Prior to his current role, Mr. Jones worked for a private equity firm where he led investments in the renewable energy, maritime transportation and commercial real estate sectors. He holds a BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Zainab Gilani

Zainab is an Associate, Energy & Power at Cleantech Group and is based in the U.S.  She is focused on emerging innovation and trends in Energy & Power and has experience across all Cleantech Group sectors. ​

Zainab has experience working on circular economy solutions including evaluating recycling challenges and reuse systems, identifying collection strategies for marine plastics, and collaborating with informal waste worker collectives. ​

Zainab earned her Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and English from Binghamton University. ​