Cleantech Group

Joe Aamidor

Joseph Aamidor is a senior product and market strategy consultant focused on smart buildings, IoT, energy and real estate. He has nearly 15 years of experience in building and energy technology. He provides strategic guidance and advice to established building management firms, technology providers, and early-stage innovators. Previously, he served as Director of Product at Lucid Design Group and was a product manager at Johnson Controls. He frequently speaks at industry events and regularly publishes articles on the energy and smart building industry.

Learn more at https://www.aamidorconsulting.com/

Dor Abuhasira

Setayesh Afshordi

Alexia Akbay

Alexia’s research focus is in green chemistry with ongoing research on the endocrinology implications of petroleum-sourced consumer products. In 2018, she was one of 20 candidates nominated for the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award. She is a founding member of the Yale Blockchain Initiative and as a proponent for sustainable and transparent supply chains in enabling a net-zero economy. She will receive an MPH in environmental public health in May 2018 and holds a B.S. from New York University in chemistry and global public health where she conducted research on food security and nutrition at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Nils Aldag

Nils studied Business Administration and Law at the EBS University and at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

He is managing director and co-founder of Sunfire GmbH, a technology start-up addressing a key challenge of today’s energy system: The conversion of renewable electricity into fuels and gases to replace natural gas and crude oil. At Sunfire he is responsible for business development, sales & marketing and investor relations. Sunfire received venture capital financing from world-renowned investors. In 2017, the company was awarded “Global Cleantech 100 Company” for the third time.

Since 2016, Nils is Board Member and Energy Chair of Hydrogen Europe, the European industry association representing over 100 companies in the fuel cells and hydrogen industry and the industry representation of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking under Horizon 2020.

In addition, Nils is a founding member of the DESERTEC Foundation.

Grant Allen

Grant is a General Partner of SE Ventures, a $565M venture capital fund backed by Schneider Electric. His focus is on emerging technologies and their role in the digital transformation of industries, transportation, the built environment and the increasingly distributed electrical ecosystem. Current investment interests include mobility, proptech, energy tech, AI, and industrial technologies where Schneider can be a value add partner and revenue catalyst. An expert in corporate innovation and a venture investor for 12 years, Grant was most recently the global head of venture capital for Zurich-based ABB. Grant is an active angel investor, a three-time member of the Global Corporate Venturing Power List, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer selection committee, and holds degrees from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and The Wharton School. He has also completed executive education at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. An east coast native who has lived in Europe and Australia, Grant now lives in Los Altos, California with his wife and three children.

Todd Allmendinger

Natalie Ambrosio

As Four Twenty Seven’s Editor Natalie manages publications and communications, writing on climate change’s economic impacts, strategies for financial actors to assess and manage risk, and the interconnected nature of climate resilience. She leverages her background in climate adaptation, communications and environmental sciences to translate technical information into actionable insights for building climate resilience. Natalie’s recent publications include, Community Resilience and Adaptive Capacity: A Meaningful Investment Across Assets, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and “Chapter 7: Addressing Climate Risk in Financial Decision Making,” in Optimizing Community Infrastructure.

Previously, Natalie helped develop an assessment of U.S. cities’ vulnerabilities to climate change and their readiness to adapt, at the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN). Natalie holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and a certificate in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy from the University of Notre Dame.

Julie Angus

Alexia Aubault

Alexia is an offshore engineer, with a broad experience in all phases of design and execution of offshore projects. Most recently, Alexia was a VP of Engineering at Principle Power Inc. where, she was in charge of the WindFloat hull design for all projects, from inception to fabrication and operation. As a structural engineer, she oversaw the detailed design of the first WindFloat hull in the fabrication yard near Lisbon, Portugal. Later, her responsibilities included developing long-term inspection strategy and attending in-situ inspections. She has a deep understanding of asset lifecycle management, especially in the area of remotely-operated offshore platforms. Before focusing on offshore wind technology, Alexia had worked on a variety of offshore floating projects, in the wave energy industry as well as in the oil & gas, transport and tourism industries. She has enjoyed leading a variety of R&D studies involving complex hydrodynamic calculations and model tests. Over the years, she has published numerous hydrodynamic studies and has taught courses at conferences worldwide. Alexia is a graduate of ENSTA ParisTech and obtained a Master’s of Science in Ocean Engineering at University of California, Berkeley.

Troy Ault

Troy has spent a decade working with cleantech innovators, their capital providers, and strategic partners. He joined Silicon Valley Bank in 2018, where he works with early- and growth-stage cleantech companies on debt financing and banking services. Prior to SVB, Troy worked with Cleantech Group serving corporate-strategic clients in their external innovation and venturing programs. Prior to Cleantech Group, Troy worked with startups in the energy efficiency and water technology spaces. He did his undergraduate degree in finance at the University of Vermont, is a proud dad and an avid cyclist and skier.

Adam Behrens

Adam Behrens,  CEO of Cambridge Crops, is focused on economically and sustainably transforming our food supply by commercializing products in the food, agriculture, and packaging industries. He has spent his career developing and translating technologies in the areas of agriculture, healthcare, and nutrition. Adam was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Langer Lab at MIT and was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2017. He holds a BS and PhD from the University of Maryland.

Jules Besnainou

Jules Besnainou is the Executive Director of Cleantech for Europe, the initiative helping the EU lead the race to net zero by bridging the gap between cleantech leaders and policymakers. He was previously a director at Cleantech Group, where he advised the world’s foremost cleantech investors, corporates and governments, helping them assess and invest in new innovations. After starting his career in San Francisco and London, he moved back to France to head the group’s EU presence and clients. Jules graduated summa cum laude from Sciences Po Paris.

Guy Blanchard

Attila Bodnar

Attila Bodnar, a serial entrepreneur and Architect is the Executive Vice President and Co-Founder of Organica Water. Mr. Bodnar co-founded Organica in 1998 with the goal to develop garden-like water treatment facilities that are seamlessly integrated – architecturally, technologically, and socially – into high density urban environments. Over the years Organica grew into an international cleantech company with offices on three continents while the technology became internationally recognized as a truly disruptive solution with positive environmental impact. Prior to co-founding Organica, Mr. Bodnar built two successful businesses in the United States. He was Managing Partner of Denker & Bodnar Architects, an architectural design and construction firm focused on residential, commercial and institutional projects.  Under his leadership the firm became a market leader in niche development categories in the NY metropolitan area, and received various awards in both New York and Hungary. Mr. Bodnar received his Master’s in Architecture from the Technical University of Budapest and regularly presents at international conferences.

His TEDx talk can be viewed here: http://www.tedxdanubia.com/tedx-videok/water-alchemy:-attila-bodnar-at-tedxdanubia-2013

Shelly Bogetich Klose

Shelly has over 20 years experience in advertising, market research and data analytics helping a variety of organizations from start ups to Fortune 100 companies develop marketing communications strategies. Shelly also serves as Managing Director of C2 Research, a full service market research company with offices in Westchester County, NY and Roseville, CA. Shelly has vast experience in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies include advanced data analytics. Shelly earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obipso and completed her Master’s coursework at New York University (thesis pending).

Shelly’s first book, Beyond Big Data: Big Insights in Small Data with R (Finance & Insurance Book 1), is available now on Amazon.com

Her Home’s True First Floor Elevation is 24 inches above ground, which is above an expected 100 years flood event.

Abhijeet Borole

Abhijeet is currently leading the technology development efforts at Electro-Active Technologies. He has 21 years of experience in energy R&D.  He developed the bioelectrochemical technology for biomass/waste conversion, while being at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and continues to hone it with the goal of developing integrated solutions to fit the 21st century bioeconomy needs. He has over 60 publications, four patents, and five books/chapters. He has published across multiple disciplines appearing in over 30 different journal titles including Energy & Environmental Science, Electrochimica Acta and Biochemical Engineering Journal.He is an engineer with knowledge of biological systems and an understanding of the sustainability needs of the 21st century.
​
He continues his exploration of novel ideas, researching new directions and fundamental concepts at the interface of biocatalysis and electrochemistry via his position as a Research Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Mark Bove

Mr. Mark Bove is a meteorologist & Natural Catastrophe Solutions Manager in the Reinsurance Division of Munich Reinsurance America. His responsibilities include evaluating commercially available catastrophe risk models & tools, providing technical expertise on underwriting property catastrophe risk and exposure accumulation issues, and the development of new property catastrophe insurance products.

Mr. Bove has been using his meteorological and climatological expertise to improve property catastrophe underwriting at Munich Reinsurance America, Inc., for almost 20 years. Before joining the Munich Re Group in July 2000, Mark was a graduate research assistant at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, where he conducted research on short-term climate variations and probabilistic modeling of extreme weather events. Research highlights include studies of ENSO’s influence on Atlantic hurricane landfall frequencies and tornadic activity patterns in the United States. Mark’s research made national headlines on several occasions and he was the 1998 recipient of the Father James B. Macelwane award for outstanding undergraduate research by the American Meteorological Society.

Mark holds Masters and Bachelors degrees in Meteorology from Florida State University and has earned the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Associate in Reinsurance (ARe) professional designations from The Institutes and the new Certified Catastrophe Risk Management Professional (CCRMP) designation from the CAS.

Cassie Bowe

Cassie is a Principal at Energy Impact Partners, a $650m fund investing in energy startups, where she is responsible for EIP’s west coast presence. Prior to joining EIP, she worked for 5 years at SunPower, one of the largest global solar companies, in policy and strategy. She has also gained operating experience at energy storage, micro-grid and energy asset management startups in business development and finance roles. Cassie holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a BA in Economics from Harvard University, and was selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy (2018).

Louis Brasington

David Brekke

David Brekke is an associate in the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where his practice focuses on corporate formations, venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic transactions, and corporate governance for clients operating primarily in the renewable energy and sustainability technology spaces. David advises founders, investors, and early- to mid-stage companies as they bring technologies that improve our world to the market, to scale and to profitability.

David is also actively involved in the firm’s efforts to automate documents, automate processes, and use the latest technology internally to improve the efficiency, quality, and client experience available to our clients.

During law school, David was an intern at Environmental Defense Fund.

John Bruce

John brings more than 20 years experience in building, managing and investing in clean tech based ventures with a focus on product strategy and management.

Bryan Buggey

Bryan is a senior executive with more than three decades of experience as a business leader in entrepreneurship, sustainability, innovation, management consulting, and economic development. Since 2010, Bryan has been responsible for economic and business development at the City of Vancouver’s Economic Commission. In his role as Director, he has led teams in charge of projects and programs aimed at supporting the Vancouver business ecosystem’s transition towards a knowledge-based, low-carbon, circular economy. This includes investment, trade, local business engagement, research, advocacy and targeted initiatives such demonstration programs that leverage green & digital technologies as well as workshops that deliver programming to assist businesses in lowering their environmental footprint and/or becoming a certified B-corp.

Bryan is actively involved in the City’s Greenest City Action Plan, Renewable City 2050, Zero Waste 2040, Digital Strategy, and Smart City initiatives, and brings the economic development and business opportunity lens to the conversations around public policy development. From this involvement, Bryan is able to direct the development of programs and projects that support local innovators and businesses in making an impact in the local economy as well as promote Vancouver to a global audience of potential business investors in the knowledge-based, low carbon economy.

Bryan believes that the transformation of the local economy to a low-carbon, circular future is underway and is a tremendous economic opportunity for the City and region. Bryan has an undergraduate degree in Economics (Regional Economic Development), an MBA in IT Strategy, and is a graduate of UBC’s Summer Institute for Sustainability. In 2017, Bryan was awarded the pan-Canadian Clean 50 Award for his leadership in green and sustainable economic development.

Tadeu Carneiro

Tadeu brings 40 years of metal industry leadership and technology experience to Boston Metal. As CEO of CBMM (80% market share for niobium) he grew revenue from $100M to over $2B. In his 30 years with CBMM, Tadeu led a global strategy that grew the niobium market by over 8x through a rigorous program of customer-focused application and technology development.

Tadeu is the Lead Independent Director at Ivanhoe Mines, a board member at SBSHSL Hospital in Brazil, and an invited lecturer at the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the MIT.

Sean Carney

Sylvain Castonguay

Etosha Cave

Ayesha Choudhury

Regina Clewlow

Regina is the CEO and Co-Founder of Populus, a data platform for private mobility operators and cities to deliver safe, equitable, efficient streets. She has over a decade of experience in transportation, where she is a leading expert on innovations in public transit, shared mobility, and autonomous vehicles. Regina formed Populus after serving as the Director of Business Development and Strategy at moovel, the joint mobility services division of Daimler and BMW.

Prior to her roles in industry, Regina received her Ph.D. in transportation and energy systems from MIT. As a research scientist at Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis, she developed and led research on the travel behavior impacts of shared mobility services (e.g. Uber, Lyft, carsharing) and autonomous vehicles. Regina was the lead author of the recent groundbreaking UC Davis study Disruptive Transportation: The Adoption, Utilization, and Impacts of Ride-Hailing in the United States. She has received several awards and distinctions, having been honored as a National Engineers Week “New Face of Engineering”, EPA STARS Fellow, MIT Energy Fellow, and Department of Transportation Eisenhower Fellow, Mass Transit 40 Under 40, and San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40.

As a transportation researcher, Dr. Clewlow’s work focused on developing and harnessing new datasets to measure the adoption and impacts of shared-use mobility (ride-hailing) and automated/ autonomous vehicles on travel behavior, vehicle purchase, and energy use. She is passionate about developing innovative transportation technologies that provide net positive social and environmental benefits: reduced congestion, improved accessibility, and a lower carbon footprint.

Ben Cohen

Ben’s main responsibility is managing the architecture, design, development and manufacturing of Momentum Dynamics high power wireless charging technologies.

Ben has 30 years of experience designing and managing complex systems including high speed digital design and FPGA’s, RF design, mechanical design, compliance engineering and manufacturing engineering.

Prior to Joining Momentum Dynamics, Ben held the positions of Director of Hardware and Embedded Software, Hardware Development Manager, Principal FPGA Architect and Digital Design Manager at TruePosition. He was a key technical and managerial contributor for a start-up in the wireless location industry (including E911 emergency location systems) that grew to more than $280M in revenue annually, $1B in revenue over 4 years.  Ben spent his career at TruePosition driving the development of 3 generations of emergency location systems in his various roles.

Ben has worked in telecommunications, Industrial controls, aerospace and now high power inductive charging.  Ben has a strong background in product realization through architecture, design, management, test, compliance and manufacturing.

Ben received a Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University and a Master’s of Science in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University.

Bennett Cohen

Bennett brings 15 years of experience at the intersection of energy, mobility and innovation spanning venture capital, startups, large corporations and consulting. Most recently Bennett established the venture capital arm of Royal Dutch Shell in San Francisco, where he led $50 million of investments focused on the future of energy and mobility, served on the boards of portfolio companies, and chaired the global mobility investment committee. Before moving into venture capital, Bennett was based at Shell headquarters in Europe developing the strategy that underpins the company’s New Energies division, which develops business globally in renewable power and storage, smart grid, electric mobility, and energy access. Bennett has also worked as a consultant at Rocky Mountain Institute, where he reported directly to Amory Lovins, and as a Director of Business Development at CPower, a demand response startup that was acquired by Constellation in 2010.

Bennett’s professional passions are sustainability, entrepreneurship, teamwork and the challenges facing the global energy industry.

Bennett is a Kauffman Fellow, and holds a BA in Economics (summa cum laude) from Columbia University and an MSc. in Industrial Ecology from TU Delft.

Hunter Connell

Liz Ramsay Dalton

Brandi DeCarli

Brandi DeCarli is the Founding Partner of Farm from a Box, an off-grid agriculture toolkit that revolutionizes local food production and enables communities to be economically sustainable. She is currently a SheEO Venture Fellow, a board member of Jordanian agritech accelerator HASSAD, and a Rising Talent with the Women’s Forum. She is a frequent global speaker on technology’s role in climate resilience, economic empowerment, and women’s leadership, including her TEDx talk, “How technology and togetherness can transform our world.” A firm believer in the power of collaboration, Brandi is passionate about rejecting old rules and driving positive change in the world through innovation, compassion, and connection. She’s a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in San Francisco.

Victor Dewulf

Kanav Dhir

Charles Dimmler

Charles Dimmler is the co-founder and CEO of Checkerspot. His career has focused on building and leading teams at emerging growth companies in the life sciences and biotechnology sector. He has deep expertise in general management and leading strategic transactions, with over $1 billion of completed transactions ranging from public and private financings to joint ventures, licensing, and M&A.

From 2008 to 2016, he served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Solazyme, Inc. where he led financings and a range of other strategic transactions, including two venture capital rounds, the initial public offering, two public convertible debt issuances, and project financing for the construction of a commercial scale manufacturing facility in Brazil. In addition to his corporate development responsibilities, he served as Acting General Manager of Solazyme’s personal care business in 2009.

Prior to Solazyme, Charles was the General Manager of Geron BioMed, Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geron Corporation, where he led a team focused on developing R&D and preclinical cell therapy candidates. Charles began his career as an investment banker at Peter J. Solomon Company. From 2008 to 2016, Charles remained active in his community as an Operations Leader with the Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit, the mountain search, and rescue team of the San Mateo County Sheriff. Charles earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his BA from Columbia University.

Kevin Eggers

Kevin is a Founding Partner of AP Ventures, which spun out of Anglo American and had a first close of US$200m in July 2018. Kevin has a broad range of international experience spanning over 16 years, having worked extensively across Europe, South Africa and the United States. Prior to launching this fund, he was with Anglo American plc for ten years in various senior Commercial and Corporate Finance positions. In his most recent role, Kevin had operational responsibility for Anglo American’s Corporate Venture Capital Fund, the predecessor fund to AP Ventures Fund I. He focused primarily on the energy and clean technology sectors. Kevin is a board member of United Hydrogen.

Craig Evans

Mr. Evans is the President, CEO, and a founder of ESS Inc. Having started ESS from his garage in 2011, he led the company to the commercialization of the iron flow battery system in 2016. Prior to ESS Inc., Mr. Evans was the Director of Design & Product Development at ClearEdge Power Inc. His team designed the ClearEdge5, a 5 kW combine-heat-and-power fuel cell system, which was successfully commercialized in 2010. This product received both CSA International certification in North America and KNREC certification in Asia. Mr. Evans began his career at United Technologies Corporation (UTC) where he held technical leadership positions in their Fuel Cell business and, prior to that, as a project engineer in the Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine business. In 2006, Mr. Evans was awarded the distinguished George Mead Award, the highest honor for individual engineering achievement at UTC. Mr. Evans has authored over 15 patents and patent applications. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University, an MS in Finance from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an M.B.A from Carnegie Mellon University.

Clifford Federspiel

Dr. Federspiel is a leader and visionary in the field of energy management, having authored more than 50 papers on topics ranging from HVAC and CRAC control, to indoor air quality and cooling optimization. He is the recipient of the Ralph G. Nevins Physiology and Human Environment Award from ASHRAE, and holds numerous patents in the field.

Dr. Federspiel began his career in R&D at Johnson Controls after receiving his BSME from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, and his SMME and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1998 he joined the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Specialist at The Center for Environmental Design Research and the Electronics Research Laboratory.

Building on his pioneering research in dynamic cooling technology and wireless networking, Dr. Federspiel incorporated Federspiel Controls in 2008 (renamed Vigilent in 2011) to address the emerging need of treating cooling and energy consumption as a managed resource. Today, he is a leading voice in the field of sustainable energy solutions and green technology, and a frequent speaker at industry conferences, where he advocates for technology solutions for a better planet.

Daniela Fernandez

Daniela is an award-winning social entrepreneur, thought leader, and internationally sought-after speaker on the entrepreneurial mindset, ocean innovation, technology, youth empowerment, and sustainability.

At the age of 19, Daniela founded Sustainable Ocean Alliance as a college-room idea at Georgetown University. Five years later, SOA has created the world’s largest network of young Ocean Leaders in over 150 countries and launched the world’s first Ocean Solutions Accelerator to support developing technological solutions to address the greatest threats facing our planet.

Daniela has been recognized for her work by former U.S. Secretary John Kerry, U.S. President Bill Clinton,  and E.U. Commissioner Karmenu Vella. She is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a member of Friends of Ocean Action—a select group of leaders working to fast-track solutions to ocean challenges. She was awarded the 2020 Rising Star Visionary Award  by the Silicon Valley Forum and named a 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur. Other awards and recognitions include Glamour Magazine’s College Women of the Year, Zula’s Top 5 Ocean Heroes of 2016, the Peter Benchley Ocean Award, and the Bustle Upstart Award. Daniela is a contributor to National Geographic and Sustainable Brands, and has been interviewed by Voice of America, New York City TV, and Ocean Radio. She has served as a keynote speaker at The Economist World Ocean Summit, the Global Climate Summit, The Global Convening of Mayors, The United Nations, U.S. Capitol Hill Ocean Week, Collision Conference, Sustainable Brands Conference, WE Day, and Davos 2019 – The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting.

Contact: daniela@soalliance.org

Thomas Folker

Sam Gabbita

Bogdan Gagea

Sandy Gibson

Joe Girton

Kirsty Gogan

Kirsty Gogan, MSc. is co-founder and executive director of Energy for Humanity (EFH), an environmental NGO focused on large scale deep decarbonisation and energy access. EFH led a delegation of the world’s most highly regarded climate scientists to Paris COP21 in order to make the case for nuclear to be recognised as a vital part of the clean energy mix. EFH was subsequently shortlisted for the Business Green Leaders “Green NGO of the Year” Award in 2016. At COP23, EFH published a new report on European Climate Leadership 2017 and presented a new study on Decarbonizing Cities with Advanced Nuclear. She is also founding director of CleanTech Catalyst (a consultancy specialising in climate and energy), recently commissioned by the UK-based Energy Technologies Institute to lead the Nuclear Cost Drivers Study in partnership with Lucid Strategy (based in Cambridge, MA). The Study has proven foundational for current UK policy on nuclear new build.

Kirsty is regularly invited as an expert speaker on science communication, nuclear competitiveness and innovation to high profile events around the world. She has more than 15 years’ experience as a senior advisor to industry, non-profits and Government, including at 10 Downing St, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, where she ran the national public consultation on nuclear new build, reviewed the national communications response to Fukushima and revised national guidance for civil nuclear emergency planning and response.

Daniel Goldman

Daniel Goldman is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Clean Energy Ventures, a $110 million early-stage, advanced energy technology venture fund. He has over 25 years of energy industry operational and investment experience, having been involved in over $4 billion of energy infrastructure and venture finance transactions.

Prior to Clean Energy Ventures, Dan co-founded CEVG, one of the most active early-stage advanced energy investors in the U.S. with over thirty portfolio investments between 2007 and 2018.

Previously, Dan was president and CFO at GreatPoint Energy, a venture/strategic-backed clean energy technology company that raised $280 million to commercial gasification technology, and prior to that served in executive positions in Asia and the U.S. at InterGen, a global power development company. Early in his career, Dan was a member of the energy consulting team at Arthur D. Little, based in Cambridge and Singapore.

Dan holds board roles at REsurety, SparkMeter, LineVision and ConnectDER, as well as a number of board observer and advisory positions. He also serves as chair of the board of the Northeast Clean Energy Council. Dan received a B.S. from Cornell University and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and is a member and the past chair of the board of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

Dan lives in Newton, MA and is a competitive masters’ road cyclist and world-qualifying triathlete.

Dermot Gosser

Dermot Gosser is responsible for business development and sales in North America for thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers (tkUCE), offering both electrolysis cell hardware and complete plant process designs for chlor-alkali electrolysis, electrolysis of hydrochloric acid to chlorine, and more recently Alkaline Water Electrolysis pertinent to the 2020 Cleantech Forum.

Although still based in the same physical location his entire career, like many people in more recent times the name of the company has changed but the job site hasn’t. Dermot has 40 years of experience in electrolysis and plant design in a variety of positions, both on the technical side and business side.

As a graduate of Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering, Dermot began his working career as a process/project engineer at then Diamond Shamrock Corporation in their electrochemical licensing business based in Northeast Ohio. Most recently, Dermot is handling inquiries from N.A. for tkUCE’s Alkaline Water Electrolysis (AWE) Units from companies wanting to produce hydrogen for energy storage on a large scale (10 MW to 1 GW, or more), and from companies needing a “green hydrogen” as a chemical or liquid fuels feedstock (i.e., green hydrogen = produced from a renewable electricity source).

Amy Gu

Amy oversees the firm’s emerging tech portfolios and helps corporate investors build innovations. Prior to founding Hemi, she was the first General Manager of Evernote China, where she grew the user base to 20 million in four years. She also served as a growth advisor to Udacity and Robinhood. Amy is named as “Most Creative People of 2015” by Fast Company, “40 under 40 of 2018” by Silicon Valley Business Journal, and “Rising Stars in VC” by National Venture Capital Association. She holds an MBA from Stanford.

Maria Guercio

Wendy Gumb

Wendy joined arbnco in spring 2019 to focus on the next era of energy as a service and empower asset managers to leverage data to make better informed decisions for the built environment.

Wendy has over 20 years of experience in the utility infrastructure sector. She has focused on organic growth of new markets and in new regions through the development and implementation of complex energy financed solutions through utilizing a variety of acquisition methods, primarily throughout the Western U.S. Examples of some of the acquisition methods are: DOE Super ESPC, Enhanced Use Leasing, Utility Energy Service Contracting, Design/Build, Power Purchase Agreements, Lease-Leaseback, Performance Contracting, and GSA Schedules. Wendy has had the opportunity to support numerous state and federal customers through different challenges and acquisition methods, primarily throughout the Western U.S. Some of these acquisition vehicles, state and federal agencies are listed below: State and Federal Agency Experience State and Federal Acquisition Vehicles California K-14 Performance Contracting California Municipalities Design/Build United States Marine Corp Power Purchase Agreements United States Navy Lease-Leaseback United States Army Enhanced Use Leasing NASA DOE Super ESPC Veterans Administration Utility Energy Service Contract General Services Administration Wendy’s career started with service in the United States Navy and has spanned into serving energy start-ups to Chevron Energy Solutions, (a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron, a Fortune 100 Company).

John Hamer

John is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio. Prior to joining DCVC, John was a VP at Monsanto and Managing Director of Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV). Before joining MGV, John was a Managing Director at Burrill & Company. Prior to his career in venture capital, John was an entrepreneur, initially at Paradigm Genetics, where he joined as a visiting scientist before becoming Chief Science Officer and eventually President and CEO following the company’s IPO. After Paradigm, John founded and served as CEO of Arête Therapeutics, which earned backing from leading life science venture firms.

John started his career in academia, rising to the rank of Full Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, where he was a David and Lucille Packard Fellow and an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow. John received a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. from the University of Windsor and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis.

Ian Hamilton

Ian Hamilton is CEO of Atlas Energy Systems, LLC and is developing energy conversion technology that directly converts heat into electricity with no moving parts. Atlas is revitalizing the research and development of thermionic energy conversion and developing commercially viable power generation systems. Mr. Hamilton has a background in materials science engineering as well as entrepreneurship and innovation. He and his cofounders started Atlas Energy Systems, LLC in 2013 to pursue nuclear energy technologies. Atlas Energy Systems, LLC is developing direct energy conversion technology called thermionic energy converters for waste heat power production, concentrated solar, and advanced nuclear reactors. Mr. Hamilton was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 2018 list for energy. He has a master’s degree in nuclear engineering and an undergraduate degree in materials science engineering with an entrepreneurship and innovation certificate all from Purdue University.

Rhea Hamilton

As Managing Director Ventures of OGCI Climate Investments, Rhea Hamilton is responsible for economically viable investments in innovative companies and technologies. Previously, Rhea was a Managing Director for a European family office heading direct investments in clean technology and renewable energy. Prior to this, she was an Investment Director at RobecoSAM Private Equity. Rhea started her career with Royal Dutch Shell, where she held various positions including CFO of Shell Hydrogen. Rhea holds a Geological Engineering degree from the University of British Columbia, and an MBA from IESE in Barcelona, Spain.

Jana Hanova

Jana Hanova has over 15 years of CleanTech, Power and Oil & Gas experience across North America and the Middle East. Prior to joining Evok, Jana worked with Creative Destruction Lab – Rockies as the CleanTech and Energy Stream Venture Lead, connecting tech start-ups with Smart Money & Mentorship and helping them gain market traction.

In addition to her tech start-up ecosystem experience, she led and managed multiple large Private & Public company engagements as a management and strategy consultant with PwC – in both the Middle East (UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi) and Alberta (Canada). She also worked with the International Energy Agency and the CTO Office of BC Hydro on accelerating the deployment of emerging technologies, with particular focus on electrification, decentralized energy and alternative energy systems.

Jana holds a M.Sc. in Resource Management and Environmental Science from the University of British Columbia and a B.Sc. (First Class Hons) in Geology/Geophysics from the University of Calgary.

Alexandra Harbour

Sourcing, diligence, and admin for Powerhouse Ventures. Portfolio engagement and support post-investment. Formerly with the Boston University Venture Accelerator and Corporate Partnerships at WWF-Sydney.

David Hayes

David brings 17 years’ experience in finance, including 10 years in venture capital investing, specialising in transaction structuring.

He is a Fellow of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (FCCA). David sits on the boards of Xpansiv CBL Holding Group (XCHG), Lightning Systems, Fulcrum Bioenergy, Calysta and Mendel Biotechnology.

Thomas Healy

Thomas Healy is the founder and CEO at Hyliion, a technology start-up that is disrupting the trucking industry with electric propulsion.  After starting four years ago in Healy’s dorm room at Carnegie Mellon University, Hyliion now has over 50 employees and is based in Austin, TX.  Thomas’s passion for revolutionizing the trucking industry came from his upbringing in motorsports; he competed at a national level racing formula cars, sports cars, and go-karts.  He has founded two prior start-ups and has been featured as a technical author in the New York Times. Thomas was a Forbes 30 under 30 awardee in 2017.

Kelly Hereid

Natalie Hollier

Natalie is a technology product leader who is passionate about creating positive social impact and addressing climate change.

She is currently the Global Head of Product Innovation at ThoughtWorks, a technology consulting firm with a mission to better humanity through software, that works with Fortune 500s, startups and NGOs in every industry to design, launch and scale meaningful digital platforms, products and services. During her time at ThoughtWorks, Natalie has also participated as a Women’s Network Board member, Environmental Justice Campaign regional lead, Climate Coalition member, and as part of a small core team to spearhead Clean Technology client exploration.

Natalie also serves as an Advisory Board member for Rutgers University Design Thinking program and previously served on the Board of education technology startup, Siia. Since 2013, she has volunteered as the New York Regional Ambassador for Technovation Challenge, the worlds largest mobile app competition with a mission to empower girls as future business leaders and entrepreneurs by using technology to solve a problem in their local community.

Previously, Natalie was the Vice President of User Experience and acting head of product at Validately, a tool for product managers, designers and entrepreneurs to run lean customer experiments and gain rapid feedback and insights from testing their product concepts.

Natalie has over 10 years experience in the technology industry, beginning her career as a front-end software developer before moving into UX design, product management and innovation strategy. She is an expert in Design Thinking, Lean Startup and Agile product development methods, and regularly speaks, runs training workshops, works hands-on with software teams, and advises executives on their organizational strategy, team design & practices.

Throughout her career Natalie has worked globally in the USA, Europe, Australia and Asia and partnered with distributed teams in India, Brazil and Poland. She has won awards in innovation, design and social impact. She holds Bachelors of Arts and Computer Science from The University of Melbourne and an MBA in Strategy and Sustainable Business & Innovation from NYU Stern School of Business.

Matanya Horowitz

Jeremy Hux

Jeremy Hux is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Energy and Sustainable Technologies at Marathon Capital.

Mr. Hux has over 20 years of technology, energy, and sustainable technology investment banking and private equity experience. He has advised on over $80 billion of transactions over his career. He spent nine years at Credit Suisse, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Credit Suisse’s Clean Technology Investment Banking practice and eight years at Morgan Stanley where he created and was head of Morgan Stanley’s West Coast Clean Technology Banking group.

Mr. Hux was also the founder and Managing Partner of HCP Advisors, an independent Technology and Clean Technology investment banking boutique and a Partner at True North Venture Partners, a clean technology and sustainability-focused private equity and venture capital firm.

Mr. Hux received a BA in Economics and History from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Alex Iftimie

Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Mr. Iftimie held multiple senior positions at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including Counselor to the Attorney General, Deputy Chief of Staff and Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Throughout his time at DOJ, Mr. Iftimie advised Department leadership on national security, intelligence and cyber matters, including policy and legal issues arising in the National Security Council process, foreign investment transactions before CFIUS, complex issues involving the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), and engagements with foreign officials. He also represented the Department on the Export Control Reform Initiative which sought to strengthen national security and the competitiveness of key U.S. manufacturing and technology sectors, and before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on issues involving novel questions at the intersection of law and technology.

Most recently, as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the National Security and Cybercrime Units of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Mr. Iftimie brought the Department’s first charges against Russian efforts to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections. During his time at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Iftimie also investigated and/or prosecuted federal crimes ranging from espionage, trade secret theft, and national security cyber matters to fraud, firearm, and drug offenses.

Mr. Iftimie received the Assistant Attorney General Award for Excellence in 2014 and 2018, and the Assistant Attorney General Award for Distinguished Service in 2014.

Prior to his DOJ service, Mr. Iftimie clerked for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and in the Office of the White House Counsel.

Mr. Iftimie received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was the Editor in chief of the Yale Journal of International Law and participated in the Civil Liberties & National Security Clinic. He received his B.A. summa cum laude and with Honors from the University of Southern California.

He is the recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and a fellow in the Truman National Security Project.

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.

Mateo Jaramillo

Ed Jimenez

BJ Johnson

BJ Johnson has been CEO of ClearFlame Engines since its incorporation in 2016. The company was founded based on BJ’s graduate work at Stanford University in the Advanced Energy Systems Lab with Professor Chris Edwards, which culminated in an M.S. in 2011 and a Ph.D. in 2015, both in Mechanical Engineering. His work focused on developing ways to significantly increase the performance of, and reduce emissions from, internal combustion engines for medium- and heavy-duty applications. The research centered on the use of alcohol fuels—due to their low-cost, clean-burning properties—which he used to demonstrate an unparalleled combination of high performance and low emissions. BJ was the lead inventor on a patent filed by Stanford University on this work, which now forms the center of ClearFlame’s IP. While at Stanford, BJ was supported by fellowships from the National Science Foundation and Achievement Rewards for College Scientists organization.

As CEO of ClearFlame, BJ helped to secure a position in the Chain Reaction Innovations program at Argonne National Laboratory, which provided ClearFlame with salaries, access to lab equipment and scientists, and public research funding from the Department of Energy. BJ has worked to obtain other competitive, non-dilutive grants for ClearFlame, including Small Business Innovation Research awards from the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and Department of Agriculture, along with a Technology Transfer grant from Stanford. BJ has also garnered additional fellowship support from the Echoing Green Foundation and the Straubel Foundation.

At ClearFlame, BJ has demonstrated his leadership by obtaining investors and strategic partners to assist in the development and deployment of the ClearFlame technology, in order to provide cleaner and more powerful engine solutions for the diesel sector. This includes support from the U.S. biofuels sector, where ClearFlame was named as of the “Next 50” upcoming companies by the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference. Experts from both the public and private sectors have been excited to back ClearFlame, because they realize the advantages that alternative-fuel heavy-duty engines offer compared to the leading alternatives.

BJ is originally from Seattle, Washington, and moved to Palo Alto, California to attend Stanford University as an undergrad—completing a B.S. with Distinction in Mechanical Engineering in 2009. While at Stanford he was a member of the Varsity swim team, which annually competed for national championships. BJ has also competed in swimming as a member of the U.S. National Team at the 2013 and 2014 World Championships, the 2015 Pan American Games, and the 2017 Maccabiah Games.

Pete Johnson

Pete is a Partner with Azimuth Capital.  His responsibilities include developing investment hypotheses in the changing energy landscape, origination of new investment opportunities, performing strategic, technical, and financial due diligence, and guiding existing portfolio companies.  Pete runs the Firm’s SF Bay Area office and focuses on investments in energy and materials technology and infrastructure.

Prior to joining Azimuth, Pete was Co-Founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer of Monolith Materials, Inc., a company that secured, developed, and commercialized technology for producing industrial grade hydrogen and carbon materials from natural gas with significant environmental and economic advantages over incumbent methods.  Monolith is now constructing a commercial facility in Nebraska and is considered the gold standard for new technology in the carbon materials industry.  Prior to forming Monolith, Pete led engineering and product development for AREVA Solar and spearheaded the manufacturing and construction of a 125 MW solar plant in Rajasthan, India after successfully merging the company Ausra with AREVA.

Pete received a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.  Prior to that he graduated Summa cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Utah.  He is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California and is an inventor on 12 patents.  He serves as an advisor to multiple companies in the energy and material space as well as to the US Department of Energy.

Danielle Joseph

Danielle is an Executive Director at Closed Loop Partners, responsible for leading Closed Loop Ventures – an investment fund focused on catalyzing solutions for the circular economy. She oversees investments in advanced manufacturing, material science, and sustainable consumer goods companies, specifically in recycling, textiles & apparel, food & agriculture, and supply chain optimization verticals.

Prior to Closed Loop Partners, Danielle was investing later-stage growth equity and project finance capital with NewWorld Capital Group, Invex Infraestructura and Queensland Investment Corporation.

Danielle earned her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and her BA from Pomona College.

Ron Kent

Sila Kiliccote

Sila Kiliccote is the CEO and co-founder of eIQ Mobility. Prior to that at Stanford University she was the Managing Director of Grid Innovations at Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and the leader of Grid Integration, Systems and Mobility (GISMo) department at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. She was also the principal investigator for big data analytics projects for distributed energy resource integration with distribution grid. Prior to joining SLAC, she was a demand response expert at Google. She also spent over 10 years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a deputy of the Demand Response Research Center and led the grid integration initiatives. Sila served as the Co-Chair of the ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings in 2014. Sila received SLAC’s Director’s Award in 2017, C3E Research Leadership Award in 2014 and GridWeek Leadership in Smart Grid Acceleration Award in 2010.

Steven Kloos

Steve Kloos is a Partner with True North Venture Partners, a Chicago-based firm that invests in early stage disruptive innovations in cleantech and supports those companies on their journey to transform and lead global industries over time.

Steve is the Chairman of the board of Current, a non-profit platform for water innovation, he serves on the ImagineH2O Advisory Board, and is as a judge for the Global Cleantech 100. Steve has also advised the Singapore government on water issues, trends, and research.

Prior to joining True North, Steve worked in various R&D roles at General Electric in the US and Asia, including serving as Advanced Technology Leader, being an active member of GE’s venture capital team, founding and leading GE’s Singapore Water Technology Centre at NUS and founding and leading GE’s water R&D team in Shanghai. Steve started his career at Osmonics doing membrane R&D and he holds a PhD in Chemistry from North Dakota State University.

Ajay Kochhar

What happens to an electric vehicle battery when it dies?   As rechargeable lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries continue to play an increasingly vital role in our society, there is an urgent need for a safe, sustainable and economically viable end-of-lifecycle pathway for these batteries. Since 2016, Ajay Kochhar has led the successful scale-up of Li-Cycle to address this urgent global challenge and opportunity. The company is now the largest commercial lithium-ion battery recycler in North America. Li-Cycle is now at another inflection point – on the verge of an international expansion.

Prior to Li-Cycle, Ajay gained deep technology and project development experience through progressive roles with Hatch’s Industrial Clean Tech and Advisory practices. While working in the Industrial Clean Tech practice, Ajay gained in-depth engineering and project management experience through clean technology development in the lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, gold, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and rare earth metals industries. His technical expertise spans the entire project lifecycle, from conceptual and pre-feasibility studies to construction and commissioning. Following his work in the industrial clean tech engineering field, Ajay worked as a Management Consultant with Hatch’s Advisory practice. In this role, he led teams to deliver financial and technical reviews of multi-billion-dollar investment opportunities, including technologies and assets across the li-ion battery value chain.

Ajay originally graduated from the University of Toronto in Chemical Engineering with honours. Ajay comes from entrepreneurial roots with family business experience gained from a young age.

Lenka Kollar

Simon Koopmann

Dr. Simon Koopmann is one of the co-founders and CEO of envelio. envelio is a spin-off from RWTH Aachen University in Germany and provides a smart grids software platform for distribution grid operators based on innovative optimization and machine learning algorithms. Before co-founding envelio, Simon previously has received his diploma and PhD degree from RWTH Aachen University, the leading European energy research institution, where he was also Head of the Distributed Energy Systems research group.

Ran Korber

Toby Kraus

Toby leads Proterra’s Proterra Powered business deploying Proterra’s heavy-duty electric vehicle technology into other commercial vehicle manufacturer’s platforms and supporting those manufacturer’s in the commercialization of electric vehicles within their product portfolio. Previously, Toby led Proterra’s Finance & Strategy team as Proterra scaled from initial customer deployments to over 100 customers across the United States and Canada. Prior to Proterra Toby spent six years at Tesla where he held several roles including overseeing Tesla’s Business Operations team and leading product management for the Model S. Toby began his career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Economics from Duke University.

Kevin Kuhn

Mr. Kuhn is currently a Vice President of Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas) and General Manager of the Silicon Valley Office. In this capacity he leads a team that is focused on bringing new technologies and business models into Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas) and its’ affiliates. He has 30 years of experience with Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas) and Mitsubishi International Corporation. Since 2005, Mr. Kuhn’s work has focused on the evaluation and early execution of investment and business opportunities for Mitsubishi International Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas). His specialty is cleantech where he has worked with food, energy and power related technologies.

Philippe Lacamp

Philippe Lacamp was appointed Senior Vice President, Americas in 2015. He oversees all facets of operations and commercial activities in the Americas and has been instrumental in leading Cathay Pacific’s CSR and sustainability initiatives in North America. Previously, he spent five years as Head of Sustainable Development for Swire Pacific and John Swire & Sons, covering a range of industries including aviation, shipping, and marine services, property development, beverages, and agri-business. In that role, he established an investment unit investing in biotech companies and also ran Swire Waste Management Ltd, a joint venture operating company within the Swire group.

Severine Lalande

Severine Lalande is a Principal at Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures, the venture arm of the global energy group Total. TCNV identifies startups whose expertise can help create responsible energy options, supports their growth and fosters collaborations with Total. TCNV is active in the low carbon energy and mobility sectors.

Oliver Lang

Claude Letourneau

James Larsen

James has over 15 years of business leadership and engineering experience spanning cleantech and startups, strategy and operations, and design and engineering.

Most recently, James was a Director with the Advanced Energy Centre (part of MaRS Discovery District) where he built a novel Products & Services business line. Within 2 years, he grew this business from initial concept to over $1.2MM in sales and expanded its global reach to include 5 international markets. Prior to MaRS, James was a Management Consultant with Bain & Company, a top-tier consulting firm, developing strategic solutions for market-leading companies in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. James also possesses deep experience as an engineer working in the renewable energy industry with a variety of technologies, including hydrogen fuel cells, as well as micro-hydro and geothermal generation.

James holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (with Honours) from Queen’s University and an MBA (Dean’s List) from the Ivey Business School at Western University. James is also a registered Professional Engineer.

Wal van Lierop

Wal is an industrial technology veteran with unique industry insight gained through deep operational experience as a venture capitalist, corporate executive, top international consultant and a university professor. Since co-founding Chrysalix in 2001, Wal has sourced, invested in and advised numerous startups building innovative solutions for the new world economy – often while working hand-in-hand with large multinational companies on their sustainable innovation strategies. Wal is a specialist in maximizing returns from bringing innovative solutions to the world’s largest industries that are in transition including: oil and gas, power and utilities, mining and metals, chemicals and materials, and automation and manufacturing.

Prior to founding Chrysalix, Wal spent six years as the Vice President of Strategic Planning at Westcoast Energy (at the time one of the largest Canadian energy companies) with a strong focus on innovation and venturing. He also advised energy, chemicals and financial services blue chip companies on innovation and change management while working for more than seven years with McKinsey & Company. Before officially joining the corporate world, Wal worked for almost a decade as an Associate Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam doing research in economics, econometrics and the environment, and consulting with businesses, governments and major international institutions including the World Bank and European Union. He has an extensive teaching background in venture capital and entrepreneurial finance, and change management through associate professorships at the University of British Columbia (2000-2008) and Simon Fraser University (1995 – 2002).

With a long standing passion for sustainable innovation, Wal has founded or co-founded several new ventures and clean energy organizations including New Ventures BC and SET Ventures in Amsterdam as part of the Chrysalix Global Network, which he assisted GRC from China in joining as well. He is a long standing member of the Cleantech Group’s Advisory Board, leader of the BC Cleantech CEO Alliance, 2014 Canadian “Clean16” honoree, co-founder of the BC 2030 Tech-Hub initiative, member of the regional sustainability council and a member of the Vancouver “Renewable City Action Team” and frequent political advisor.

Wal holds a PhD in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and has completed executive training in Change Management from MIT. He is a passionate advocate for innovation and sustainability, author of several books and scientific articles, and can regularly be seen contributing to articles in the international media as well as speaking at industry conferences around the world – from being a key business speaker during the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games to debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at GLOBE2014, to giving innovation speeches at high profile events including Oil and Money and Energy for Tomorrow.

Rachel Major

Rachel has degrees in biology, chemistry, and management and is an avid tinkerer and writer. She’s dedicated to creating practical, scalable solutions for a circular economy through the creative combination of bioengineering and do-it-yourself tech.

Sabrina Malpede

Taku Matsumoto

Tom McDonald

Thomas M. McDonald is the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of Mosaic Materials, a Berkeley, California based materials startup. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley under the guidance of Prof. Jeffry R. Long and his B.A. in chemistry from Northwestern University. Dr. McDonald is an expert in the design, synthesis, and use of amine-functionalized solid adsorbents and metal-organic frameworks for gas separations.

Jeff McKinnon

Taylor McNair

Taylor is responsible for GridLab’s communication and project management efforts, as well as operations and administration. Prior to GridLab, Taylor worked at Bright Power Inc., a leading provider of energy management services throughout the U.S. At Bright Power, Taylor supported a team of energy analysts, engineers, and software developers in delivering utility bill analysis to enable energy and water saving measures.

Taylor has a background in a range of clean energy technologies, and a passion for renewable energy development and climate change mitigation.

Taylor graduated from Emory University with a BBA from the Goizueta Business School and a double major in Environmental Sciences.

Andrée-Lise Méthot

Andrée-Lise Méthot is the Founder and Managing Partner of Cycle Capital Management, an impact investor and the most active cleantech venture capital platform in Canada. She has over 25 years of experience in venture capital, management and engineering. In the last few years, she has fundraised almost $400M from strategic and industrial players and she recently closed a fund with a strategic institutional investor in China.

Andrée-Lise serves on many boards of directors for public and private companies, including some of CCM’s portfolio companies. She is the co-founder and Chair of the Ecofuel Accelerator, for which she also championed the Ecofuel Fund. She sits on the Board of directors of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), Transition énergétique Québec (TEQ) and Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI). She also co-founded Écotech Québec, the Quebec cleantech cluster and SWITCH, the Alliance for a green economy.

Andrée-Lise sits on the North-American advisory Board of the Cleantech Group, the selection committee of Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance’s New Energy Pioneers, the Private Sector Advisory Board for the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada and the External Advisory Committee to the Vice Principal Research and International Relations at McGill University. She co-chaired a Task Force under the auspices of the UNEP and the SETAC on the Life Cycle Initiative. She sat on various recognition committees, including the Grand prix du Génie Québécois, the Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards, and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year contest.

Andrée-Lise was recognized as one of Canada’s Clean16, named one of the Top 20 cleantech investors by CleanTechnica and amongst the most influential women in sustainable development and in the cleantech industry by Corporate Knight.

Valery Miftakhov

Trent Molter

Dr. Trent Molter has been active in the hydrogen and fuel cell community since 1984. Dr. Molter has developed proton exchange membrane based products for commercial hydrogen production, automotive power and fueling, space and military life support, aircraft environmental control, space propulsion. He lead the technology transfer of GE’s Direct Energy Conversion Operation to United Technologies Corporation. Dr. Molter co-founded Proton Energy Systems, Inc. in 1996 to commercialize PEM electrolyzers and regenerative fuel cells. He was instrumental in Proton’s growth to a publicly traded company with over 140 employees, $160 million in cash and a market capitalization of nearly $1 billion. He is listed as an inventor on over thirty patents for various electrochemical and other novel devices and materials. Dr. Molter holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University, an M.S. in Metallurgy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Connecticut.

Hanif Montazeri

Dr. Hanif Montazeri is the CEO and co-founder of Enersion Incorporation. He has a PhD in Computational Physics from the University of Toronto, where he is also an adjunct faculty member. Prior to Enersion, he co-founded two other companies, NuPhysics and Lantern Institute. Lantern Institute is an expanding and revenue generating company in information technology sector.

Molly Morse

Dr. Molly Morse is the CEO and co-founder of Mango Materials, a San Francisco Bay Area-based start-up company that uses wastewater treatment plant methane gas to manufacture biodegradable materials. Her vision of the future involves the proliferation of anaerobic digestion so that methane can be used to make electricity, fuels, and materials – creating local regions of economic resiliency.

Molly received her Ph.D from Stanford University and her B.S. from Cornell University. Dr. Morse has contributed to multiple patents, publications and presentations.  Along with other Mango Materials team members, she is currently working to up-scale the biomanufacturing technology of using methane gas to produce biodegradable materials. Their current focus is on the production of waste-derived biopolymers that can be used as fibers for the textile and fashion industry.

Christine Moseley

Christine Moseley, Full Harvest Founder + CEO, is a passionate serial social entrepreneur. Currently, at Full Harvest, she is solving the massive food waste problem at the farm level. Full Harvest is the first B2B marketplace for surplus and imperfect produce, connecting food & beverage companies directly to farms with produce that would otherwise go to waste.

Christine has over 15 years of experience in the logistics and food industries at both Fortune 100 companies (Maersk, P&G) as well as high-growth food start-ups. In her last corporate role, she assisted Organic Avenue, an NYC healthy food + juice start-up, double in size as Head of Strategic Projects and Business Development.

Christine holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and a BA from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. She was recently recognized as Inc.’s Top 100 Female Founders and Fortune’s #2 ‘Most Innovative Woman in Food & Drink.’ Full Harvest was named one of Forbes’ ‘Most Innovative Agtech Startups.’

Juan Muldoon

Juan brings nearly a decade of experience in finance and investing. He is integral to all aspects of the Fund’s operations, including leading sourcing efforts, developing investment theses, driving diligence of potential investments, and supporting and monitoring portfolio companies. Previously, Juan worked at J.P. Morgan, where his work ranged from business analysis and research to advising institutional investors on portfolio allocation and private investments.

Juan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from the University of Notre Dame, magna cum laude.

Juan currently sits on the Board of Directors for Nozomi Networks, Aquilon and Zededa.

Elizabeth Muller

Elizabeth is Co-Founder and CEO of Deep Isolation, a start-up company providing a safe and permanent solution for nuclear waste disposal. She is also Co-Founder and Executive Director of Berkeley Earth, a public-benefit organization using modern statistical techniques to study and address major environmental concerns such as global warming and air pollution.

Previously, she was Director at Gov3 (now CS Transform) and Executive Director of the Gov3 Foundation. From 2000 to 2005 she was a policy advisor at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Elizabeth has advised governments in over 30 countries, leading projects on improving government effectiveness, organizational change, citizen centricity, the digital divide, and developing national strategies for e-Government and ICT.

Elizabeth studied at the University of California, San Diego. After receiving degrees in both mathematics and in literature, she went onto study at École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris where she received her Masters in International Management.

Mina Nada

Sam Nagar

Pixeom’s founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sam Nagar has led the company and its solutions to become the market-leading Edge computing software platform, both by number of deployments and revenue. A visionary entrepreneur and technologist, throughout his career Sam has focused on key growth areas including Edge computing, cloud, IoT, operating systems, virtualization, and distributed computing and is now the youngest CEO in the Edge computing world.

As Pixeom’s CEO, Sam’s business philosophy boils down to a belief that by committing to a software platform that is hardware, operating system and cloud agnostic, today’s revolution in Edge computing can open the door for enterprises to benefit from significant cost reductions, more efficient transfer of data and a truly responsive user experience.

Prior to joining Pixeom, Sam was a software engineer at Microsoft where he worked on Hyper-V and PowerShell, developing the large scale virtualization and management capabilities of Windows Server.

Sam has a B.S. undergraduate studies in computer engineering and computer science from the University of Southern California (USC). Originally from Boston, Sam resides in Northern California with his wife.

Urvi Nagrani

Urvi Nagrani is an expert in medium & heavy-duty EV applications, sustainability planning, and the market policy landscape. She is a board advisor with eIQ Mobility working on electric fleet management and consultant working with a variety of companies in the electrification space. She was previously Director of Business Development at Motiv Power Systems where she spent over 6 years helping scale the team from prototype to commercial product. There she led all state and federal policy, was the first person to ever secure an electric chassis certification from the California Air Resources Board and led business development including securing millions of dollars in state grants. She has a B.A. in Film & Media Studies from UC Santa Barbara and an A.A. in History from Foothill College.

Robert Niven

Rob Niven is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Canadian company CarbonCure Technologies, the global leader in carbon dioxide removal technologies for the concrete industry and Cleantech Group’s 2020 North American Cleantech Company of the Year. Rob has the simple goal of making concrete sustainability both profitable and easy for industry. Under his direction, CarbonCure and its partners are achieving their mission to reduce 500 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Rob has received countless international awards recognizing his leadership in sustainability, innovation and technology development including the Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, the 2016 Ernest C. Manning Innovation Award, the Cleantech Group’s Top 100 Global Cleantech Companies and the BloombergNEF New Energy Pioneers Award. Rob holds an MSc in Environmental Engineering from McGill University and a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

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.

Carl Page

Carl Page is currently President of the Anthropocene Institute. He is a highly sought after entrepreneur, an advisor to technology, internet marketing, and emerging clean-tech companies, as well as a prominent investor in both hi-tech and clean-tech ventures. A highly skilled computer scientist and clean technologist, Mr. Page was a co-founder of E-Groups, which later became Yahoo Groups.

Kaustubh Pandya

Shimrit Perkol-Finkel

Nancy Pfund

Nancy E. Pfund is Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners, a venture capital firm whose goal is to combine top-tier financial returns with meaningful social, economic and environmental returns in the regions and sectors in which it invests. As a leading player in impact investing, DBL has helped to reveal the power of venture capital to promote social change and environmental improvement, and Ms. Pfund writes and speaks frequently on the field of impact investing. She sponsors or sits on the board of directors of several companies, including; Farmers Business Network, The Muse, Advanced Microgrid Solutions, Zola Electric, Andela, Bellwether Coffee, Spatial, Primus Power and, prior to their public offerings, Tesla Motors and Pandora. She also served on the board of SolarCity, and was on both the audit and compensation committees, and also chair of the corporate governance committee from 2008 until its acquisition by Tesla in December 2016.

Ms. Pfund was a recipient of The Commonwealth Club 2018 Distinguished Citizen Award; and Earth Day Network 2018 Climate Visionary Award. She was also featured #17 in the 2014 FORTUNE Inaugural World’s Top 25 Eco-Innovators; and appeared on Fast Company’s 2016 List of Most Creative People in Business. Ms. Pfund serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society; is a member and Chapter Chair of Women Corporate Directors (WCD) Foundation Silicon Valley; is a member and former chair of the Advisory Council of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University; an advisor for the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency; and co-chairs the Yale School of Management Program on Entrepreneurship. She has been a Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Yale School of Management; and is a C3E Ambassador to the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Program, led by the U.S. Department of Energy. From 2001-2019, she was also a founding officer and director of ABC2, a foundation aimed at accelerating a cure for brain cancer.

Ms. Pfund received her BA and MA in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Bertrand Piccard

Born into a family of scientific explorers, Bertrand Piccard has made history by completing two round-the-world flights: non-stop in a balloon and more recently without any fuel in the Solar Impulse airplane.

With this last achievement, Bertrand’s goal was to demonstrate how clean technologies and renewable energy can achieve the impossible. As a second phase of his vision, and with the Solar Impulse Foundation, he launched the challenge of selecting 1’000 profitable solutions that protect the environment in order to encourage decision-makers to adopt more ambitious environmental targets and energy policies.

One of the first to envision ecology through the lens of profitability, he urges for the uptake of clean and efficient technologies because they are logical rather than just ecological. Even if climate change didn’t exist, they would make sense, as they represent the biggest industrial market of the century. According to him, innovation and pioneering spirit are key to solve the most pressing challenge of our times: ensuring the quality of life on Earth.

Minerva Pillai

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.

Ryan Pletka

Ryan Pletka is a founding member of Black & Veatch’s Growth Accelerator team, whose mission is to drive rapid, sustainable growth for the company. Responsibilities include identification of new trends, evaluation of emerging technologies, development of new business models, and establishing partnerships with internal and external entrepreneurs. Focus areas include energy, artificial intelligence, distributed infrastructure, remote sensing, and climate change.

Prior to his current role, Ryan worked in renewable, distributed, and advanced energy technologies for nearly 20 years.  He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University. He is a registered Professional Engineer.

Keith Pronske

Keith is President and CEO of Clean Energy Systems, a Sacramento-based alternative energy company using high-pressure, oxygen-fuel combustion technology to produce power without pollution.  He has more than 30 years experience in the power industry in North America, South America and Europe. He previously served as Vice President of Business Development for Belgian-based Tractebel SA, now part of Engie, and prior to that worked for the AES Corporation, one of the largest independent power companies. Keith has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Davis, and a Masters in Business Administration from San Francisco State University.

Russell Pullan

Russell has over 25 years’ international experience in the low-carbon sector, as serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist & board director. Russell has helped to build and run over $1 billion of companies, projects and venture capital funds for Carbon Trust, Nomura, Saudi Aramco and UK Green Investment Bank – Sustainable Development Capital. He is also a member of Toniic Impact Investors and a Director of the Sustainable Business Network for Young Presidents Organization (YPO).

From his VC roots in London, Russ is now based in Toronto where he is leading Havelaar, a trail-blazing, eMobility technology company in Toronto. Havelaar’s next-gen powertrains act as the beating heart of electric vehicles, and its customers – leading electric vehicle manufacturers – are using Havelaar technology to cut charging times and charging cost, while extending battery life.

Anna Rath

Ramya Ravichandar

Ramya Ravichandar heads Product Management at FogHorn. She is a seasoned leader in emerging markets, with a track record of creating value. She brings a rare combination of technical expertise in real time analytics, machine learning, AI, and valuable experience in Industrial IOT.  Ramya has a PhD in Computer Science from Virginia Tech.

Jonathan Rhone

Jonathan is an award-winning, serial cleantech entrepreneur. In his current role as CEO of Axine Water Technologies, he’s scaling-up the company to revolutionize industrial wastewater treatment and address a global environmental problem. He’s also a founder and director of Evok Innovations, a $100 million cleantech venture fund with a mission to transform the energy value chain. Jonathan is the founder and former CEO of Nexterra Systems a global supplier of waste-to-energy systems. Prior to Nexterra, he held leadership positions with a NASDAQ-listed cleantech company, and the Delphi Group, an international consultancy. He began his career in oil and gas with Amoco Canada (now BP).

Jonathan chairs the BC Cleantech CEO Alliance. He is a past board member of Vancity Capital, the venture financing subsidiary of Vancity. He is a past member of the BC Premier’s Technology Council and has sat on a number of private and public sector advisory boards. In 2009, he was recognized as Technology Industry Person of the Year by the BC Technology Industry Association. In 2020, he was recognized as Industry Icon by the BC Cleantech Industry.

Timothy Robards

Timothy Robards is a Division Chief with the Climate & Energy Program of the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). He is a California licensed forester with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley specializing in forest biometrics and climate change effects on forests. Dr. Robards is a 21-year veteran of CAL FIRE where he has served as a sustained yield forester, manager of research on the California Demonstration State Forests, and assistant program manager of the Fire & Resources Assessment Program. He currently is the administrator of the Forest Health Program grants and is focused on expanding the wood products industry in California.

Dr. Robards has devoted a decade in the private sector serving as principal in an environmental think tank and was a key team member growing the U.S. office of an international timberland investments firm. As a public servant Dr. Robards helped to develop the Forest Carbon Offset Protocol used in the California cap and trade program. In the private sector, he developed about a million acres of forest carbon projects around the United States.

Amrit Robbins

Amrit and Anthony Diamond co-founded Axiom Exergy in 2014 to commercialize a cost-effective, active power management solution for buildings with large thermal loads. They believe that the last remaining barrier to a renewable energy future is not cheaper solar panels, cheaper wind turbines, or cheaper electric vehicles – instead, it is solving the grid volatility that these new technologies create. They developed the Axiom platform to unlock flexibility in existing thermal systems and manage it intelligently to help mitigate grid volatility (at the building level). As Axiom’s CEO, Amrit developed the company’s product market-fit, helped build a world-class team, co-led early technology development, sold the first pilots to Amazon/Whole Foods and Walmart, helped develop a sales pipeline of over $30MM with multiple national cold chain companies, and led Axiom Exergy through multiple rounds of fundraising. He was included in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list in 2017.

Prior to Axiom, Amrit worked for three years at Clark Energy Group (CEG), where he co-led the sales, development, and engineering of a $100MM energy efficiency retrofit project for a national supermarket chain. The project included a broad set of energy and water upgrades in 74 supermarkets, but it could not effectively address the single-largest portion of the supermarkets’ energy bills: refrigeration. Amrit ultimately left CEG to solve this painful problem. While at CEG, he also co-led the development of a $13MM energy efficiency project, helped craft the go-to-market strategy for new market verticals, and helped to grow the company’s sales pipeline by over $80MM.

Amrit earned his B.S. in Atmosphere/Energy Engineering at Stanford University. He has relevant domain experience in sales, project management, business development, and engineering. He is a Certified Energy Manager (Association of Energy Engineers) and a jazz/reggae/funk/salsa trumpet player.

Cole Roberts

Diego Saez-Gil

Reyad Sawafta

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.

Matt Schwartz

How can we tilt our food system to improve human and environmental health? This question is the motivating force for my career. From formulating healthier snack foods and studying grocery stores, to attending Stanford to study business, food, and agriculture, my appetite for impact in this field is insatiable. In my humble opinion, I think the grocery industry is totally underappreciated. Grocers are the cornerstone of most communities and the industry is titanic in size. I think it’s a true privilege to work with our partners and do my best to deliver solutions that improve their businesses, the communities they serve, and the health of our environment.

Vincent Sciandra

Young and ambitious CEO, Vincent Sciandra, is a Computer Science Ph.D. holder, and a research engineer, owning a diploma from the Ecole Centrale d’Electronique (Central School of Electronics) of Paris and the Gaspard Monge Computer Laboratory at the University of Paris Est.

Bringing a deep multicultural background in engineering and technology to his current position at METRON, his previous professional background includes many years of expertise in the energy industry, most notably at Veolia and Transdev where he managed key projects on mobility and more.

Stirred by many challenges in the energy industry, Vincent Sciandra completed his Ph.D. in ITS ( Intelligent Transportation Systems) and founded the international company METRON in 2013, to envision creating a digital solution helping industrial energy providers better manage their energy consumption in the most sustainable and efficient way.

With more than 100 employees worldwide based, METRON leverages the impact of AI and big data to usher a new wave of innovation in the energy sector, offering a game changing energy intelligence platform.

Andrew Shakman

Since co-founding Leanpath in 2004, Andrew has been working at the front lines of behavior change and is an internationally renowned expert in food waste prevention.

Vic Shao

Cassidy Shell

Rachel Slaybaugh

Dr. Rachel Slaybaugh currently serves as a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Her focus at ARPA-E includes a wide range of technologies to enable advanced nuclear reactor systems.

Slaybaugh is also an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. There, she researches numerical methods for neutral particle transport with an emphasis on supercomputing and advanced architectures. Her research applies to reactor design, shielding, and nuclear security and non-proliferation. Slaybaugh also runs the Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp to train the next generation of people working on nuclear energy. She was appointed to the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee and she serves as a Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute.

Slaybaugh earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and engineering physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a B.S. in nuclear engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Erik Snyder

Erik Snyder’s acumen for business and love of the environment led him to be co-founder of the Drawdown Fund in 2018. The Drawdown Fund invests growth capital to scale technologies and businesses that reverse global warming by sequestering CO2 or reducing emissions. The Drawdown Fund was co-founded by Paul Hawken and follows the strategy laid out in the New York Times Best-seller: “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan to Reverse Global Warming.”

Prior to the Drawdown Fund, Erik worked on investments held by GLE Capital, a global multi-family office and was CEO of Armada Skis. Erik received his MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) where he was a recipient of the Rock Entrepreneurial Fellowship. Before HBS, Erik worked at Partners Capital Investment Group managing a multi-asset class hedge fund and overseeing private equity investments. Erik’s corporate career began with PRTM Management Consultants after graduating from Cornell University with Honors.

Erik’s background is as diverse as his passions. He has been involved in a number of successful entrepreneurial enterprises, worked for a non-profit in Nepal, was a climbing guide in Mexico, and played professional soccer in Bolivia. Outside of work, Erik spends his time being as active as possible with his wife, Julie, and two boys, Jake (9) and Nate (6). You might find him running through the mountains preparing for an ultra-marathon or skiing in a remote part of the world. Regardless of the adventure, Erik always enjoys coming home to Park City for Sunday brunch with his family.

Rich Sorkin

During his three-decade-long career as a serial entrepreneur, executive, advisor, board member and investor, Mr. Rich Sorkin has led breakthrough companies in numerous industries. Mr. Sorkin focuses on commercializing transformative technologies, with a significant concentration on energy, financial services, the environment, media and politics. A founder of multiple startups, his companies have pioneered the use of satellite data and scalable cloud computing to predict weather events for commodity traders and applied analytics to detect identity theft. In his capacity as CEO of Jupiter, Mr. Sorkin testified before the United States Congress’ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; cofounded the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (CCRI); has served as a member of the climate risk working group of McKinsey & Company; and been a keynote speaker at major global events including the 2019 Amsterdam International Water Week.

Mr. Sorkin is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Zip2, an Internet 1.0 company best known for analytics and visualization of geospatial data (acquired by HP for over $300 million). He served as president of Kaggle prior to its acquisition by Google, leading the introduction of big data predictive analytics into the enterprise market and serving as the company’s premier industry strategist.

Mr. Sorkin began his career as a consultant at Bain & Company. Before moving to Silicon Valley to focus on leading technology companies, he helped initiate research of the supercomputer industry at Goldman Sachs. After graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Lockheed Scholar, he ran the Sound Blaster business at Creative Labs during the time it gained market dominance, growing revenues from under $100M to close to $1 billion.
In addition to Stanford, Mr. Sorkin is an alumnus of Yale University. He has served as a board member at publicly traded companies, private firms, the Yale University Development Board, and several non-profit organizations.

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.

Aleks Strub

Aleks Strub is the Chief Marketing Officer at Imperfect. Having been in the food tech space for a number of years, she enjoys challenging the public perception of ugly food and bringing it to life with googly eyes. Imperfect is an online grocer creating a more sustainable and effective food system to better our communities and the environment. The company sources imperfect produce and surplus food directly from farmers, growers and food purveyors and delivers these goods directly to customers’ doors through a customizable subscription service.

Decai Sun

Chris Sworder

Pradeep Tagare

Alex Tavasoli

Alex Tavasoli is the founder and CEO of Solistra, which is commercializing a process to make clean hydrogen out of methane and CO2 using a light-activated nanomaterial that requires zero water and requires substantially less energy. Part of the University of Toronto Solar Fuels Group and a Junior Fellow of Massey College, Alex is also a finalist in the MaRS-NRCan Women In Cleantech Challenge.

Kristin Taylor

Kristin Taylor, CEO and Co-founder of Radical Plastics, has a Masters Degree in Plastics Engineering and over 25 years’ experience in the plastics industry.  Ms. Taylor has served in technical, sales, business development and management roles in several multinational organizations including ExxonMobil Chemical (OPP Packaging Films Division), Metabolix Bioplastics, Sabic and Huntsman Corporation. She has extensive experience in market development for commodity, engineering and biobased / biodegradable plastics and has worked with major brand owners such as P&G, Colgate Palmolive, Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Aveda, Nike and Newell Rubbermaid to bring award-winning products to market.  In her spare time, Ms. Taylor enjoys long distance running and has completed marathons in six countries including all of the World Marathon Majors.

Geoffrey Tauvette

Geoffrey Tauvette is Director, Fuel and Environment at WestJet and has over 20 years of experience in the aviation fuel and environment industry. He leads a team that procures and oversees the safe delivery of 1.5 billion litres of jet fuel annually into all WestJet aircraft and manages WestJet’s environmental sustainability approach through environmental compliance, implementing climate change strategies, advancing the use of alternative fuels and using resources responsibly.

Karsten Temme

For years, Karsten has been fascinated with the limitless potential of the unseen microbes that inhabit our world. While earning his Ph.D. at University of California, San Francisco, his graduate research focused on enhancing the nitrogen-fixing potential of soil-borne microbes. Seeking to produce “more than scientific journal articles” and driven by the desire to create meaningful change in the world, Karsten partnered with his friend and colleague, Alvin Tamsir, to create Pivot Bio.

Luka Tomljenovic

Luka is a Partner at Radius Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund investing in advanced aerial mobility – disruptive technologies and business models shaping the future of aerospace and related industries. Prior to joining the fund, Luka was a Partner at Airbus Ventures where he led a wide range of frontier technology investments. Before Airbus, Luka was manager of corporate development at Aptiv, an automotive Tier 1 supplier, where he gained experience in financial planning, analysis, business development, and M&A. Prior to Aptiv, Luka flew as a fighter pilot in the Croatian Air Force.
Luka is an Aeronautical Engineering graduate from the United States Air Force Academy, and holds an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

Zoltan Tompa

For the past 15 years Zoltan has been working at the nexus of Cleantech innovation and investment. He is currently Director, Cleantech Practice at BDC where he is responsible for leading equity investments and growth financing transactions, as well as serving on the Board of several portfolio companies. Zoltan joined BDC in 2016 to help lead the design and implementation of the Cleantech Practice and its $600M growth capital platform that was purpose-built to help leading Cleantech firms reach scale and profitability. Prior to joining BDC, Zoltan spent over 10 years at Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a $1-billion clean technology fund. As Director, Strategy and Market Alliances, he led SDTC’s four regional offices, oversaw a suite of market acceleration programs that mobilized follow-on investments, established commercial partnerships and facilitated market access for SDTC portfolio companies. Earlier as Director, Applications & Dealflow, he screened over a thousand investment opportunities and was directly involved in over $350M of investments. Earlier in his career he was the first non-founding employee at venture-backed startup Infotriever and Product Manager for a $2B small business credit portfolio at CIBC. 

Bradley Wamboldt

Bradley was appointed General Manager, Enterprise Technology in 2017. He supports the enterprise-wide development and commercialization of disruptive technologies in the areas of improved sustainability of the existing oil sands-to-product value chain, zero-emissions industrial power generation and alternative (renewable) liquid fuels. Prior to this appointment, he held a number of technical, operational and functional leadership roles in the company.

Before joining Suncor in 2003, Bradley worked for Shell Canada Ltd., where he held various roles in conventional oil and gas and in oil sands.

Tim Wang

Tim joined the Westly Group in 2016 and helps manage the firm’s deal flow and due diligence process. Prior to joining the Westly Group, Tim was a co-founder and Head of Business Development at a China-based financial technology start-up, ChinaScope, where he raised $5M from Moody’s Corporation. Tim began his career as an analyst at S&P Capital IQ, a leading financial data provider for financial institutions and advisory firms. Tim worked with the Client Development team out of their New York office before moving to Hong Kong to initiate and lead their Asia go-to-market efforts and building a team that would manage relationships with all of Capital IQ’s clients and prospects in the region.

Tim has always had a passion for sustainability, focused on the intersection of sustainability, economics and government. Tim holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and an MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business.

Niklas Winter

Niklas Winter manages and owns Swedish Neutral together with his brother Andreas Winter. Niklas and Andreas share the CEO role as Co-CEOs.

Niklas started his career in the family business in young years and has held a number of different positions at the company.

Niklas holds a Master of Law from Stockholm University.

Miriam Wugmeister

Co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s market-leading Global Privacy and Data Security Group and ranked among the top in the profession by all major directories, Ms. Wugmeister is regularly called upon by some of the world’s largest and most complex multinational organizations to confront their most difficult U.S. and international privacy challenges. “Tremendous at helping you come up with practical solutions to real problems” (Chambers USA), she develops cutting-edge solutions for clients that marry legal compliance with business realities.

Having helped hundreds of clients respond to data security incidents, Ms. Wugmeister has worked on several of the most noteworthy and largest data security incidents over the past few years. She has been praised as “clearly operating at the top of her profession; distinguished by her passion, ability to relate to clients, and practical business-minded advice” by Legal 500, which recently named Morrison & Foerster as the 2015 Cyber Crime Firm of the Year. Ms. Wugmeister also works with dozens of companies to develop comprehensive customized incident response plans, training staff, conducting extensive table top exercises, and addressing key issues with Boards of Directors and executive management.

Ms. Wugmeister advises organizations on the planning and execution of complex global compliance efforts, assists in the negotiation of strategic deals, and defends regulatory and litigation matters relating to privacy and data security in the U.S. and internationally. She serves as an arbitrator for the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework Binding Arbitration Program. Ms. Wugmeister regularly advises on data security breach issues; the global collection, use, sharing of employee, customer, vendor, and consumer personal information; ediscovery and monitoring conflicts; social media issues; and cloud computing deals, as well as on developing data security policies and procedures and cybersecurity preparedness and response plans. She also counsels clients on cutting-edge consumer privacy issues surrounding emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), telematics, and big data.

As leader of the Global Privacy Alliance (GPA), Ms. Wugmeister encourages the rational development of privacy laws around the world and monitors privacy practices, laws, and regulations globally. On behalf of the GPA’s members, she takes an active role in anticipating upcoming privacy legislation and educating regulators on the commercial implications of proposed regulations. Ms. Wugmeister developed the firm’s Privacy Library and the MoFoNotes subscription database so that organizations can keep apprised of privacy and data security compliance requirements in jurisdictions around the world. She is also co-editor of Global Employee Privacy and Data Security Law, Second Edition (BNA Books, 2011).

Chambers USA and Chambers Global recommend Ms. Wugmeister in the top tier of privacy and data security lawyers worldwide, and Legal 500 US recognizes her as a leading lawyer for her “professionalism and strong international presence.” For her work in data protection and privacy, Ms. Wugmeister is an inaugural inductee into the 2017 Legal 500 Hall of Fame, which is comprised of outstanding U.S. lawyers who have been recommended as Legal 500 “Leading Lawyers” for the last six consecutive years. In 2016, she was named one of Financial Times’ “Top 10 Innovative Lawyers in North America” and a National Law Journal “Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Trailblazer” for her cutting-edge work in this space.  Ms. Wugmeister was previously designated an Ethisphere “Attorney Who Matters,” and a BTI Client Service All-Star, and has been featured in Best Lawyers in America every year since 2008.

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.

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.

Cathy Zoi

Cathy Zoi is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EVgo. Zoi is a distinguished executive with decades of experience in the clean energy, investing, and policy communities. She is committed to working closely with automotive OEM, new mobility partners, utilities, and other industry stakeholders to deliver an exceptional fast-charging network for EV drivers in the United States and across the world.

Zoi has held a number of senior executive positions in the energy industry, government, academia and non-profit sectors. Most recently, she was President and co-founder of Odyssey Energy, a distributed generation software company she continues to chair. She was founding CEO of Frontier Power, a rural electrification company incubated by SunEdison. Zoi was an energy investor at Silver Lake and Bayard Capital, a board member for Ice Energy, SES, and Pacific Solar, and a management consultant at ICF and Next Energy. She served in the Obama Administration as Assistant Secretary and Acting Under Secretary at the Department of Energy, where she oversaw more than $30 billion in energy investments. Zoi was also the founding CEO of both the Alliance for Climate Protection, established and chaired by U.S. Vice President Al Gore; and the Sustainable Energy Development Authority, a $50m fund to commercialize clean energy technologies in Australia. In the early 1990s, Zoi was Chief of Staff for Environmental Policy in the Clinton White House and she pioneered the Energy Star program while at the U.S. EPA. Zoi was also an adjunct professor and Precourt Energy Scholar at Stanford University, where she taught and did research between 2012 and 2017.

Zoi has a B.S. in Geology from Duke University and an M.S. in Engineering from Dartmouth.

Paul Zorner

Paul leads Locus AG’s strategy, operations and development. Previously he’s been an executive and innovator with 40+ years of international experience in science, R&D, operations and administration, holding leadership positions at multiple organizations including Mycogen Corporation, Dow Chemical, BASF and Diversa Corporation.

Gregory Zuboff

Greg is a Vice President at WindSail Capital Group, a Boston-based investment firm that provides growth capital to companies advancing energy innovation and sustainability across a wide range of industries.  Greg focuses on new investment execution, underwriting and sourcing. Since joining WindSail in 2014, Greg has led or participated in over twenty investments. Prior to joining WindSail, Greg worked at the Bank of New York Mellon and PHOTON Consulting, a boutique solar energy consulting firm.  Greg received a B.S. from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.  He currently lives in Boston, MA.