Dick Alexander

Dick Alexander oversees business development efforts for Transdev North America and has helped the business grow to $1.6 billion in revenues over his 15-year tenure with the company.

Dick is responsible for developing partnerships with cities, counties and transit agencies to manage and operate public transit systems, ranging from small start-up projects, to large transportation entities. He is also responsible for business development opportunities in the Rail, Streetcar, Paratransit and On Demand divisions of the company.

He is leading Transdev North America’s efforts to marry innovative technology to the growing mobility needs of cities and communities. His efforts have contributed to the implementation of a first/last-mile app and platform in Tampa, and the nation’s first AV shuttle network near Fort Myers, Florida.

Dick is deeply experienced in structuring business relationships and contracts client objectives to ensure high standards for quality, efficiency and passenger care. He leads many of the company’s strategic initiatives including innovative technology partnerships, service design and new product development.

Dick started his career in the transit industry as a transportation planner and later a system manager. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning and Design from the University of Cincinnati and a Master’s of Business Administration from Xavier University.

Todd Allmendinger

Sasan Amini

Sasan has a passion for applying new technologies to solve real world problems and promote healthy living. After many years of experience in the life sciences, he decided to combine his passion and expertise to start Clear Labs with the mission of making food transparent. After getting his PhD in Genomics from Princeton, Sasan spent a few years in the Advanced Research department at Illumina, working on the most state-of-the-art Genomics approaches and platforms. Sasan received his B.Sc. in Biotechnology from the University of Tehran, where he entered as a gold medalist in the International Biology Olympiad. While in college, he served as the youngest Board member of the Iranian National Biology Olympiad Committee and authored a problem book on Mendelian Genetics which has been re-printed 10 times over the past decade. He holds multiple patents and publications in the field.

Antonio Anselmo

Dr. Anselmo is a principal at Altametric and a founder of The Allocated Materials Management Company. Dr. Anselmo is a recognized world-class expert in the fields of advanced particle accelerators, plasma physics, system engineering and financial engineering. He is an expert on the design and control of complex systems. Dr. Anselmo worked for 12 years at J.P. Morgan Chase in the Financial Engineering and Electronic Commerce groups in the Investment Bank. Prior to this, he was a Scientist at Varian Associates for 4 years designing accelerator and radar systems. He has written numerous scientific papers on nuclear fuel chain optimization, particle accelerators and complex systems. He holds a B.Sc., M. Eng. and Ph.D. from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. He was a McMullen Honorary Scholar and a Teagle Graduate Fellow at Cornell and an Edward Tuck Scholar and Adams Entrepreneurial Award Winner at Dartmouth.

Raj Atluru

Raj Atluru has been investing in the energy and resource sectors for 19 years.

Previously, Raj was a co-founder of Silver Lake Kraftwerk, a growth equity fund focused on late stage private companies across the energy and resource sectors. From 2000 until 2011, Raj lead the cleantech practice at the venture fund of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the premier early stage venture funds in Silicon Valley. DFJ was an early investor in notable companies including Tesla Motors, Solar City, EnerNOC, Brightsource Energy and Sea Micro. From 1996 to 2000, Raj worked on energy and technology investing for TL Ventures.

Raj has served on several private and public boards, and co-founded DFJ Element with David Lincoln in 2005 – at the time, the largest fund ever raised for the cleantech sector.

Raj is also a founder of the Spotlight Foundation, focused on grants to educational entrepreneurs globally. He has keynoted numerous conferences dedicated to sustainability and innovation, and currently serves on the advisory board of the Cleantech Investors Forum, the premier conference in the sector.

Raj has both a BS and MS in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University as well as an MBA also from Stanford.

Omeed Badkoobeh

Yaron Ben Nun

I was a jet fighter pilot for almost a decade, then I became a moviemaker- directed documentaries, music videos and TV commercials for another one, but one day I felt a huge emptiness. I started to ask myself what will stay after I’m gone, did I take less than I gave? of course not. I took much more than I’ve given back. That thought was horrifying.

At the age of 39, I’ve decided to change the course of my life and dive into the Energy arena, where I felt I might find my way. Working for two startups and 7 years later I had a feeling that I might have found the thing I was searching: an idea that was worth taking a risk for.

I’ve raised $200K, founded Nostromo, gathered few very talented people, took over an abandoned barn and transformed it into a research laboratory, in which we’ve developed a revolutionary thermal energy storage cell.

This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever built and I hope it is just the first step towards designing and executing a state of the art energy storage system that will change the grid as we know it.

Wade Barnes

Andrew Beebe

Liam Berryman

Liam specializes in building and leading teams, having previously formed multiple accomplished groups in areas ranging from competitive engineering to community activism to research and development. His own research at UC Berkeley developed a novel synthesis technique of polymer microspheres which he co-authored a publication and patent on. Liam holds a board seat on the California Section Executive Committee of the American Chemical Society, advising on recruitment and community operations. Liam has participated in the Hive Global Leaders Summit for executive training and is a proud Senior Fellow of the Kairos Society (entrepreneurship) and Fellow of Tau Beta Pi (engineering honors).

Most recently Liam has focused on building Nelumbo as Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO. Since inception, Nelumbo has grown from three co-founders to a team of seven, developed two products, raised seed and Series A funding, and signed on first customers. The company is now focused on growing its customer base and scaling manufacturing.

Liam was listed on the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list for Energy and has been a featured speaker at a wide range of conferences, including: NREL Industry Growth Forum, Energy & Impact Symposium, Cleantech Open, Verge, Hive, National Investment Banking Association (NIBA), SinBerBEST, and the Cleantech University Prize. He was recently accepted as a member of the Young Entrepreneurship Council (YEC).

In his free time Liam runs, reads, and occasionally goes surfing.

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.

Wade Bitaraf

Wade leads the Energy and Sustainability initiative at Plug and Play Technology Center. He’s responsible for managing corporate relationships and startup facing. His passion is in serving startups at the intersection of technology and business.

Wade has co-authored multiple scientific articles in peer reviewed journals. He holds a master of science degree in Chemical engineering from Lamar university and master degree in Petroleum and Natural gas engineering from West Virginia University.

Sam Schatz

Sam Schatz, Managing Director of Corporate Development for AeroFarms, a clean-technology company that builds and operates responsible, state-of-the art indoor vertical farms in urban environments around the world, helping set new standards for culinary freshness and flavor. Recognized by Inc.com at one of the top 25 Disruptive Companies changing business around the world, AeroFarms is a Certified B Corporation that has been recognized as a Circular Economy 100 company, won the World Technology Award for most impactful Environmental Company, was voted Most Innovative Company at the Future of Agriculture conference, the Best Growth Company to invest in at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference, and was a finalist for The Circular Awards of The World Economic Forum.

Sam joined AeroFarms as the first employee after the company founders in 2012. As Managing Director of Corporate Development, Sam’s main focus is on the company’s expansion to new markets and siting across the globe. Previous experience includes Berlin based Wermuth Asset Management where he advised on investments into privately-held clean technology companies and London-based Active Earth Investments where he led investment into listed mining and mid-cap industrial companies with a focus on socially responsible business practices and solutions. Sam is a recipient of the prestigious Alfa Fellowship and received his Masters in Management from the London School of Economics where he was the President and Founder of the Graduate Management Society and his Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University where he served on the Student Advisory Board to the Columbia University Earth Institute.

Jocelyn Boudreau

Jocelyn Boudreau is CEO and co-founder of Hortau. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering and a Masters degree in soil physics from Laval University (Québec, Canada). Early in his career, Jocelyn worked at Laval University as a research assistant, helping with the development of a sub-irrigation system in capillary mat for container crops, greenhouse and nursery.

He then acted as a tech consultant for various irrigation, soil physics and technical sales projects, before co-founding Hortau in 2002. He played a key role in the company’s start-up phase, from the business plan and strategy, financing, building and managing a high-level team, as well as the execution of the company’s growth strategy.

Jocelyn is currently responsible for managing the company’s human and financial resources, coordinating the team, strategic planning and also preparing and managing the company’s board meetings. Jocelyn currently lives with his family in San Luis Obispo, Calif, operating out of Hortau’s U.S. headquarters, where he works closely with the sales, marketing and tech support teams on the company’s growth territory.

Doron Brenmiller

Doron is leading the Global business development and sales activities at Brenmiller Energy, an innovation oriented company with vast experience in developing groundbreaking technologies. Brenmiller Energy has developed a new way to handle energy storage in a cost efficient and environmentally friendly way by utilizing its thermal storage generation unit – the bGen™.

Doron Holds an MBA from Insead Business School in France and a B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics engineering from Tel Aviv University.

Bill Capp

Paige Carratturo

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

Karthik Chandrasekar

Karthik started Sangam to find a new model to provide early stage support for climate change pioneers. He spends a lot of his time with the portfolio & within the clean technology eco-system in India & globally.

Rob Coneybeer

Rob is a founder of Shasta Ventures and a 20-year veteran of the Silicon Valley venture capital industry. At Shasta Ventures, Rob focuses on investing in emerging platforms – Robotics, Space, the Connected Home and AR/VR. His investments include Nest (acquired by Google), Eero, Fetch Robotics, Turo and Vector Space Systems. Earlier in his career, Rob served as a lead integration engineer in the Astro Space division of Martin Marietta, where he helped build the first EchoStar spacecraft. Rob earned an MS degree in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Palmer Scholar.

Adrian Corless

Adrian has served as CEO at Carbon Engineering since 2013, where he has led the team that designed, built and tested the world’s first scalable atmospheric CO2 capture pilot plant. Adrian previously served at Plug Power as Chief Technology Officer, successfully leading its industrial fuel cell product development and commercialization efforts. Adrian also spent a year in France supporting the creation of a JV between Plug Power and Air Liquide to bring the product line to Europe. Adrian received a Master’s Degree from the University of Victoria and is a registered P.Eng in the Province of British Columbia.

Rafael Coven

Rafael Coven is managing director of the Cleantech Group’s Cleantech indices. He has a combination of extensive cleantech industry and institutional investor experience, and has spent most of the last 30 years in cleantech as a manager, entrepreneur, equity investor and management consultant.

Rafael has global experience working with or consulting to such leading cleantech firms as Abengoa, Dynatech, Philips Lighting, Siemens, and numerous private equity and venture capital investors in the sector. During the 1990s, Rafael was an international equity analyst at Dietche & Field Advisors where he evaluated, made, and managed a US $700 million segment of the firm’s $5.6 billion equity holdings (including many cleantech companies). He has also founded three cleantech companies and still actively reviews numerous cleantech businesses. He has lived and worked in several countries and speaks Italian and Spanish.

He holds a B.A in Developmental Economics from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Rafael is a CFA level II candidate.

Matthew Crisp

Matt is an accomplished executive with a strong background in the rapid growth and early commercialization phases of technology companies. Prior to co-founding Benson Hill Biosystems, he was the President of the Agricultural Biotechnology Division and Senior Vice President at Intrexon Corporation (NYSE:XON), a leading synthetic biology company. In addition to launching the company’s agbiotech efforts, Matt worked with Intrexon for more than five years, serving in multiple executive roles and on its Board of Directors. Prior to formally joining Intrexon in early 2011, Matt was a Managing Director at Third Security, LLC, a globally recognized venture capital firm. During his time there, Matt focused on corporate development and worked closely with numerous private and public companies in the life science and technology sectors, as well as with NewVa Capital Partners, LP, an early-stage private equity fund focused on investments in southwestern Virginia. He also served on numerous boards of companies representing first-in-class and best-in-class technologies and led the firm’s west coast operations from 2008 until 2011. Matt holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Radford University, where he currently serves on the College of Business and Economics Advisory Council and on the Radford University Foundation Board of Directors as its President.

Rob Day

Rob Day has been a sustainable resources private equity investor since 2004, and acts or has served as a Director, Observer and advisory board member to multiple companies in the energy tech and related sectors.  Rob also serves on the Board at the New England Clean Energy Council.  From 2005-2016 he authored the column Cleantech Investing, which appeared on GreentechMedia.com, and co-hosted several conferences with that group on the topic of new investment models for the sustainability sector.

Formerly a consultant with Bain & Company, Rob has worked with companies and evaluated private equity transactions in the energy/ utilities, telecom, IT, medical/pharmaceutical, and retail industries.  Earlier in his career, Rob was a member of the World Resources Institute’s Sustainable Enterprise Program, where he co-authored the report The Next Bottom Line: Making Sustainable Development Tangible.  Rob received his MBA at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University), and his BA at Swarthmore College.

Divyaraj Desai

Divyaraj Desai is a Member of the Research Staff in the Energy Systems and Materials group at PARC. His areas of expertise include electrochemical systems for energy storage, electrochemical sensors, solid-state ion transport, desalination and high-temperature systems. At PARC, Divyaraj has contributed to the development of an intermediate-temperature hydrocarbon fuel cell to directly produce electricity from natural gas, an ambient pressure electrochemical seawater desalination system, an intermediate-temperature ammonia synthesis process. Recently, his idea for a CO2 removal system for improving building efficiency and occupant health was selected by the California Clean Energy fund (CALCEF) for a seedling award.

Dr. Desai received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York, where he worked on flow-assisted alkaline zinc batteries. He also holds an M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Southern California. His contributions include 10 filed patents (4 granted) and 8 journal publications that reflect his diverse research interests.

Subin DeVar

Subin DeVar directs the Sustainable Economies Law Center’s Community Renewable Energy Program, engaging in outreach and advocacy to transition communities away from fossil fuel-based energy, without using predominant business models that result in widening gaps between the rich and poor. He works to break down legal barriers to community-owned renewable energy through policy advocacy, public education, and developing new legal models. Through the Law Center’s Energy Program, Subin’s current focus is piloting the Permanent Community Energy Cooperative — a legal model to enable widespread grassroots crowd-financing of new energy projects designed for long-term community ownership and control.

Subin grew up in in Houston, Texas, studied business and government at the University of Texas, and spent four years working in the Washington, DC area within the field of nonprofit communications. He received his JD from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 2015, during which time he interned at Communities for a Better Environment, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel. Subin is passionate about building hope that humanity can respond to climate change in an equitable and transformational manner.

Kumar Dhuvur

Kumar Dhuvur is a Co-Founder and SVP, Product at PowerScout, a big-data enabled eCommerce platform for clean energy products. He is passionate about clean energy and is a results-oriented leader with experience in data driven analytics to solving big market problems. Kumar has received an MBA from Wharton and has served as an advisor at McKinsey & Company. Prior to McKinsey, Kumar led data driven marketing at Capital One Bank.

Jon Dogterom

Jon Dogterom is the Managing Director of Cleantech and Physical Sciences Venture Services at MaRS Discovery District. MaRS Cleantech assists innovative Canadian energy, water, agri-tech, advanced materials and manufacturing companies in growing their businesses with connections to; customers, capital, partners and talent. Jon also founded, and is on the Advisory Board of the Advanced Energy Centre, a public- private partnership guiding utilities and organizations in our rapidly shifting energy sector, helping them plan for the future, and adopt new methodologies and business models. He is also on the Board of the Ontario Clean Water Agency, and a member of the Ontario Smart Grid Forum. He has an extensive background in early-stage and high-growth Cleantech companies. Prior to joining MaRS, Jon led business development for Hydrogenics Corporation, where he focused on strategic partnerships, product development, and sales and marketing. He also co-founded Sustainable Energy Technologies, a leading Canadian provider of power electronics for the solar power industry.

Gina Domanig

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

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

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

David Donnan

David Donnan is a Senior Partner with A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm based in Chicago. He is an experienced business leader and consultant with significant global experience in agriculture, food and retail industries. During his career David has managed operating companies, run food plants and consulted to leading global retail and consumer product companies in technology and supply chain strategies, brand growth and positioning. He currently works with food startups in the Chicago area as a mentor.

Dave is widely recognized as an industry leader with a diverse background who actively speaks and writes on topics of importance to the agriculture, food and beverage, retail, and restaurant industries. He has presented at a variety of industry conferences for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Food Marketing Institute, National Restaurant Association, International Grain Transportation Conference and the Retail Council of Canada. He has also appeared on Bloomberg TV and is quoted in various business journals including Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.

Dave earned his Masters of Business Administration at the University of Toronto Rotman School Of Business and his Bachelor of Applied Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto. He lives in Chicago with his wife Karen.

Jocelyn Doucet

Jocelyn Doucet holds a Chemical Engineering Degree and Ph. D. from Ecole Polytechnique (Montreal, 2004 and 2008) where he is also adjunct professor since 2011.

While completing his Ph. D., he founded Kengtek Engineering, a company specialized in process engineering with a strong emphasize on developing and executing the research and development needed to properly scale-up processes to the industrial and commercial level. This is where he developed more than 20 industrial processes and patents for worldwide clients. His entrepreneurial and engineering skills have made him grow the company every year in various sectors by partnering with larger engineering firms and research centres and by successfully solving complex problems in very innovative ways. As a result of his leadership and dedication to work, he was recognized as one of the greatest young entrepreneur in Canada as 2013 finalist of the BDC Young Entrepreneur Award. He also received the Rogers New Technology award for Pyrowave in 2013 and won the local and regional prizes for the most promising young entrepreneur in Science and Technology and Sustainable Energy.

Cadir Lee

Cadir joined OhmConnect as President and CTO in 2015. He oversees all day to day operations and directs product development efforts. He has been instrumental in growing OhmConnect’s users and revenue more than 30 fold since he joined.

Prior to OhmConnect, Cadir spent five years as CTO of Zynga, where he was responsible for the development and innovation of Zynga’s technology platforms, information technology, large-scale network operations, security, analytics, developer tools, and technology M&A. In particular, Cadir was the original architect of Zynga’s big data analytics platform and managed the development and implementation of one of the world’s largest private cloud infrastructures.

Prior to Zynga, he founded, took public, and spent eleven years as the CTO of Support.com, an online technology support company that deployed software to over 50 million PCs and devices. Cadir graduated from Stanford University with degrees in Biology and Music.

Jason Dunn

Jason co-founded Made In Space in 2010 as a result of analyzing the best possible approaches to enabling a fully sustainable form of space colonization.

With a core focus on space manufacturing, the company has since built, flown, and operated the first and second 3D printers in space. Installed on the International Space Station, the first Made In Space Zero-Gravity 3D printer began space manufacturing in November 2014. Today, Made In Space operates the second-generation 3D printer on the ISS, called the Additive Manufacturing Facility, enabling groups across the planet to have hardware manufactured in space.

Additionally, Made In Space is working with NASA in the development of the Archinaut program, to enable in-space robotic manufacturing and assembly of large space structures.

Christi Edwards

Christi is a Senior Vice President and the Clean Tech Practice Leader for Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer.  Christi combines her knowledge in risk management with her passion to make the world a better place.  Chubb’s Clean Tech Practice develops solutions to manage the unique risks of companies in the business of deriving power from renewable energy sources, creating energy efficiency or addressing the scarcity of natural resources.  She began her career in Chubb’s Energy Resources Specialty department underwriting property and casualty coverages for oil and gas, mining, power and renewable energy.   Christi holds a Bachelors of Business Administration in Insurance from University of North Texas.  In her free time, she serves on the North Texas Executive Committee for WING, Women’s Insurance Networking Group; coaches her daughters’ basketball team and teaches Sunday school.

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.

Geoffrey Eisenberg

Geoffrey Eisenberg is a Principal at the Ecosystem Integrity Fund, and has been a member of the EIF investment team from its inception. His responsibilities include investment due diligence, sector research, strategy development, and deal sourcing. Geoff also works directly with EIF’s portfolio companies on strategy, corporate finance, and business development. Geoff serves as a board observer for T-Rex.

Prior to joining EIF, Geoff worked as a Senior Consulting Associate at Cambridge Associates, a global institutional investment consulting firm. While at Cambridge, he provided investment counsel to institutional, pension, and ultra high net-worth clients. Geoff also conducted due diligence on investment managers, and helped clients build diversified and sophisticated portfolios across asset classes. He initiated the firm’s 2007 white paper on cleantech investing for institutional clients, and conducted extensive research on the cleantech industry, including company and venture capital/private equity fund analysis.

In addition to his role at EIF, Geoff is a mentor for the Hawaii Energy Exelerator, helping clean energy start-ups scale. He also serves as a director to the Forsythia Foundation, a non-profit focused on the commercialization of safer green chemistry replacements for toxic chemicals in our products and environment.

Geoff holds a BA in History and Philosophy from Bates College in Lewiston, ME.

Nicholas Eisenberger

Nicholas Eisenberger is a pioneer of the clean economy. As a successful entrepreneur, investor, strategist, and highly regarded speaker and author, Nicholas has worked for two decades to advance the clean technology industry. Nicholas is the founder and Managing Partner of Pure Energy Partners, a venture catalyst firm that invests in high impact, high potential clean economy companies, projects, and funds and actively works to accelerate their commercial success.

He is also a co-founder of GO Ventures, which invests in path breaking cleantech enterprises, a member of the board of directors of the American Council on Renewable Energy, the leading national umbrella organization for the industry, and a co-founder of The Cleanweb Initiative, a new industry association focused on growing the market place of information technology solutions that address our critical resource and environmental challenges.

From 2005-2009, Nicholas was Managing Principal of GreenOrder, which he and his partners established as one of the most influential corporate sustainability strategy firms and sold in 2008. Called one of the “go to guys” in sustainability consulting by Fortune, Nicholas is widely recognized for his groundbreaking work with global companies such as GM, DuPont, HP, and GE, whose multi-billion dollar ecomagination initiative Nicholas played a key role in guiding from its launch

Prior to that, Mr. Eisenberger was the founder and CEO of Ecos Technologies, an environmental management enterprise software company and a venture capital investor at Churchill Capital, one of the very first dedicated cleantech funds. In the mid-nineties, he also co-founded Mypoints.com, a pioneering public Internet marketing company that was purchased by United Airlines.

Nicholas is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and received a Certificate in Environmental Law from the University of California. He serves on numerous boards in the clean economy sector including the X PRIZE Foundation’s Energy & Environment Advisory Board, the President’s Advisory Council of the National Wildlife Foundation, the World Resource Institute’s Innovators Council, Scotland’s Saltire Prize Advisory Board for Marine Renewable Energy, the New York Council for Global Green USA, and the board of New York Sun Works, a science and sustainability non-profit. Nicholas lives by the Sound in coastal Connecticut with his wife, Robin, and their three young daughters.

Jorge Elizondo

Dr. Jorge Elizondo is a Co-Founder and the Technology Lead of Heila Technologies, an MIT spinoff start-up, seeking to dramatically simplify the integration and operation of DERs by overcoming the inherent incompatibility, complexity, and overall design inflexibility of current technologies through the deployment of their Distributed Smart Industrial Gateway, the Heila IQ.”

Before co-founding Heila, Dr. Elizondo received his Ph.D. at MIT working in microgrid modeling and control. During his doctorate, he served as the Vice-President of the MIT Energy Club and organized the prestigious MIT Energy Conference. Before MIT, he co-founded a company that developed small wind turbines and renewable energy projects in Mexico. He has won several awards such as the Santander Business Innovation Award. He holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Physics from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico.

Vonnie Estes

Judy Fairburn

Judy Fairburn is the Board Chair of Alberta Innovates, which funds, advises and provides testing and scale-up support for promising innovators across the clean energy, bio-industrial and health sectors.

She was also the co-founder and director of Evok Innovations, a $100 million cleantech fund focused on accelerating the development and commercialization of solutions to environmental and economic challenges facing the oil and gas sector. Recently retired as the EVP Safety and Chief Digital Officer of Cenovus Energy Inc. and trained as a Chemical Engineer, Judy is recognized as being at the leading edge of collaborative innovation and digital change in Alberta’s resource industry. She has over 30 years of experience in the energy sector including business innovation, corporate venture capital, joint ventures, portfolio management, environment, operations and technology development.

Judy also sits on the board of of directors of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Public Policy Forum, an organization focused on tackling Canada’s most complex challenges through constructive dialogue across all sectors.

Judy is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and has been recognized as one of Canada’s Clean 16.

Gordon Feller

MotM is a unique international organization established in 2000 as a World Bank spin off. It brings together urban sustainability and technology leaders to share knowledge and build lasting alliances. MotM is the non-profit that pioneered the smart-city as a tangible goal, building partnerships with leading corporates (AT&T; Black & Veatch; Deloitte, Cubic; Toyota; Ford Motor; VolvoREF; Microsoft; PNC Bank; Dassault Systèmes; Wells Fargo; Itron); foundations (Barr; Lincoln Inst.), and many others (UC Davis; National League of Cities; Smithsonian, Case Western; etc.). MotM provides the leadership network (26,000 from more than 50 countries) with rich and original content via monthly webinars, MeetUps, conferences, reports, print magazine, daily guest-blogs from city-focused innovators. In his role as consultant, Gordon advises senior executives focused on cleantech investments. He currently serves on 4 corporate boards (mainly startups), 4 non-profit boards, 1 Federal board established by the US Congress to advise the Secretary of Energy. Feller served in the Cisco Systems HQ executive office as Director of Urban Innovation. After retiring in late 2016 he served as Cisco’s consultant focused on Internet of Things.

@MeetoftheMinds

http://meetingoftheminds.org/about

Zachi Flatto

Zachi has a 20 years of diverse experience in civil engineering, construction and mapping technologies. Zachi was the cofounder and lead entrepreneur in Parklife, a startup specializing in predictive navigation technology in the automotive industry. He also served as VP Sales and business development at Top Ramdor (TASE, project management platform) and held different management roles in Autodesk distribution channels. Zachi holds a B.S in Civil engineering from the Technion (Haifa) and M.S in Geography (GIS program) from TAU (Tel Aviv University)

The Construction Innovation Zone is a joint initiative with the Ministry of Construction and Housing, Israel’s Ministry of the Economy, and the Israel Builders Association, establishing the world’s first innovation hub for the construction industry. The unique partnership between SOSA’s vast global network of corporations and startups and the resources of these government offices work to expedite the utilization of these technologies on the ground. With this critical regulatory push, corporations around the world will be able to gain critical access to the innovation that will redefine the construction and real estate development sectors.

Martin Flusberg

Martin has spent most of his career developing innovative technologies that address climate change; the first half in transportation and the second half in energy. Most recently, he was co-founder and President of Nexus Energy Software, a pioneer in delivering on-line energy and carbon analysis to consumers and businesses. Nexus — sold to ESCO Technologies (NYSE:ESE) in 2005 and now part of Aclara Technologies — evolved into a global provider of software solutions to the utility industry focusing on smart grid, smart meter, energy efficiency and demand-response.

Martin was CEO of software companies Multisystems, Inc. and REALink SystemsCorp. and ran an energy software unit of TASC that later became Lodestar Corp., since acquired by Oracle. He has also served on the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. Martin has an MSCE from MIT and a BEE from City University of New York.

Amy Francetic

Julio Friedmann

Dr. Julio Friedmann is the CEO of Carbon Wrangler, LLC, and a Distinguished Associate at the Energy Futures Initiative, where he leads a team on large-scale carbon management and deep decarbonization. He recently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy during the second Obama administration under Sec. Moniz. Previously he held the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal and Carbon Management.  He was responsible for DOE’s R&D program in advanced fossil energy systems, large demonstration projects, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), and clean coal deployment. His expertise includes R&D and programs in Clean Coal and Carbon Management, Oil and Gas systems, international engagements in clean fossil energy, and inter-agency engagements within the US government.   He has also held positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, including Senior Advisor for Energy Innovation and Chief Energy Technologist.

Dr. Friedmann is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the U.S. on carbon removal (CO2 drawdown from the air and oceans), CO2 conversion and use, and carbon capture and sequestration. His expertise includes technology, policy, and operations.  He has testified before the US House, Senate, and several state legislatures, published in Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, and the New York Times.  In addition to close partnerships with many private companies and NGOs, Julio has worked closely with the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Energy Association.  He is a co-author on the MIT “Future of Coal Energy” Report, the National Petroleum Council report “Facing Hard Truths”, and the World Resources Institute “CCS Guidelines” report. In his prior appointment as Chief Energy Technologist for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Dr. Friedmann’s research portfolio included smart grid and energy systems analysis, conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, CO₂ capture, utilization, and sequestration, nuclear fuel cycle, geothermal power, and renewable power prediction and integration.

Dr. Friedmann received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), followed by a Ph.D. in Geology at the University of Southern California.  After graduation, he worked for five years as a senior research scientist in Houston, first at Exxon and later ExxonMobil.  He next worked as a research scientist at the University of Maryland.  A native of Rhode Island, he has worked in many states and countries.

Dan Gabaldon

Over the past two decades, Dan has served leading companies across the energy value chain in many of their most critical strategic and operational improvement challenges. At Enovation, he has focused particularly on DER and Energy Storage, serving energy companies, OEMs and investors seeking to benefit from the rapid changes in this area. He has served a similar mix of clients in the natural gas sector on M&A and operational improvement issues. His work usually involves leveraging Enovation’s growing set of proprietary analytic tools and datasets, as well as his many years of experience supporting clients to make real impacts on their companies. He is a frequent speaker and author on DER, storage, and new energy innovation topics.

Stéphane Germain

Stéphane Germain founded GHGSat in 2011 to answer a market need for consistent, high quality measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities worldwide.

Mr. Germain has over 25 years of experience in aerospace engineering, project management, and business development. He has held senior management positions over a period of 10 years in both small and large Canadian aerospace companies. Prior to these positions, he was a consultant for several years with Bain & Company, a leading international strategy consulting firm, working for Fortune 500 companies in industries ranging from forestry to aerospace. At the start of his career, he worked as an engineer and project manager at Spar Aerospace.

Mr. Germain graduated from Queen’s University (Canada) with a B.Sc. (Engineering Physics) in 1991 and a Masters in Business Administration from INSEAD (France) in 1994.

Josh Gilbert

Josh Gilbert is Chief Executive Officer and founder at Sust Global.

Sust Global is the leading provider of climate data and APIs, providing the climate data foundations for global financial institutions, data providers, investors and corporates.

Sust Global’s product delivers satellite-validated insights and integrations, by transforming climate science with satellite and geospatial datasources and cutting-edge deep-learning techniques.

Josh is a global expert and leader in climate tech and sustainable finance, having worked across climate tech, cleantech and geospatial analytics.

Josh is a thought leader and regular speaker on climate tech sustainable finance, quoted in publications such as TechCrunch, Reuters, FT/Sifted and UKTN. Josh holds a BA & MSc in Economics & International Development, and wishes he had more time to play music and Dungeons & Dragons.

Nate Gorence

Nate Gorence is a Technology-to-Market Advisor at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), where he helps prepare breakthrough energy technologies for transition from the lab to the market and deepen ARPA-E’s private sector engagement.

Previously, Gorence worked at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a leading think tank in Washington, DC, where he served as Associate Director under its energy project. While there, Gorence directed various aspects of strategy, research design, analysis, policy development, and advocacy related to a broad range of energy and environmental issues. His primary focus was developing better policy levers to improve the country’s energy innovation ecosystem and to bring advanced energy technologies to market. Additionally, Gorence led a high-level policy initiative, the American Energy Innovation Council, which successfully brought together iconic business CEOs to articulate new and reformed strategies to improve U.S. clean energy technology innovation. Gorence has also worked at the Broadscale Group, a new model of investment firm, working with leading energy corporations to invest in and commercialize the industry’s most promising market-ready innovations.

Gorence began his career at Epic Systems Corp. He holds a MBA from Yale University and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.

Matt Gregori

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

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

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

Mike Green

iPV Solar is a division of M.G. Lightning ltd, owned and managed by Mike Green. The company is a consulting and design firm specializing in solar PV energy, based in Israel, serving primarily Israel, Africa, Eastern Europe and South America. Since 2010 Mike has represented the state of Israel in the IEA PVPS Task 13 committee working on writing best practices for attaining PV system efficiency and reliability. Since 2013, with the inception of the iPV solar division, Mike has received 4 grants to date from governmental agencies in Israel and the European community for the developing of advanced monitoring algorithms for increasing system efficiency and yield prediction software to enable high penetration of PV solar energy into distribution grids. The software is currently ready for deployment as a SaaS for energy traders, grid managers, PV fleet maintenance companies and for individual small system owners who, until now have little or no performance monitoring capabilities.

Catha Groot

Catha Groot is a Principal at Radicle Impact Partners, an early-stage impact venture fund focused on the food, energy and financial services sectors. Radicle invests in for-profit companies that generate scalable social and environmental impact. Prior to joining Radicle Impact, Catha was a Director of Strategy and Business Development at Personal Capital, a digital financial advisory company, and co-founder of Farm to Cup, a sustainable coffee marketplace.  She began her career on Wall Street, where she worked in private equity at Rockefeller Group Investment Management and in investment banking at UBS. Catha has an MBA from Stanford and AB from Princeton.

Ashley Grosh

Gary Halbert

Gary Halbert was appointed Chula Vista City Manager in June 2014 after serving as Assistant City Manager and Director of Development Services. Halbert is a certified planner and licensed engineer. As City Manager of the county’s second largest municipality with a population of 250,000, Halbert administers a $270 million annual budget and oversees 10 departments with a workforce of more than 1,000 employees.

Halbert has more than 30 years of experience in local government and has held management positions in city planning, transportation engineering and development services. He began his career working as an engineer in Traffic Operations for the City of San Diego, and came to the City of Chula Vista in October 2008.

Halbert holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Science from the University of California at San Diego and a Masters in Public Administration from San Diego State University. At SDSU, he was a recipient of the John Fowler Scholarship and Graduate Student of the Year. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the American Planning Association (APA) and the California City Management Foundation (CCMF).

Malcolm Handley

Malcolm is the founder and managing partner of Strong Atomics, a VC fund focused on nuclear-fusion startups. Prior to this he was a software engineer, including four years at Google and as the first employee at Asana, where he helped build the team, culture and infrastructure for one of the fastest-growing B2B companies.

Andrew Haughian

Andrew Haughian has over 17 years of energy and industrial experience. Andrew began his career in the upstream oil and gas industry before transitioning into engineering risk management consulting. He has a deep understanding of the technology commercialization challenges in the energy, electronics and sustainability markets.  He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal,Translational Materials Research and recently served as Chairman of the NREL Industry Advisory Board. Andrew serves on the board of Aspect Biosystems, CarbonCure Technologies, Energy Storage Systems Inc. and Tivra Corporation. He previously served on the boards of RSI Inc. and Boulder Ionics which were sold in 2014. Andrew holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Toronto and a Masters in Business Administration degree from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

Yoachim Haynes

Yoachim Haynes is the Vice President of Strategy for EIP’s European Fund where he leads research, innovation, commercialization as well as LP engagement. He works closely with EIP’s global portfolio.

Yoachim has 10 years of experience working with startups, corporations and governments in the energy and climate space. He led the corporate innovation programs at Cleantech Group as a consulting manager where he developed the strategy for, launched, and operated multiple corporate venturing programs, including multi-stakeholder pilot project processes and CVCs. He also delivered clean technology market assessments, market entry strategy and other climate impact projects for governments and corporations. His clients in North America, Europe, and Asia operated across a diverse set of industries including heavy industry (e.g., steel, oil and gas, cement), power generation, real estate, agriculture, mobility and FMCG.  

He has a Bachelor of Science in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University (Cum Laude, C.P. Davis Scholar, Tau Beta Pi). He now lives in London but has spent most of his life in Trinidad and Tobago where he grew up. 

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.

Olof Heyman

Olof Heyman is born 1958 and has a MSc Ch Eng. He has spent most of his professional life within ABB, a global company in Power and Automation. From 2003 to 2006 he was the Technology Manager for the HVDC group within ABB. From 2007 to 2009 he lived in India setting up an Engineering Center.

From 2009 to 2012 he was the global Marketing and Sales Manager for the ABB HVDC group and from 2012 to 2015 he has been heading the HVDC business within ABB.

In 2016 he became the Chairman of the board for Ferroamp and last year he became the CEO. Ferroamp got the EES award in Munich in June 2016 and is providing the future electrical distribution system for mid size houses. During 2017, Ferroamp have provided a handful ground breaking pilot installations based on their DC nano grid technology.

Andrew Hinkly

Andrew currently leads Anglo American’s Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) Investment Programme which invests in innovative start-up companies that utilise or enable the use of PGMs. Since joining Anglo American in 2008, Andrew has held a number of senior leadership positions and has been a member of the executive committee. Andrew is a board member of Food Freshness Technologies and GreyRock Energy.

Prior to joining Anglo American, Andrew worked for the Ford Motor Company for 20 years and was a member of the Americas executive committee.  During his time with Ford he obtained extensive global experience in finance, purchasing, strategy and new market development.

He holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from Loughborough University in England and a Masters of Business Administration from the Manchester Business School.

Ken-Ichi Hino

Sarah Hodges

Sarah Hodges is director of the construction business line at Autodesk, Inc. During her time at Autodesk, Hodges has held various roles across the industry strategy and marketing team to help bring the Autodesk Building Information Modeling (BIM) portfolio to the marketplace across the education and commercial sectors. Over the past decade, Hodges has broadened her experiences across the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry by leading teams across all segments and through spending time with customers across the globe to understand their challenges and requirements. Currently, Hodges is focused on the construction industry to understand and implement disruptive technological innovations that are radically changing how projects are constructed and delivered. Hodges has recently appeared in The Economist and The Wall Street Journal citing examples of how technology is shaping the future of the construction industry. Prior to Autodesk, Hodges spent time in the media and entertainment industry bringing to market and promoting B2B technologies to drive efficiencies in the post production process. Hodges holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a focus on marketing and management from Northeastern University.

Haggai Hofland

Haggai holds a B.A. in Economics and Management, with a specialization in Entrepreneurial Management from Tel Aviv Jaffa.

Haggai has been working in the Solar industry for the past 8 years, vast majority of those years working on products that are making the solar market more efficient.

Haggai started in the Solar industry at Watts & More (PLE for Solar) as a data analysis director. Later Haggai joined a small Investment found that specialized in investing in PV assets @ Italy where he served as the COO.

Before co-founding Raycatch Haggai co-founded webper, a startup in content media publishing sites.

Wendolyn Holland

Andrew Hsieh

Andrew Hsieh is Co-Founder and CEO of Feasible Inc., a Princeton University spin-out that is developing sound-based analytics to enhance how we interpret the physical world. They are currently focused on using their acoustic analysis platform to enable batteries to meet the performance and efficiency demands of electrified transportation, renewable energy generation, and more. The company is based in Berkeley, CA.

Andrew is in Cohort 2 of the Department of Energy’s prestigious Cyclotron Road program. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Materials Engineering from Princeton University and a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from UCLA.

Scott Jacobs

Scott Jacobs is the CEO and Co-Founder of Generate Capital. Scott’s long-standing emphasis on innovative approaches to thematic investing focus broadly on the “resource revolution.” Prior to Generate, Scott served as a Managing Director and Co-Founder of EFW Partners, an investment firm focused on the world’s critical resources: energy, food, and water. In 2007, Scott co-founded McKinsey & Company’s global CleanTech practice, advising companies, institutional investors, NGOs and governments around the world. Prior to that, Scott spent over a decade in technology and venture capital, helping start and grow a number of companies, including PolyServe (acquired by HP) and Alliance Data Systems (acquired by FiServ). Scott earned his MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was named a George F. Baker Scholar, and his BA cum laude from Dartmouth College. Scott also serves on the Board of Rare, a leading global conservation non-profit.

Karen Janowski

KJ leads the team that recruits, selects and supports startup companies as they seek to commercialize their technologies in advanced mobility, energy and the built environment. In addition, she is responsible for establishing and strengthening relationships with partner organizations, including other entrepreneurial support organizations, trade missions and corporate sponsors. She directs ProspectSV marketing and outreach efforts.

KJ’s prior experience of more than three decades includes 14 years as vice president of marketing for several software and hardware technology firms, where she launched over 30 products that generated more than $500M in revenue. Following her work on the management teams of four technology startup companies, KJ provided strategic marketing consulting and interim executive services to a variety of large and small companies in the clean tech, software, services and computer technology sectors. KJ has an MBA from Stanford University and a B.S. in finance and applied economics from the Haas School at UC Berkeley.

Margarett Jolly

Margarett Jolly collaborates with technology leaders to develop strategic technology and policy solutions for the grid, and its customers and participants.  Her professional and personal background provides her the technical and policy tools, partnerships and passion that are making the grid a better place. She is recent Director of R&D at Con Edison, currently Director Demonstration Projects in the Customer Energy Solutions organization.

She has been with Con Edison since 1997.  Margarett’s early career included power plant control systems and boiler operations, followed by regulatory and energy markets policy, electric distribution engineering, and as the Company’s DG Ombudsperson.

She graduated from New York City Technical College in 1993 and from the Cooper Union in 1997 with a BE in Mechanical Engineering.  A licensed Professional Engineer in New York State since 2004, Margarett serves on the Boards of Green City Force and Grid Alternative Tri-State.

Margarett speaks regularly about the changing role of the electric grid.

Roy Joseph

Jeff Kayes

Jeffrey M. Kayes is a partner at Morrison & Foerster, practicing in the firm’s Financial Transactions Group.

Mr. Kayes focuses on the representation of financial institutions, other institutional lenders and borrowers in complex debt and equity financings. Mr. Kayes has extensive experience in leveraged acquisition finance and project finance, including the development and financing of manufacturing facilities and renewable energy projects. He has advised clients in connection with bilateral and syndicated facilities, asset- and cash-flow-based facilities, domestic and cross-border loans, letter of credit financings, vendor financings, private placements of debt securities and bankruptcy-related financings.

He has represented clients operating in a variety of industries, including biotechnology, clean technology, finance, gaming, renewable energy, semiconductors and software, among others.

Mr. Kayes also has extensive experience representing clients in acquisitions of energy projects in all phases of development, including investments in individual or portfolios of projects. He has advised clients in connection with such transactions for natural gas, wind, biomass, hydro and solar facilities.

Mr. Kayes is recommended as a leading lawyer in the 2013–2015 editions of Legal 500 US in the areas of Project Finance and Renewable/Alternative Energy. In addition, he is recognized as a “Rising Star” in the 2012–2014 editions of Northern California Super Lawyers, an honor recognizing the top up-and-coming attorneys in the state who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.

Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Mr. Kayes acted as Senior Legal Counsel for Solar Trust of America / Solar Millennium, a solar developer, addressing financing issues concerning the construction of the world’s largest solar field. Earlier in his career, he practiced at Latham & Watkins.

Mr. Kayes previously served as a member of the Uniform Commercial Code Committee of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of California.

Ronald Kent

Current Activities

Identification, development and commercialization of new energy technologies that improve energy efficiency, minimize emissions, and provide sustainable energy for SoCalGas customers.

Technology projects include: power-to-gas systems, biomethanation, biomass gasification, digester gas separation and monitoring, hydrogen production systems, microchannel reactors for methane reforming, catalytic nonthermal  plasma reactors, concentrated solar thermal power, oxy-fuel power plants for carbon capture and sequestration.

Previous positions include the new product development (NGVs, fuel cells, internet-based services), gas supply and demand forecasting, gas transportation management, energy efficiency program management, and financial analysis.

Emily Kirsch

Emily Kirsch is the Founder and CEO of Powerhouse and the Founder and Managing Partner of Powerhouse Ventures. Powerhouse backs entrepreneurs building software-focused technology for the clean energy industry. At Powerhouse, Emily has built strategic connections between venture capital, corporate leaders, and entrepreneurs to drive innovation. Startups at Powerhouse have collectively raised hundreds of millions in capital, generated hundreds of millions in revenue, and have created over a thousand jobs in the US and around the world.

Prior to founding Powerhouse, Emily worked as the Lead Organizer at the Ella Baker Center, where she founded and lead the Climate Action Coalition which drafted and secured passage of the most ambitious Energy and Climate Action Plan of any city in the nation. Emily designed and launched the Green Jobs Corps with Ella Baker Center Founder and former Advisor to President Obama, Van Jones.

Emily serves on the Board of Station A and is on the Advisory Board of University of San Francisco’s Master’s of Science in Energy Systems Management. Emily serves on the Advanced Energy Technologies Council for the World Economic Forum.

Emily is the winner of 2017 Entrepreneurship Award from C3E, a partnership between the US Department of Energy, Stanford, and MIT to highlight women’s leadership in clean energy. Her work has been cited in Bloomberg, The Guardian, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, and The New York Times. Emily has guest lectured at UC Berkeley and Stanford.

Florian Kolb

Florian has 20 years of professional experience in tech and non-tech-related industries with a strong background in mergers & acquisitions (Florian has led and worked on more than 60 deals worth over 12bn USD, including venture deals), post-merger integration (7bn USD integration), operational management, restructuring (2,5bn+ program), business development, market entry and innovation (Silicon Valley).

Florian started his career working for a serial entrepreneur who developed and IPO’ed a highly successful packaging business. During the dot.com era, Florian advised tech and start-up companies in early- and later-stage fundraising. He focused on private equity and leveraged transactions in Automotive and Electronics before joining RWE, a leading pan-European energy company with more than 50bn revenues and more than 60.000 employees.

At RWE, Florian lead M&A deals worth more than 10bn USD. After the acquisition of it’s Dutch business, Florian managed the integration of this 7bn+ USD acquisition into the RWE group. He then became the Managing Director of RWE’s Dutch services company, transforming major corporate functions, delivering very ambitious cost-savings and multi-million USD IT programs. Florian was appointed in 2013 by the Executive Board of RWE to manage the 2.5bn+ USD group-wide transformation program, covering all main areas and functions of the business.

In 2015, Florian has been appointed as Managing Director of RWE’s activities in Silicon Valley (which now have been rebranded innogy). He focuses to secure future, non-traditional business for innogy via three core activity streams: 1. market entry, 2. Venturing and 3. innovation. This includes leading strategic investments in early- and later-stage companies, leading the group-wide data-driven business model activities and testing and launching new businesses for innogy in the renewables, grid and retail space. During the last two years, innogy has invested a very substantial double-digit million USD amount in various Silicon Valley-based activities. Florian serves on the boards of portfolio companies from Silicon Valley. Florian is also the founding father of the Free Electrons program, a global accelerator program operated by a consortium of leading utilities from around the world and is acting as a mentor for Singularity University programs.

Florian holds a masters degree in economics from the University of Passau, Germany.　He participated in executive programs from leading academic institutions such as INSEAD Fontainebleau, IMD Lausanne and various innogy TOP 150 programs.

Peter Kozodoy

Dr. Kozodoy is the founder and CEO of Glint Photonics. He has wide-ranging experience in technical research, product development, and science and technology policy.  Dr. Kozodoy has successfully commercialized products at two startup companies: blue- and white-emitting LEDs for energy-efficient lighting at WiTech (later acquired by Cree, Inc.), and tunable lasers for advanced telecommunications systems at Agility Communications (acquired by JDS Uniphase). He holds a B.S. in Physics from Yale University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He is the author or co-author of 70 scientific publications and four patents.

Grzegorz Gorski

Ranga Krishnan

Ranga has over 25 years of diversified management and technology experience in small to large sized organizations. He has a proven ability to execute strategies, requirement gathering, plan, manage resources, defining and implementing processes & policies, team building, product development life cycle management, and project management over a broad range of products (Enterprise Software, Web Media, Database Software/Database Technologies, Security and Internet Software/Products). Expertise in Purchasing, Training, Administration and Development. He has Strong skills in organization, decision making, delegation, and people management.

Sanjeev Krishnan

Sanjeev is Managing Director of S2G Ventures, and he has been with the firm since its inception. Sanjeev has over 15 years of experience in sourcing, executing, managing and governing venture and private equity investments, including a focus in agriculture and food companies. As Managing Director, Sanjeev is active in developing investments and managing portfolio companies.

Sanjeev serves on the boards of several S2G portfolio companies. He also serves on the investment committee of Bamboo Finance and a variety of advisory boards related to impact investing and the agriculture and water sectors.

Sanjeev began investing in the food and agriculture sectors in 2003 as a co-founder of the life sciences practice of the IFC, the $20 billion private investment arm of the World Bank. His previous investment roles include CLSA Capital Partners, Global Environment Fund, World Bank Group’s IFC and JPMorgan.

Sanjeev is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Rahul Kumar

During the 16 years Rahul has spent in public transportation, he has been a part of many firsts. From designing and launching suburban Los Angeles’ first Bus Rapid Transit to launching the first commercial autonomous public transport fleet, Rahul has seen this industry grow from operationally-focused to digitally-driven. With a background in building organizations and marketing new innovations in public transport, Rahul found his first home working at the second largest public transportation agency in Los Angeles. As Director of Planning, he designed many of the routes and services that operate in and out of L.A. today. After a little over a half-decade in the public sector, Rahul moved on to lead the commercial team for a large, multi-national transportation operator working in both the traditional public transit space and new “on-demand” modes. In 2015, Rahul moved to Paris, France to focus on new innovative products for the public transportation space. In under two years, he built a team focused on disruptive innovation, specifically in the areas of driverless public transportation, mobile ticketing, and big data platforms. Rahul joined TransLoc in 2016 to help the startup build upon its existing accomplishments and grow the company’s footprint in the microtransit space.

Ben Larson

Ben Larson is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and startup adviser based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Gateway, the premier startup accelerator and venture fund for the burgeoning cannabis industry. Ben is also a Director and Mentor for the Founder Institute, where he formerly managed global operations and helped grow Founder Institute into over 100 cities around the world. He’s an active Board member for Peridot Labs, a full-spectrum cannabis extraction lab; Grow-X, an AI controlled aeroponics company; and The Food Nest, an accelerator and venture fund for packaged foods and foodtech companies. Additionally, Ben contributes his time as an Advisor and Mentor to the non-profit Youth Business USA, coaching underserved entrepreneurs here in Oakland, and is on the East Bay Board of Directors for Playworks, helping kids to stay active and build valuable social and emotional skills through play.

Will Latta

Will Latta is the Founder and CEO of LP Amina, a multinational environmental engineering and advance coal development company with deep expertise and R&D activities in the US and China. LP Amina has successfully retrofitted over 50 coal-fired and gas-fired power plants with emissions controls solutions in the US and China.

LP Amina is a founding member of the Advanced Coal Technology group of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (http://www.us-china-cerc.org/), a bilaterally-funded organization that facilitates U.S.-China cooperation in developing advance coal technology. LP Amina is also a founding member of the U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program (http://www.uschinaecp.org), which is a group that promotes commercially viable projects in clean energy, and supports the sustainable development of the energy sectors in both countries.

Mr. Latta has over 25 years of experience in power generation. Prior to LP Amina, Mr. Latta worked for Alstom Power (now GE Power), a global leader in conventional power generation equipment.  His work experience at Alstom was broad and included various technical and management roles. Mr. Latta is a professional engineer and has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a MBA from Duke University.

Jay Lipman

Jay is Co-Founder & President of Ethic. Ethic is a technology-driven, sustainable asset manager empowering investors to create investments specific to their values and financial goals. Our goal is to outperform on sustainability through our data-driven platform, while creating returns-driven portfolios that track benchmarks with precision.

Ethic’s mission is to accelerate the global transition to sustainable investing. Our team’s experience spans market-leading investment firms, including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan, top-tier design houses, and technology companies, including LinkedIn and Google.

Deepa Lounsbury

Audrey Ma

­Audrey Ma joined Re-Fire Technology in early 2017 as Director of Business Development.  Re-Fire Technology was founded in 2014 in Shanghai with the vision of bringing hydrogen fuel cell technologies to market by delivering transportation fuel cell system products and integration engineering services to OEMs and end users. Since its founding, Re-Fire Technology has established itself as the industry leader in fuel cell systems and powertrain integration in China by the number of products shipped and vehicles delivered and on-road. Audrey leads the expansion of Re-Fire’s overseas supply base for product development, project collaboration and international market outreach. Audrey holds a Master of Urban Design degree from the University of Hong Kong and a BAS from the Carleton University School of Architecture.

Jinhua Ma

Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Rugao Municipal Committee

Deputy Secretary of Party Committee of Rugao Economic and Technological Development Zone (daily works in charge)

Mr. Ma born in Rugao, Jiangsu province China, is the Incumbent Member of Standing Committee of the CPC Rugao Municipal Committee and Deputy Secretary of Rugao Economic and Technological Development Zone.  He got his master’s degree at Party School of CPC Jiangsu Province and has a Senior Economist’s title. He spares no efforts facilitating the development of clean energy and new energy automobiles, making great achievements for hydrogen fuel cells. He is the leader, supporter and groundbreaker for the emerging markets of clean energy and technologies as a local government in China.

Rugao Economic and Technological Development Zone

Being approved to national level in 2013, Rugao Economic and Technological Development Zone covers an area of 150.41 square kilometers, a population of 1,675,000, with more than 1500 enterprises, focusing on being innovation-driven in the development of industries in energy-saving and electric vehicles, clean energy, bio-technology, and intelligent manufacturing. The zone is regarded as the most valuable development zone within the Yangtze River Delta with the greatest economic potential, built upon the foundations of technology advancements, modern services and advanced manufacturing.

Taavi Madiberk

Taavi Madiberk is the CEO & Co-Founder of Skeleton Technologies, a Global Cleantech 100 company and a European leader in high-power, fast-charging energy storage for transportation, grid, automotive, and industrial applications. Skeleton’s supercapacitors and SuperBattery decrease CO2 emissions and fuel consumption, improve power quality, and empower wider electrification of the biggest industries globally, with a clear focus on hard-to-decarbonize sectors.

Skeleton Technologies Group currently employs more than 300 people and has four main locations: its HQ, electrical engineering and module development in Tallinn (Estonia), its supercapacitor manufacturing in Großröhrsdorf (Germany), its materials development in Bitterfeld-Wolfen (Germany), and its future new factory, which will be the largest supercapacitor factory in the world, in Markranstädt (Germany). The company also has offices and subsidiaries in Finland and France.

Taavi co-founded the company at the age of 21 in Estonia. Since its inception, Skeleton has raised over 300 M EUR from public and private investors such as Marubeni Corporation, Innoenergy – Europe’s top cleantech investor – as well as executives from CAF group and co-founders of Adyen, Wise, and Ctek. Skeleton’s customers list includes Siemens, GE, CAF, Skoda Electric, Honda Performance Development, Martinrea Effenco, the European Space Agency, among others.

Chris Mallett

Chris Mallett was named Corporate Vice President of Cargill Research & Development in January 2005 and leads all R&D resources across Cargill. Prior to joining Cargill, Mallett was the foundational Senior Vice President of R&D and CTO of the dairy multinational Fonterra in New Zealand. Before his role at Fonterra, he led the food and agribusiness activities at CSIRO Australia, the nation’s premier science agency where he served successively as chief of division, executive vice president, and deputy CEO. He had previously held various leadership positions in R&D in the European edible oils and frozen food business of Unilever, the consumer goods multinational, which he had joined in 1982 after an academic career in Austria and Australia. He has also served as a Director on many Boards and Advisory Boards in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the US. He is currently Treasurer and a member of the Board of the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, which was authorized by Congress as part of the 2014 Farm Bill to leverage public and private resources to increase the scientific and technological research, innovation, and partnerships critical to boosting America’s agricultural economy. He was elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1999, and was awarded a 2000 Centenary Medal of Australia for contribution to Australia’s R&D. Mallett, who is a Manxman, received his Bachelor, Master and D.Phil degrees in chemistry from Oxford University. He is married with three adult children.

Veery Maxwell

Veery Maxwell is the Director for Energy Innovation, where she helps clients achieve their goals in climate and energy philanthropy. Veery earned a JD degree with honors from UC Hastings School of the Law where she focused on environmental issues. She was Managing Editor of West-Northwest, the Hastings environmental law and policy journal, and published a paper entitled, “Wind Energy Development: Can Wind Power Overcome Substantial Hurdles to Reach the Grid?” Veery received a B.A. degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a double major in finance and international business. She spent her junior year at the London School of Economics. While she attended Georgetown and Hastings, Veery worked for The Nature Conservancy, ClimateWorks Foundation, and the environmental law division of Union Pacific.

Steve Malnight

Steven (Steve) E. Malnight is Senior Vice President, Strategy and Policy for PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
In this role, Malnight leads a team of dynamic and experienced professionals who develop and implement the company’s energy strategy and policy through innovative solutions, partnership integration and public advocacy at the national, state and local level.

In developing and implementing the company’s strategy and policy, Malnight oversees Federal, State and Local Government affairs, Corporate Sustainability, and Community Relations, along with PG&E’s Energy Procurement organization that provides energy service to the 16 million Californians PG&E serves.

Malnight held several key executive positions at Pacific Gas and Electric Company before accepting his current assignment. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, where he oversaw PG&E’s regulatory policy efforts at the national and state levels, including interaction with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Malnight also served as Vice President, Customer Energy Solutions, Vice President, Integrated Demand Side Management and Vice President, Renewable Energy. Before being named an officer at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Malnight served in the PG&E Corporation Chairman’s office as Special Assistant to the Chairman, and he held management positions in Customer Strategy and Corporate Finance, where he led the company’s budgeting and planning process.

Malnight holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree in business administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Malnight is also active in national policy and community engagement, where he serves as Chairman of the Board of the Solar Electric Power Alliance, a nationwide organization that supports utility participation in solar activities.

Jesse McConnell

Jesse brings over 20 years’ experience in the United States and Canadian medical cannabis industries.

He was a founder of one of the first Canadian federally licensed facilities, Whistler Medical Marijuana Corporation (WMMC). He has also been involved in medical marijuana facilities in Ontario, Washington, California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Arizona and Illinois.

In 2014, McConnell and his team were hired to develop the first Certified Organic Growing Standard for the Cultivation of Medical Marijuana (ISO 17065). Jesse holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Master’s degree in Philosophy.

Tal Meirzon

Tal is a business leader with an extensive experience in growing global startup and mature High-tech companies, privately or publicly owned. He has more than 20 years of experience in the Communication industry and he is an expert in the Carrier and Enterprise markets.

Since 2013 Tal was the CEO of Starhome, where he grew the company to be a global leader in selling Value Added Services to more than 300 first tier Mobile Network Operators worldwide. Starhome grew geographically and via an acquisition of MACH and became Starhome Mach. Prior to this, Tal was the CEO of Wavion Wireless Networks, where he grew this startup to be a global leader in a front line position of the Carrier grade emerging Wi-Fi market and played a pivotal role in facilitating the acquisition of Wavion.

Prior to Wavion Tal held various key executive positions in Gilat Satellite Networks, public company, one of the global leaders in Satellite communication networks solutions and services.

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.

Matt Miller

Matt received his Bachelor of Science degree in Astrospace Engineering from the US Naval Academy. After commissioning, he served aboard a ship where he was responsible for shipboard auxiliary and refrigeration systems. Upon leaving active duty, Matt founded GBL Geothermal, a leading energy consultancy, where he designed all-electric, sustainable heating and cooling systems. Matt is a LEED Professional and former member of Nevada’s Energy Efficiency Strike Force.

Jeff More

As President & Chief Executive Officer, Jeff is responsible for the strategic and overall leadership of MineSense. His primary mandate is to bring to market the company’s disruptive, value creating technology.  In 2016, this included a successful fund raise and the company’s first commercial contract.

Jeff is a seasoned CEO with a particular focus on intensive growth mandates.  His experience spans a diverse set of industries, including environmental services, electronics recycling, telecommunications, robotics and engineered materials.

A company builder with a proven track record in both large companies and entrepreneurial environments, he brings broad functional expertise in business development, marketing strategy, operational efficiency and M&A to Minesense, This is coupled with extensive expertise in global markets, including China, India, Japan, South America and Africa. He is a demonstrated team builder and values-driven leader.

Jeff holds a B.Eng in Chemical Engineering & Management and an MBA, both from McMaster University.

Jesse Morris

Jesse Morris is a Principal in the Electricity Practice of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).  Throughout his career in the electricity sector, Jesse has had one focus: partner with utilities, technology providers, developers, and regulatory stakeholders to help distributed energy resources become an integral, widely-accessible part of the global electricity system. Currently, Jesse leads RMI’s work with the Energy Web Foundation, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating development and deployment of blockchain technology in the energy sector.

Jesse’s research, convening, and consulting work focuses on understanding the fundamental economics of distributed energy resources and their ability to provide a wide variety of services to the grid through regulatory change and new business models. Over the past several years, he and his colleagues have researched and published in detail RMI’s findings on the economics of battery storage, advanced demand response technologies, and solar plus storage systems in addition to helping large corporates build new business models focused on the grid-edge.

Steven Murray

Mr. Murray began his career with Shell as a technologist in UK chemical plants. From there, he held increasingly senior positions in sales, marketing and trading in the UK and internationally. He came to the US with Shell in 1994. After a strategy role in the Upstream business, Mr. Murray started an international trading company that profitably traded crude, refined products and LPG, plus associated paper instruments. Subsequently, he successfully led the turnaround of Shell Energy Services, a company marketing gas and electricity across the US to residential and commercial customers. He left Shell in 2006 to become the COO of a PE backed deregulated energy company. He became President of the largest deregulated retail energy company in North America, Direct Energy Residential in 2010. Most recently he was President of a fast growing recycling business, Avangard Innovative, a disruptive force in the $50 Bln pa waste management market. Mr. Murray gained a first class honors degree in Chemistry from Edinburgh University, Scotland.

Flavia Tata Nardini

Flavia Tata Nardini began her career at the European Space Agency as Propulsion Test Engineer, before she joined TNO to apply her technical knowledge to advanced space propulsion engineering projects. She rapidly became involved in project management and business development within the space and defence domain and after that she was assigned to developed international relations and identified business opportunities in the Middle East. After establishing the business in Qatar, she return to her love of space propulsion systems, and has successfully completed full lifecycle development of satellites and several micro thrusters currently flying on actual space missions (Delfi Program’s CubeSats). During her time at TNO, she has filed two patents in both rocket and satellite propulsion and has written several papers on Micro Propulsion Systems and Space Debris Removal Technologies.

Rob Nail

Rob is the CEO and Associate Founder of Singularity University. He brings a unique entrepreneurial and globally-focused approach to growing a non-traditional university as a platform to create a future of abundance where exponential technologies empower us to solve the global grand challenges.

Prior to Singularity, he co-founded Velocity11 in 1999, building automation equipment and robotics for cancer research and drug discovery. After being acquired by Agilent Technologies in 2007, he traded the CEO role for a General Manager role attempting to be a catalyst for change at a big company. He gave up in 2009 to go surfing, then found his true calling and biggest challenge yet with Singularity University. He was recently a director at Harman (HAR), on technology and audit committees. He helped Harman explore options for long-term growth in a rapidly changing automobile industry, ultimately resulting in ~$8 Billion acquisition by Samsung. As their largest acquisition in history, it brings Samsung directly into the automobile and autonomous car market.

He is currently on the board of Light&Motion, is a co-founder and director of Alite Designs, is an active angel investor and advisor, and holds degrees in Mechanical, Materials Science and Manufacturing Engineering from UC Davis and Stanford University.

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.

Matthew Nordan

Robin North

Erik Nygard

Kevin O’Brien

Kevin leads all commercialization strategy and activities for Orbital Insight, as well as leading financial oversight, reporting and strategy. Prior to his role at Orbital Insight, Kevin was the Regional Director for the Americas, Global Banking & Brokerage, for FactSet Research Systems. Kevin joined FactSet in conjunction with the acquisition of Revere Data, LLC, where he was President and CEO. Originally trained as a software engineer, Kevin earned a BBA in Management Information Systems from James Madison University. He earned an MBA in Innovation, Strategy & Information Technology from the EDHEC Business School in Nice, France.

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.

Rob O’Reilly

Rob began his career with Analog Devices in 1991 as part of the Micromachined Products Division, first as a consultant, followed by joining the company in a full time capacity in 1995. Rob was part of the ADI team that developed the initial production test systems that enabled ADI to take on automotive airbag sensing challenges. While at ADI he has led many groups within the MEMS division including MEMS Applications, Advanced Test, Production Test, Trim and Probe, and Characterization.

Rob is currently exploring Precision Ag as a sensor to cloud strategy, which has led to the now very public IoTomato project. The IoTomato project is a full sensor to cloud with Material science strategy focused on the attribute of Taste. The result of initial pilots has revealed profiles of the growth cycle impact on taste. Increasing both the measurands the number of growth cycles will help to improve the models used to predict taste. The “in field” approach has led to new sensor modeling strategies, more appropriate field measures, and a widening of Tomato attributes. Stay tuned.

Rob is also working with the team developing the Industrial monitoring solution for Condition Based Monitoring. This system will bring sensor to cloud strategies to factories (and farms) using a similar approach to the Precision Ag solutions as Industrial monitoring is just precision Ag with walls (and a different sensor cluster).

Rob holds several patents in MEMS technologies for accelerometer, gyro and combo test platforms. In 2012, Rob was inducted into the MEMS Industry Group’s Hall of Fame and continues to serve on their Technical Advisory, Test Standards and the Accelerated Innovations Subcommittees. Rob’s interest include Music, Hockey, Golf, and time travel….

Lawrence Orsini

Lawrence Orsini is the founder of LO3 Energy, an energy and technology centric company that builds tools and develops projects to accelerate the proliferation of the emerging distributed energy and computation economy.

His experience spans the energy field from managing relationships with Fortune 100 utility and corporate clients to development of utility policy and regulatory frameworks. Prior to LO3 Energy, Lawrence was the Director of New Products for CLEAResult and the strategic lead responsible for development, piloting and deployment of new utility service offerings focusing on energy efficiency, microgrids, and load management for commercial, industrial and residential market sectors.

Chris Paterson

Chris Paterson is the Lead for Bayer’s Digital Farming initiative in Canada. Before joining Bayer, Chris has been immersed into the North American AgTech space for more than ten years. Chris relies on his background as a farmer, an ag retailer, a consulting agronomist, and a crop inputs marketer in several continents for insight into choosing the right technologies to best support the fundamentals of agronomy, business, and logistics . Outside of work, Chris has traveled through more than 30 countries, and especially likes to travel by motorcycle.

Diego Diaz Pilas

Diego is responsible for the management of Iberdrola´s  70 M€  venture capital program – Iberdrola Ventures – PERSEO, aimed at investing in smart energy start-ups.  He joined Iberdrola in 2008 and since then he has contributed to the launch and management of the company´s venture program, engaging its activity with the corporate innovation strategy.  Leading a team of investment professionals, he is responsible for the management of the program and the full life cycle of the investments, serving as a director in the board of key portfolio companies.  Addtionally Diego also leads the Technology Prospective Analysis unit in charge of assessing the potential of key technologies for the future of the energy sector.

After graduating, he developed his career in several roles related to engineering, technology development, innovation and entrepreneurship both in the Telco (Telefonica R&D and Eircom) and Energy sectors.

He holds an M.Sc in Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and an executive degree in Venture Capital from the Walter A. Haas School of Business in the University of California at Berkeley.

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Milan Poidl

Milan Poidl holds a B.A. in Environmental Management from UC Santa Barbara as well as Masters Degrees in Business Administration from CU Denver & International Management from Thunderbird.  Since 2004 he has worked in technology, consumer products & the energy sector with global multinational corporations focused on consumer centric marketing & innovation.

At Applica Consumer Products, he built the company brand equity through new product development and strategic branding.  In 2012, after the sale of Applica to Spectrum Brands, Milan joined Liberty Power to drive product innovation.  He is credited with conceptualizing & launching the company’s retail renewables energy offering, delivering the fastest sales growth rate in history.  He joined Enel in 2014, as Head of Innovation in Peru.  In 2017, Milan launched the Enel Innovation Hub in Silicon Valley, responsible for scouting & matching new technologies to company needs.  To date, the Enel has evaluated more than 1,700 new technologies; launched over 80 POC’s and deployed over 30 new solutions through its industrial partnership approach with startups.

Ryan Popple

Ryan Popple is the president and CEO of Proterra, the leading innovator of zero-emission, battery-electric buses. Prior to Proterra, Ryan was a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. An early employee of Tesla Motors, he was senior director of finance, with a focus on strategic planning, technology cost reduction and corporate finance. Ryan serves as a board member of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and is focused on increasing access to affordable, sustainable transportation solutions throughout Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, through strategic partnerships and policy initiatives. He is also a member of the California League of Conservation Voters Green Advisory Council where he provides guidance on political and legislative priorities, communications planning and development efforts. Ryan has served in the U.S. Army, received a bachelor’s in business administration from the College of William & Mary and a master’s in business administration from Harvard University.

Joshua Posamentier

Joshua Posamentier is Managing Partner and co-founder of Congruent Ventures, an early stage venture firm that backs companies in the sustainable technology ecosystem.

Prior to co-founding Congruent Ventures, Joshua was at Prelude Ventures where he helped build its current portfolio including Alveo Energy, Aquion Energy, Heliotrope Technologies, Pivot Bio, QuantumScape, Renew Financial, Ripple Foods, Sense, Solarbridge Technology (Acquired by SunPower), and Yerdle.

Before Prelude Joshua was co-founder and CEO of Blipstream, a location services company acquired in 2008. He also built up National Semiconductor’s Battery Management, Electric Vehicle, and Smart Grid business units, contributing to the company’s alternative energy strategy. Texas Instruments acquired National in 2011. Previously, Joshua held various technical and marketing positions at Intel Corporation and Intel Capital. During his tenure at Intel, Joshua was responsible for strategy around the company’s first wireless chips, its first metro area network optical transponders, and several IoT related technologies.

Joshua has over 50 patents issued or pending and holds a BA in physics from the University California at Berkeley and MBAs from the Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Matt Price

Before joining Cyclotron Road, Matt was a Vice President at Enlighted Inc. the leading wireless sensor network and lighting controls manufacturer for commercial and industrial buildings. Prior to joining Enlighted in 2011, Matt was a Principal at Nth Power, where he led investments in a broad range of energy and cleantech areas including materials and nanotechnology, fuel cells, biofuels, advanced lighting, and smart grid technologies. Matt is Kauffman Fellow and received his M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. While at Haas, he co-founded the Berkeley Energy Resource Collaborative (BERC). He holds a B.S. in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University.

Dr. Pratima Rangarajan

Ulrich Quay

Ulrich has been Head of BMW i Ventures since July 2011. BMW i Ventures initially invested out of a EUR 100m commitment from its New York office in the areas of Mobility Services (e-mobility, navigation, parking, car sharing and intermodal mobility solutions). In summer 2016, BMW i Ventures launched a EUR 500m fund – which is co-headed by Uwe Higgen – and opened an office in Mountain View in addition to Munich. BMW i Ventures invests in autonomous driving, digital car and automotive cloud, e-mobility, artificial intelligence and data, Industry 4.0, shared & on-demand mobility, customer digital life and energy services. BMW i Ventures’ team of 10 investment professionals has invested in 30 portfolio companies. Ulrich is on the board of Chargepoint, Ridecell, Fair, Scoop, Caroobi and Shift.

James Redford

James Redford writes, produces and directs for Film and Television. Prior to completing “HAPPENING: A Clean Energy Revolution” for HBO, Jamies’ other HBO films include “TOXIC HOT SEAT”, “THE BIG PICTURE: Rethinking Dyslexia”, “MANN V. FORD” and “THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS”. While completing “HAPPENING”, James has been traveling the world as an American Film Showcase ambassador with his two award-winning documentary films. RESILIENCE: the Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope” as well as “PAPER TIGERS.”

James is the Co-founder and Chair of The Redford Center, a non-profit media entity that engages people though inspiring stories that galvanize environmental action. Among many of it’s functions, the center’s documentary film projects include WATERSHED, FIGHTING GOLIATH and THE ART OF ACTIVISM. James lives in Marin County California. His interests include playing lead guitar for Olive and the Dirty Martinis as well as yoga, skiing surfing and cycling.

Phil Redman

Phil Redman serves as the Director of OneTrust’s ESG solution suite, working with companies to simplify the complex task of collecting and reporting on corporate ESG data.  In his role, Redman is responsible for the product and go-to-market strategy for OneTrust’s environmental, social, and governance solution. He enjoys working with customers and providing features and benefits they didn’t know they needed. Redman brings over 15 years of global, enterprise technology experience at companies like Accenture and Citrix, and is a former VP and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner.

Ed Reiskin

In July 2011, Edward D. Reiskin was named the Director of Transportation of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).

In this role, Mr. Reiskin oversees the Municipal Railway (Muni), parking, traffic engineering, bicycle and pedestrian safety, accessibility, and taxi regulation. Muni is one of the oldest public transit agencies in America and the largest in the Bay Area, currently carrying more than 200 million riders per year and 700,000 boardings on an average weekday.

Mr. Reiskin has the responsibility for more than 5,000 employees, a $1 billion annual operating budget, and a $3 billion capital budget. He oversees the advancement of the Central Subway Project, the 1.7 mile extension of the Third Street Light Rail Line that will connect the city’s southeast with the growing and most densely populated neighborhoods, such as South of Market and Chinatown. Mr. Reiskin is also leading the development of the Van Ness bus rapid transit project, which will create a two-mile dedicated right-of-way on one of the city’s key north-south corridors.

Mr. Reiskin sits on numerous citywide bodies, such as the Capital Planning Committee, the Disaster Council, and the Committee on Information Technology. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, and is past President of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, NACTO.

He also oversees key initiatives such as Muni Forward and Vision Zero. Muni Forward is a program of service increases, vehicle replacement, infrastructure investment, and communications improvements to improve Muni’s reliability and performance. Vision Zero is the city’s policy and goal to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2024 through street redesign, education, enforcement, and policy changes.

Mr. Reiskin has more than 20 years of experience in the private, academic, nonprofit and public sectors. Before joining the SFMTA, he was appointed in 2008 by Mayor Gavin Newsom and then-City Administrator Edwin Lee as Director of the Department of Public Works for the City and County of San Francisco. He led Public Works’ three divisions with more than 1,100 employees, whose responsibilities ranged from engineering, construction management and project delivery to graffiti removal, street cleaning and public engagement programs.

Mr. Reiskin holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a Master of Business Administration degree from New York University’s Stern School of Business, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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.

Sarah Richardson

Dr. Sarah Richardson grew up in west Baltimore. She earned a B.S. in biology from the University of Maryland in 2004 and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University in 2011. She was awarded a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship to pursue research on algorithms for the design of synthetic nucleotide sequences and the engineering and assembly of a synthetic yeast genome. Sarah joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2012 as a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in Genomics at the DOE Joint Genome Institute and the DOE Joint Bioenergy Institute to work on massive scale synthetic biology projects and the genomics of non-model bacteria. In 2015 she was awarded a Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program fellowship and a L’Oréal Women in Science Postdoctoral fellowship. She is now a cofounder of MicroByre, a company dedicated to the domestication of non-model bacteria.

Chris Ripley

Chris has spent the past three years advising policymakers and operators within the HHW world and has been a speaker at multiple North American Hazardous Materials Management Association events. He has been the founder and CEO of multiple startups, creating and growing nine core companies generating $110M+ in revenue.

Chris has consulted Portland Metro and the City of Austin on how to improve their paint recycling programs. During these engagements he had the “aha moment” that there could be a better way to sort Household Hazardous Waste.

Chris’ proudest achievement is that he graduated from Williams College.

Pat Romano

Pasquale Romano is President and Chief Executive Officer of ChargePoint and a member of the company’s board of directors. He currently sits on the board of Agilone, CALSTART, Proterra and the YMCA of Silicon Valley. Pasquale joined ChargePoint in February of 2011, bringing more than 25 years of technology industry leadership and executive management experience to the company. He co-founded 2Wire which was acquired by Pace plc for $475M in 2010. Previously, Pasquale held multiple positions in marketing and engineering at Polycom. In 1989, he co-founded Fluent, Inc., a digital video networking company and served as Chief Architect until it was sold to Novell Corporation in 1993. Pasquale holds an undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard University and received his M.S. from MIT.

Will Rosenzweig

Recipient of the 2010 Oslo Business for Peace Award, William Rosenzweig is an internationally recognized entrepreneur, educator and an avid gardener. Will has spent over 25 years cultivating thriving startups while teaching and mentoring mission-driven entrepreneurs around
the world. Will serves as a Senior Advisor to Generation Investment Management, a public and growth equity practice chaired by Al Gore. Will was founding CEO (and Minister of Progress) of The Republic of Tea and co-author of The Republic of Tea: How an Idea Becomes a Business,
which was named one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Will has served on the professional faculty of the Haas School of Business at UC, Berkeley, since 1999 where he is a Social Impact Fellow. He currently leads Food Venture Lab, a cross-disciplinary graduate innovation course, and Edible Education 101 with Alice Waters. Will is also managing partner of Physic Ventures. In 2015, Will founded and was named Dean of The Food Business School at The Culinary Institute of America and in 2016, he was named one of seven people shaping the Future of Food by Bon Appetit magazine.

Siddhartha Sachdeva

Innowatts is an energy technology company headquartered out of Houston. It was founded in 2013 with the vision of leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning analytics to change the way energy is bought, consumed and managed. Innowatts is backed by Shell Technology Ventures, Iberdrola and EEI-Japan.

Sid focuses on overall business strategy at Innowatts, and is working closely with some of world’s leading energy providers on building the Utility of the Future. Under his leadership, Innowatts has grown organically to serve more than 14MM meters across different energy markets.

Prior to founding Innowatts, Sid spent 15 years working across companies, like Sony, Indian Navy, Air Mauritius, NTT, and NRG Energy.

At NRG, he built an energy forecasting and analytics group, enabling more than $4 billion of power procurement on an annualized basis.

Sid holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India and a Master’s in Business Economics from the University of Delhi.

Jeannine Sargent

A global CEO, entrepreneur, investor and proven innovator, Jeannine has built and scaled multi-billion dollar businesses at the cutting edge of technology and emerging markets.

A visionary executive with experience across multiple industries including Consumer, Energy, Digital Health, Cloud/Mobility, Communications, Industrial/Advanced Manufacturing, and Semiconductors.

Currently an Advisor and Investor, she also serves on several Boards.  Previously the President of Innovation and New Ventures at Flex (NASDQ:FLEX), a $25B leading sketch-to-scale solutions company with a global workforce of over 200,000, that designs and builds intelligent products for a connected world.  Jeannine was responsible for worldwide innovation activities including innovation labs/centers, global design & engineering, launching new product businesses, the Lab IX accelerator, and corporate venture investments for Flex.

Prior to Flex, she held CEO and executive positions at Oerlikon Solar, Veeco Instruments, Voyan Technology, Gasonics, Tencor, and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Jeannine holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, magna cum laude, from Northeastern University and has completed executive education programs at Stanford University, MIT Sloan and IMD/Harvard University. She currently serves on the Board of Cypress Semiconductor, VUV Analytics, Board of Trustees at Northeastern University, Digital Advisory Board of BASF, and is a Senior Advisor to Generation Investment Management LLP.

Debs Schrimmer

Craig Scott

Mr. Scott is Director of Advanced Technologies, Corporate Strategy & Planning at Toyota Motor North America. Within his role in the Advanced Technologies Group, Craig is responsible for product planning and program development for alternative fuel vehicle programs including the Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle and Project Portal, the world’s first OEM-produced Class 8 heavy duty fuel cell truck. Previously he also managed vehicle programs including Prius, Scion iQ EV and the Toyota i-Road urban mobility vehicle. In addition to vehicle development, Craig also oversees all US hydrogen infrastructure planning and implementation activities. He is responsible for the development of proprietary research work related to global energy issues and sustainable transportation systems. Prior to Toyota, Craig was an assistant portfolio manager with Pacific Investment Management Company in Newport Beach, CA.

Mr. Scott has a BS in Finance and Japanese Studies and a MBA in Strategy and Finance from the University of Southern California.

Pankaj Sehgal

Pankaj led SUN Group’s initiatives in Clean Energy. He has (i) 10 years of experience in Solar; (ii) has evaluated over 300 clean businesses & projects primarily in India; and (iii) advised the Indian government and Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on the country’s National Solar Mission (NSM) in 2009-2010; (iv) besides developing one of the first-generation solar projects in India in 2011 (which continues to be the fastest solar project developed in the country) and secured among the first non-recourse debt for a solar project.

Earlier, Pankaj was MD, Asia Pacific at Quark, a global leader in desktop publishing software, where he managed 1,800-employee organization and helped turn-around the company’s software development within a year. Before that he was in the US for 18 years – with McKinsey & Company counselling senior clients in High-tech and Energy sectors; Vice President at i2 Technologies (then publicly-listed supply-chain software company), and held management positions with Kraft Foods.

Pankaj received an MBA from Kellogg Business School (Jane Robertson Scholar, he graduated top of his class) and Masters in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He Chairs the Clean Energy forum of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE), Delhi.

Michael Selden

Michael Selden has a background in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has worked on the evolutionary biomechanics of mantis shrimp, the epigenetics of fusarium oxysporum, and in high-throughput cancer screening. He has also worked as a high school chemistry teacher in Taichung, Taiwan. He moved on to help coordinate scientific research at New Harvest and create a global network of scientists, compiling research to unpack and understand serum-free culture media.

Laura Shenkar

Laura works with leading investors, farmers and corporations to mitigate water risk. As a consultant to Walmart, Intel, and the US State Department, she has mapped out a diverse group of water tech solutions for immediate savings and long-term operational resilience. Recent projects have applied resilience strategies to develop profitable, water-spartan farming operations.  Working with investors such as Generate Capital (www.generatecapital.com), Laura adapted financial vehicles from the solar industry to outfit corporations and municipal government with advanced water technology on a “pay for performance” basis.  Laura established the Artemis Top 50 Water Tech Start-Up Competition, which convened a jury of water leaders to evaluate over 1000 water tech companies from 17 countries and identify the emerge leaders.

Laura is working with the University of California and the National Renewable Energy Lab to develop a water innovation hub for the US Department of Energy.  She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Yale University.

Ena Cratsenburg

Gireesh Shrimali

Dr. Gireesh Shrimali is the Director of CPI’s India program, and a Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. He leads CPI India’s team of analysts who work to increase investment for India’s renewable energy and green growth targets, by analysing barriers to investment, and developing policy and financial solutions to those barriers. Gireesh and his team work closely with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the Ministry of Finance, and other policymakers to help advance India towards its clean development goals.

Gireesh directs the India Innovation Lab for Green Finance (the India Lab), which identifies, develops, and accelerates innovative green finance instruments for unlocking and scaling up investment for green infrastructure and clean growth in India. He also leads CPI’s program management team for US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF), which is India’s first facility to help promising distributed solar projects develop into viable investment opportunities, through essential early-stage project preparation support. USICEF is a keystone of the commitment made between the Indian and U.S. governments to mobilize finance for Indian distributed clean energy.

Previously, Gireesh taught at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and at the Indian School of Business (ISB) at Hyderabad, where he helped found the CPI-ISB Energy and Environment Program in collaboration with CPI. His previous work has included topics such as analysis of India’s solar policies, the impact of federal and state policies on the development and deployment of renewable energy in the U.S., and business models for off-grid energy in developing countries.

Gireesh holds a PhD from Stanford University, an MS from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi.

Gireesh regularly speaks at events and as an expert on India’s renewable energy policy and finance to media.

Samar Singla

Samar is a physicist by education and has previously worked as a researcher at IBM and CERN. He is an avid traveller and amateur photographer who likes to document the everyday world.

David Snydacker

Dave Snydacker is CEO at Lilac Solutions, which is building mining technology for the lithium industry. Lilac enables enhanced lithium recovery from existing lithium brine projects in South America and enables development of new lithium resources across North America. Dave holds a PhD in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University.

Dan Squiller

Frances Raftis

Tom Stepien

Tom Stepien is CEO of Primus Power, a leader in grid-scale electrical energy storage. He helped launch Primus Power in 2009 and has raised over $120 million from venture capital sources, strategic investors and government grants. He has over 30 years of engineering, operations and general management experience at small and large companies.

Prior to joining Primus, Tom was a Vice President and General Manager at Applied Materials, a Fortune 500 provider of semiconductor, solar and flat panel display equipment and services. He had P&L responsibility for a $500M business unit with complex set of systems, global customers, manufacturing and support.

Daniel Teichmann

Dr. Daniel Teichmann is co-founder and Managing Director of Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies. The engineer conceptually developed the industrial application of Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC)-based hydrogen storage as part of his doctorate at Friedrich Alexander University (Germany, Erlangen/Nuremberg). After his first professional station at BMW AG Research and Technology, he decided in 2013 to set up the startup with professors Peter Wasserscheid, Wolfgang Arlt and Eberhard Schlücker – the successful path from research to commercialisation began.

Today, Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies GmbH with its storage and release systems is a leading player worldwide for easy-to-handle, safe and efficient hydrogen infrastructure solutions and has been honoured with awards such as the ” German Industry Innovation Award” and has been named one of the “Global Cleantech 100” every year since 2018.

Together with strategic investors AP-Ventures, Royal Vopak, Mitsubishi Corporation, Covestro, Winkelmann Group and Hyundai Motor Company, Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies is driving the scaling of its LOHC technology in projects worldwide.

Chris Thomas

Chris is a Founder and Partner of Fontinalis, where he is responsible for a wide range of critical processes ranging from deal sourcing and execution to corporate operations and business strategy. Chris also works in concert with Fontinalis’ portfolio companies on business development, sales and marketing initiatives.

Prior to Fontinalis, he worked at Ford Motor Company in Sustainable Business Development and Treasury. Previously, Chris served in the U.S. Army as a Communications Officer in Iraq. Before joining the military, Chris worked as an Investment Banker at UBS within its Technology and Energy groups in New York and San Francisco.

Chris currently serves on the Board of Directors of two of Fontinalis’ portfolio companies, nuTonomy and Karamba Security. He also currently serves as a Board Observer of three of Fontinalis’ portfolio companies: Life360, SmartKargo, and SQLstream. Additionally, Chris serves on the Board of Directors of the Detroit Regional Chamber and is a member of both the Global Cleantech 100 expert panel and the Techweek Detroit Executive Advisory Board.  Chris has previously served as the Chairman of Read to a Child, a national children’s literacy and mentoring nonprofit and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Personal Transportation Systems.

Chris earned his Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Yale School of Management. While at Yale he served on the Honor Committee and graduated with distinction in former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s seminar on Faith and Globalization. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Economics and International Relations from Michigan State University. Chris is a resident of the City of Detroit and a staunch advocate of smart cities, early childhood literacy, and the doctrine of the strenuous life.

Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas is the VP of Marketing and Alliances at Ridecell and is responsible for marketing Ridecell, the world’s leading platform to launch, operate and scale new car and ride sharing mobility services. Prior to joining Ridecell, Thomas headed the connected car marketing team at Cisco Jasper, where he developed the product and go-to-market strategies for automotive OEMs. Prior to Cisco, Mark led product marketing at HERE, a leading automotive maps company. In addition, Mark served in marketing, strategy, and business development roles at Apple and Nokia. Mark holds a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.

Curtis VanWalleghem

Curtis is CEO and Co-Founder of Hydrostor, a leader in the compressed air energy storage market. Prior to Hydrostor, Curtis was Sr. Manager in Deloitte’s Corporate Strategy Consulting Practice where he advised and consulted for some of the top energy companies globally. He has also held positions at nuclear generator Bruce Power and wind developer Environmental Electric Company.

Mark Vasu

As Executive Vice President, Mark Vasu leads and supports revenue-generating activities that sustain and grow Greentown Labs.  He manages a portfolio of (40) corporate sponsors, partnerships with organizations in the cleantech ecosystem, and oversees the member pipeline.  He also provides consulting and advisory services to new or growing incubators, and is helping to grow a national network of incubators.

Prior to Greentown Labs, Mark was the founder of perCent Inc., a software company focused on reducing personal energy use and spending.  He also founded and led CMV Marketing, a marketing and sustainable strategy-consulting firm for social-purpose companies and high-performing social enterprises.  He served in marketing and business development leadership roles working for the founders of three high growth social enterprises as the first development director for City Year, a model national service program that inspired President Clinton to create AmeriCorps; VP Marketing for ChildrenFirst, a pioneer of corporate-sponsored onsite child care and early education services (acquired by Bright Horizons); and Jumpstart, a national early childhood education program involving mentoring of low-income pre-school children by college students.

Mark holds a BA Economics from Duke University and began his career as a technology lender at a commercial bank. Mark was on the founding steering committee, and co-chaired the Boston Cleanweb Hackathon (2012, 2013, 2014).  He has served on the Board of uAspire, a Boston based education non-profit from 2007 – 2015. He lives in Newton with his wife and is raising two sons. Every summer he water skis for one loop around a New Hampshire lake to remind him of his younger days when he skied barefoot.

Sergey Vasylyev

Sergey Vasylyev is the founder and CEO of Lucent Optics, an innovation company which mission is to create impactful technology solutions for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Having an academic background and PhD in physics and mathematics, Sergey has published over 40 scientific and technical papers in the fields of space physics, solar energy and information technology earlier in his career. Having subsequently dedicated over 15 years to inventing and developing new technologies in business startup environment, Sergey has been awarded more than 30 U.S. patents and has about 30 pending patent applications in the areas of information technology, IOT, solar concentrators and photovoltaics, daylighting, solid-state lighting, electronic displays, backlights and photonics.

Sergey is a world-class expert in concentrating solar power and lightguide-based illumination systems. His expertise also includes strategic IP planning and protection, technology novelty evaluation and due diligence.

Lance Wheeler

Lance Wheeler is a Research Scientist at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where his research spans the fundamental science of nanostructures to the demonstration of next-generation energy technologies in the form of photovoltaics and solar fuels. He is the inventor of the first photovoltaic window device that “switches” from transparent to tinted upon solar illumination. Commercialization of this technology, dubbed SwitchGlaze, has stimulated his interest in entrepreneurship as the next step toward ensuring a sustainable energy future. When not in the lab, you’ll find him in the mountains or competing in a curling tournament.

Steve Weiss

Steve has led Genomatica’s marketing since May 2010, as a consultant. Steve is also co-founder of Grey Heron, a management and strategic marketing consulting firm that helps executives and investors turn technology into substantive businesses, in energy and resource efficiency, cleantech, the Internet of Things, cloud software and advanced materials. Their 130+ clients include multiple Cleantech 100 winners, plus Bioeconomy notables such as Genomatica, Liquid Light (acquired by Avantium) and Beta Renewables. Steve has shared guidance on strategy, fundraising and differentiation in multiple articles, webinars and video interviews. Steve has Masters and Bachelors degrees in Computer Science from MIT and has held research, product development, marketing and general management roles at IBM, HP, Neuron Data (AI) and multiple startups. Read Steve’s articles and follow him on LinkedIn.

David Wilson

David J Wilson is chief innovation officer, and works in the Houston office. He was elected principal vice president in 2016.

David manages Bechtel’s Future Fund, a program designed to encourage colleagues across the company to create, share, explore and develop new ideas to enhance performance and competitiveness.

David joined Bechtel in 2001 as a mechanical systems engineer at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant in Richland, Wash. Since then he has held positions of increasing responsibility with leadership roles as a Lean Six Sigma black belt and as manager of a telecommunications mobility project. His most recent role was as manager of innovation and virtual project delivery for the infrastructure global business unit.

David is a graduate of the University of Utah and received a master’s degree in 2006 in Engineering and Technology Management. He is a certified professional engineer and Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

Lincoln Wood

Lincoln Wood is the Regional Director of Technology and Innovation at Turner Construction Company. His background includes experience as a Virtual Design and Construction regional manager, startup advisor, project engineer, designer, and carpenter. Lincoln’s passion to innovate the construction industry is rooted in a belief that a fundamental shift from our current state can only occur when the AEC community fully invests in working together, engaging experts across all fields to reexamine the rules and boundaries of what is possible. Lincoln founded Turner Labs, a research and development group focused on Turner’s Northern California region. Turner Labs coaches internal teams on solving Turner’s critical business challenges through a process of rapid experiments with multiple stakeholders. Turner Labs’ goal is to provide employees with a supportive environment for entrepreneurial thinking, problem solving, and continuous innovation, guided by a belief that Turner’s best defense against any business threat is to fully harness the potential of its people.

Pete Worden

Simon Peter “Pete” Worden, (Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret., PhD) is the Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Executive Director of the foundation’s ‘Breakthrough Initiatives’. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Astronomy for the University of Arizona. Prior to joining the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, Dr. Worden was Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, USA until his retirement on March 31, 2015. He has held several positions in the United States Air Force and was research professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. He is a recognized expert on space and science issues – both civil and military, and has been a leader in building partnerships between governments and the private sector internationally.

Dr. Worden has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers in astrophysics space sciences, and strategic studies. He served as a scientific co-investigator for three NASA space science missions – most recently the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph launched in 2013 to study the Sun. He received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for the 1994 Clementine Mission to the moon. Dr. Worden was named the 2009 Federal Laboratory Consortium Laboratory Director of the Year and is the recipient of the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Innovator’s Award.

On July 20, 2015 at the Royal Society in London, UK, Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking launched the Breakthrough Initiatives. At the press conference Pete Worden was introduced as the Chairman for the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In this capacity he leads the Breakthrough Initiatives.

Roger Wyse

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.

Robert Zabors

Bob has worked with energy, infrastructure, transportation and private equity clients for more than 25 years. He has advised on strategies, investments and technology that have resulted in meaningful change and innovation. His articles have appeared in many industry publications, and his client work includes results recognized with the EEI Edison Award, M&A “Deal of the Year,” generation “Plant of the Year,” and “Best 10 Year Shareholder Return.” Bob has also participated in the Aspen Institute and has been an energy leader with the Clinton Global Initiative.

Kristine Wiley

Kristine Wiley is an R&D Manager at Gas Technology Institute. In this role she is responsible for developing research opportunities that provide solutions to maintain a safe and modern natural gas infrastructure while reducing environmental impacts. She has been working in the natural gas industry for 16 years. Her current focus has been on the detection and quantification of methane emissions; including national and state specific programs to improve methane emission inventories. Kristine also manages programs on the development and evaluation of new and emerging methane detection technologies for natural gas operators. In addition to her work on methane emissions she also leads programs focused on enabling the introduction of various renewable energy sources such as biomethane and hydrogen into the existing pipeline infrastructure. Kristine holds a BA and an MBA from the University of Chicago.