2021 Speakers
Audun Abelsnes
Azeem Azhar
Zachary Bogue
Zachary is Co-Founder of DCVC and Co-Managing Partner across its family of funds, and his current investments on behalf of the firm span computational drug discovery, nuclear energy, algorithmic finance, synthetic biology, geospatial informatics platforms, and applied AI for global-scale climate impact, including areas like methane abatement and carbon transformation.
The World Economic Forum has named Zachary a Young Global Leader in recognition of his leadership at the intersection of transformative technology and urgent global issues, and he is active in the Davos community, including his annual “Deep Tech in Davos” event. Zachary’s previous venture investments include Square (SQ), AngelList, and Uber (UBER). Zachary received a bachelor’s degree with honors in environmental science and public policy from Harvard University and a JD with honors from Georgetown University’s law school, where he was executive editor for The Tax Lawyer. Zachary serves on the non-profit boards of the East Palo Alto Charter School and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Po Bronson
Tadeu Carneiro
Gwen Cheni
Danny Crichton
Danny Crichton analyzes technology, growth and power as Editor-in-Chief of "Securities" and Head of Editorial at Lux Capital. Prior to Lux, he was managing editor at TechCrunch as well as previously a foreign correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea. While there, he wrote more than 1,000 news stories and longform analyses chronicling U.S.-Asia technology relations, semiconductors, data infrastructure, fintech, disaster and climate tech, venture finance, product development, and a wide number of other complex subjects with technical and policy intersections.
In addition to his reporting and analysis at TechCrunch, he co-hosted its leading podcast Equity; co-programmed stages at its flagship Disrupt SF and Berlin conferences as well as its Sessions and Early Stage events; launched the premium news service Extra Crunch and grew it to seven figures of revenue; co-managed a multi-million dollar freelance budget; developed the TC-1 series of deep startup profiles and The TechCrunch List; and contributed broadly to the organization’s news, operational, and talent development strategy.
He’s also published research on semiconductors, technology and economic development with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, and the National Review. Formerly, he was an early-stage venture capitalist with General Catalyst in Palo Alto and Charles River Ventures in Boston and New York.
He was awarded a Fulbright research scholarship to South Korea, where he studied the development of Korea’s startup ecosystem. He’s an honors graduate of Stanford University, where he studied mathematical and computational sciences and wrote a thesis on the development of computer science as an academic discipline, which won the school’s Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research.
Danny is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Dr. Lisa Dyson
Ira Ehrenpreis
Leah Ellis
Darrell Etherington
Tony Fadell
Suzanne Fletcher
Bill Gates
Dr. Jennifer Gerbi
Alex Greenhalgh
Bill Gross
Arvind Gupta
Amy Harder
Before joining Breakthrough, Amy was with Axios full time since shortly after it launched in 2017, based in Washington DC. In that role, Amy reported on trends and exclusive scoops, while also distilling into understandable formats complex energy and climate issues. Harder has interviewed some of the most well-known leaders in this space, and at the same time bridges the gap between what leaders say and what everyday people care about.
She was the inaugural journalism fellow for the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute for the 2018-2019 school year, where she moderated events and took part in other university initiatives. Previously, she covered similar issues for The Wall Street Journal, based out of its Washington, DC, bureau. Earlier in her career, she wrote for National Journal, also in Washington DC. She has appeared on PBS' NewsHour, CSPAN, MSNBC, CBS, and NPR, among many other media outlets. She is regularly sought out to speak and participate in events, including moderating and participating in panel discussions, and giving speeches around the country and world. Amy is originally from Washington State and moved back in 2020, after a dozen years in the other Washington. She received a BA in journalism with honors from Western Washington University. She loves running and cross-country skiing the Pacific Northwest’s best trails.
Nina Heir
Jennifer Holmgren
Dr. Holmgren is the author or co-author of 50 US patents and more than 30 scientific publications and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2003, she was the first woman awarded the Malcolm E. Pruitt Award from the Council for Chemical Research (CCR). In 2010, she was the recipient of the Leadership Award from the Civil Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) for her work in establishing the technical and commercial viability of sustainable aviation biofuels. In 2015 Dr. Holmgren and her team at LanzaTech were awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Green Chemistry Award and she was awarded the BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology. Sustainability magazine, Salt, named Dr. Holmgren as the world’s most compassionate businesswoman in 2015. In October 2015, Dr. Holmgren was awarded the Outstanding Leader Award in Corporate Social Innovation from the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. Dr. Holmgren was named as #1 of the 100 most influential leaders in the Bioeconomy in 2017 and received a Global Bioenergy Leadership Award in 2018 and the 2020 William C. Holmberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Advanced Bioeconomy by the Digest, the most widely read online bioeconomy journal. A TEDx Chicago speaker, Jennifer is also the 2018 recipient of the AIChE Fuels & Petrochemicals Division Award as well as the Biofuels Digest Global Bioenergy Leadership Award. In 2021 Jennifer received the Edison Achievement Award for making a significant and lasting contribution to the world of innovation.
Scott Jacobs
Jason Jacobs
Mateo Jaramillo
Benjamin Joffe
Jeff Johnson
Ji Ke
Vinod Khosla
Dr. Clea Kolster
Alex Kopelyan
Gabriel Kra
Gabriel holds MBAs from the Columbia Business School and the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, an MS in atmospheric chemistry from SUNY Stony Brook, and a BA in philosophy from Columbia College. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for Form Energy, Electric Hydrogen, Mill Industries, Ebb Carbon, Lightship, Meridian Clean Energy, PostScript Media, RedoxBlox, Renew Financial, Ripple Foods, Sense, and Trove and he has oversight for Prelude’s investments in Catalog, Koloma, Metalenz Natron Energy, Nyriad, Scoop, Spark Thermionics and Thrilling. Gabriel also serves on the Board of Directors of The CREO Syndicate, Carbon 180 and the Advisory Board for Prime Coalition.
Gabriel is still an avid skier and spends as much of his free time as possible in the mountains with his wife and four children. Gabriel also now roots for the San Francisco Giants after years as a New Yorker.
Connie Loizos
Kevin Martin
Dr. Francesco Matteucci
Dr. Rajesh Mehta
Sean O'Sullivan
Sean got his entrepreneurial start in 1985 as a founder of MapInfo, bringing street mapping technology to personal computers. MapInfo went on to become a $200 million revenue public company with over 1,000 employees worldwide. In 1996, while at the helm of his second company, NetCentric, he created “software for inside the Internet” and is credited with co-creating the term “cloud computing” alongside George Favaloro from Compaq.
Sean continued as an entrepreneur and investor, creating and supporting a range of business, humanitarian and educational endeavors. A major promoter of economic and social development, he founded JumpStart International in 2003. JumpStart was a leading humanitarian engineering organization based in Baghdad and which operated throughout Iraq during the post-war period of 2003-2006. He spent a few years running JumpStart, which for a time had a staff of over 3000, running up to 80 projects at a time in Baghdad, Fallujah, and Najaf. As benefactor of the O’Sullivan Foundation, Sean has also been a primary funder of organizations such as the Khan Academy, Mathletes and CoderDojo.
As the founding Chairman of the Irish Entrepreneurship Forum and founder of Open Ireland, he was a leader and influencer of Irish government policy in fueling economic growth and recovery in the technology sector. Sean was a regular investment panelist on the popular RTÉ TV show Dragon’s Den, and an occasional columnist for Ireland’s Sunday Business Post.
Sean holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production from the University of Southern California.
Matt Peterson
Jason Pontin
Sophie Purdom
Stan Chan (Chen Qiufan)
Dr. Inja Radman
Katie Rae
Katie has over 10 years of experience as an investor and 25 years as a tech executive helping build Boston into a thriving tech hub. She has invested in nearly 100 companies and advised hundreds of founders from early-stage formation to scale-up. Key investments include Pillpack (acquired by Amazon for $1 billion in 2018), Flywire, Moon, and GrabCAD.
Katie has experience in managing startup accelerators and business-innovation programs — she was a Managing Director of Techstars Boston. She was also a co-founder and Managing Director at Project 11 Ventures.
In addition to her extensive investing career, she has over 20 years of experience in product development, management & operations including holding management positions at Microsoft, Eons, AltaVista, RagingBull, Zip2, and Mirror Worlds.
Katie holds an MBA from Yale and a BA in Biology from Oberlin College. She co-founded the Equity Summit, which convenes leading General Partners and Asset Managers of diversity across the venture capital industry.
Dr. Emily Reichert
David Rowan
Kevin Samy
Josh Santos
Jonathan Shieber
Sandhya Sriram
Dr. Kiersten Stead
Karsten Temme
Jason Thompson
Duncan Turner
Duncan has an extensive entrepreneurial background and deep experience fundraising and growing businesses across the globe. He has taken numerous technologies to market in various industries. Before joining SOSV, he led design and engineering strategy projects for Fortune 500 companies at the global innovation firm IDEO.
Duncan obtained his Master’s from the Royal College of Art & Imperial College. His design and engineering work has won multiple awards and is included in the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art. He has a deep passion for new technologies and engineering breakthroughs that can benefit our planet.
David Tze
Uma Valeti
Garrett Winther
Julie Wolf
Dr. Pae Wu
