2023 Speakers

Jamie Beck Alexander is a climate activist, mom, and founding director of Drawdown Labs, Project Drawdown’s private sector testing ground for accelerating the scaling of climate solutions quickly, safely, and equitably. Jamie developed and launched Drawdown Labs in early 2020 and has led the program to push the boundaries of private sector climate action. Her popular TEDx talk helped usher in a new wave of employee climate activism inside the world’s most influential companies. Jamie joined Project Drawdown from Ceres, working with companies to set ambitious emission reduction targets and leveraging their influence in support of strong climate and clean energy policies. She has also served as a civil and foreign service officer with USAID, for the nonprofit The Cultural Conservancy, and the UN Office of the Secretary-General. Jamie has been a guest on popular news outlets to talk about climate solutions, including CNN International, The Weather Channel, Al Jazeera, and NPR. She has also authored numerous articles on climate change including “Solutions to the Climate Crisis will come from the multitudes” and “Seeking your climate refuge? Consider this” for CNN, and “We need a new definition of corporate climate leadership” and “Will corporations choose climate transformation or climate status quo” for Fast Company.

Candice Ammori is the founder and CEO of Climate Vine. Before that, she was the founding Director of the On Deck Climate Tech Fellowship which brought together 650+ people across the climate ecosystem in multiple cohorts. Fellows raised a combined $350M+ in venture funding, more than two dozen companies emerged, and hundreds of emerging contributors transitioned to the climate innovation space. Candice's methodology for Climate Vine brings together her 10 years of experience and learnings in collaborative strategy. She maintains deep vertical knowledge as an active investor and advisor to emerging climate tech companies. Candice holds degrees in environmental policy and business and an MS in biostatistics, focused on the ethics of AI, from the University of Michigan. She has lived and worked globally in microfinance, business and tech in places ranging from Cambodia to Singapore and London.

Anjali Bansal is the Founding Partner of Avaana Climate and Sustainability Fund - investing in technology and innovation-led start-ups catalysing climate solutions and sustainability. Previously, Anjali was the Non-Executive Chairperson of Dena Bank, appointed by the Government of India to steer the stressed bank’s resolution and merger with Bank of Baroda. Prior to that, Anjali was a Global Partner and Managing Director with TPG Growth PE, responsible for India, SE Asia, Africa and Middle East and strategy consultant with McKinsey in New York. Anjali has invested in various successful start-ups including Nykaa, Delhivery, Urban Company, Darwinbox, Farmart, and climate tech leaders like Turno, Terra.do and Eeki.She serves as an independent director on leading boards including Tata Power, Nestle, and Piramal Enterprises. She has been appointed on the Board of ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) and GIFT City, and chairs the Climate Council within IVCA. She is a Member of the Evolution Review Committee for Niti Aayog, India’s premier policy think tank chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister. Anjali has previously chaired the India board of Women's World Banking, and served on the boards of GSK Pharma, Siemens, and Bata. She has co-founded and chaired the FICCI program for Women on Corporate Boards. Anjali is a member of the YPO and a charter member of TiE. She has been listed as one of the “Most Powerful Women” by India’s leading publications, Business Today, Fortune India and Forbes India. She has a bachelors in Computer Engineering from Gujarat University and a Masters from Columbia University.

Anshuman is the founder of Terra.do, the global platform for working in the climate economy. They combine immersive cohort-based learning programs with a powerful community of climate insiders and jobs from the top climate employers across the world. Think of them like a LinkedIn for Climate. Their ambitious goal is to move 100M people into climate work this decade. Anshuman is a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded and sold his first startup (RightHalf.com) while in undergrad at IIT Bombay, seeing it through the first boom & bust on the internet. After his MBA at Stanford, he spent some time selling solar lights in Vietnam and started a non-profit that helped Indian Members of Parliament develop their constituencies. All this while working with Deloitte, then Google in New York. He moved to Bangalore in 2009 to start Mygola.com, a travel planning app that was acquired by MakeMyTrip in 2015, where he was their Chief Product Officer until 2019 when a classic midlife crisis sent him in search for what was truly worth working on. He currently lives in Stanford University where his wife is finishing her PhD. He has two kids, and often finds himself taking climate inspiration (and career advice!) from them these days.

Khorcheska Batyrova (PhD in biotechnology) is the CEO of Ozonebio. From 2016-2021 she worked at University of Toronto on different complex enzymes for industrial applications. In 2021, she and her co-founder Anna Khusnutdinova decided to start OzoneBio and developed novel "Zombie cells" biocatalysis to upcycle toxic feedstocks into to high value bio-products.

Dr. Brian Baynes is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He is a Founder of Verdox (MIT spin-out developing an electrically-driven carbon capture technology), Petri.bio (Boston-based venture accelerator at the intersection of biology and engineering), Midori Health (novel fiber feed additives for animal nutrition and health, sold to Royal DSM (AMS:DSM)), Celexion (protein engineering and synthetic biology for biopharma and industrial applications; sold to Agenus (NASDAQ:AGEN)), and Codon Devices (applied synthetic biology; sold to Gen9/Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA)). Previously, Dr. Baynes was a Partner with Flagship Pioneering, where he served on affiliated funds’ investment committees, as an executive in early-stage ventures, and on the boards of sustainability companies Red Rock Biofuels, Joule, Mascoma, Enchi, and Be Power. He was also an engineer at ExxonMobil and a Director in the MIT School of Chemical Engineering Practice at industrial companies in the USA, United Arab Emirates, and Japan. He is a member of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and of the Advisory Committee of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware. He holds a PhD from MIT and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware, both in chemical engineering.

Mikal founded Core Power to create a market for new nuclear technologies in the maritime and offshore industries as the end-game solution for our energy transition. CORE POWER’s mission is to combine ‘fit-for-purpose’ new nuclear energy technologies with shipyard manufacturing techniques, enabling the nuclear industry to move from project based civil construction to a product-based manufacturing future. This opens a path for offshore floating nuclear power and new-nuclear powered ships, eliminating emissions, improving quality, reducing costs, and boosting scale. Mikal has over 30 years shipping industry experience from floor to board, in technology, finance and risk management. He served as Chief Risk Officer for Eagle Bulk in New York and for Thoresen Thai Agencies in Singapore before starting CORE POWER in 2018. He is a board member of the World Nuclear Transport Institute and serves as their Chair of the ‘Maritime Applications and Nuclear Propulsion’ Working Group. He is a member of the Offshore Technical Committee at Lloyd’s Register; is a member of the Maritime Nuclear Applications Group at the National Reactor Innovation Centre at Idaho National Laboratory in the US and a member of the UK Nuclear Industry Association Advisory Board in London.

Ramadan Borayek got his PhD in Material Science from National University of Singapore. Ramadan has 2 US patents regarding smart materials for environmental and energy applications. Ramadan have cofounded Drip.AI Pte Ltd in Singapore and is currently its CTO. Drip.AI produces water out of the thin air with only the sun power under very low humidity levels. Their solution is scalable to the industry levels with prices comparable to the worldwide water prices. Drip.AI is going to solve a big part of the water scarcity that going to hit the world in the near future due to climate change.

Dr. Shannon Bragg-Sitton is an internationally recognized pioneer in the innovative application of nuclear energy alongside other clean energy generators, seeking to maximize energy utilization, generator profitability, and grid reliability and resilience through systems integration. Since 2021, Shannon has served as the Director for the Integrated Energy & Storage Systems Division in the Energy & Environment Science & Technology Directorate at Idaho National Laboratory, which includes Power and Energy Systems, Energy Storage and Electric Transportation, and Hydrogen and Electrochemistry departments. In 2014 she helped establish the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy Integrated Energy Systems (IES) program (https://ies.inl.gov), serving as the program National Technical Director from 2014-2023. The IES team has developed novel modeling and simulation tools for technical and economic assessment of multi-input, multi-output IES and supporting experimental capabilities. Shannon is also the Chair of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) Task Force on Non-electric Applications of Nuclear Heat (NEANH). Shannon has held multiple leadership roles in DOE Office of Nuclear Energy programs since joining INL in 2010, including program leadership for space nuclear power and propulsion systems, advanced nuclear fuels, used fuel disposition, and microreactor development. Dr. Bragg-Sitton holds a PhD and MS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan, an MS in Medical Physics from the University of Texas at Houston, and a BS in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Po is passionate about reconceptualizing complex challenges into more elegant forms, to broaden understanding and highlight priorities. He’s been at IndieBio SF since 2018. Po is a longtime science journalist honored with nine national awards, and author of seven bestselling books that are available in 28 languages worldwide. His work has been cited in 185 academic journals and 503 books. His background is in Economics. He learned finance at Credit Suisse and consulting at a division of Arthur Andersen. Prior to IndieBio he spent four years as a Futurist with Attention Span Media, consulting corporate innovation efforts for globally-recognized brands. Most recently, Po is the author of Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner, published by Twelve Books, a division of the Hachette Publishing Group.

Dr. Philip Bronstein is the Senior Vice President of Global Food Safety and Quality Assurance at the OSI Group. In this role he is responsible for continuing to advance OSI's FSQA mission to protect industry leading global and regional customers by utilizing best-in-class food safety and quality systems with an approach of excellence and relentless improvement. Prior to this position Dr Bronstein spent over 19 years with the USDA. He joined USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in 2004 as a Research Molecular Biologist. In this role, he was responsible for developing and implementing research to study the interactions between plants and pathogenic bacteria. In 2010, he joined the Food Safety and Inspection service (FSIS) as a Microbiologist in the Office of Public Health Science (OPHS). In this role, he worked on a wide range of microbiological issues including providing microbiological support to the field, identifying emerging microbiological issues, and explaining the scientific underpinnings of FSIS policies to international audiences. In 2015, Dr. Bronstein was selected as the Director of the OPHS Science Staff and provided microbiological and chemical residue support for the Agency. He joined the Office of Field Operations in 2017 and helped implement the Siluriformes inspection program and was the Assistant Administrator of Field Operations with FSIS for over 4 years where he led operations and inspection services for the regulatory agency that ensures the nation’s commercial supply of meat, poultry, and processed egg products is safe, wholesome, and properly labeled. One of his key achievements was to develop and implement a robust process to ensure that cell-cultured food products were properly inspected for US consumers. Dr. Bronstein holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Microbiology from Texas A&M University and a Doctorate in Microbiology from the University of Washington.

Nathaniel (Nat) Bullard has two decades of experience in energy, climate, and decarbonization. Nat is an experienced analyst, columnist, strategy facilitator, and keynote speaker. He is a senior contributor to BloombergNEF, where he worked for 15 years in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Hong Kong, most recently as the group’s chief content officer. He is a weekly columnist for Bloomberg Green, where he writes on climate, energy, transportation and technology for 250,000. He is also a venture partner at Voyager Ventures, and advises early-stage climate companies and investors. He received a Master's Degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in International Policy (Energy track) and International Economics, and an AB magna cum laude from Harvard University.

Stefano Buono is an accomplished Italian physicist and alumnus of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Until January 2018, Mr. Buono served as Chief Executive Officer and board member of Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), an international radiopharmaceutical company he founded in 2002 and acquired in 2018 by Novartis for $3.9 billion. In 2018 he founded Elysia Capital, his single-Family Office based in London and Turin, focused on social impact investments in the field of Sustainable Innovation, Wellbeing, Education, Art, and Culture. Since 2018, Stefano Buono is Chairman of Planet Smart City, a global leader in integrating smart solutions and social innovation practices in the design and development of large, affordable, smart real estate housing projects. With 1,700 employees, the company is currently operating in Italy, Brazil, India, the USA and Colombia. Since 2019, Mr. Buono is also Chairman of LIFTT, a not-only-profit investment holding that focuses on innovation and technology transfer from research institutions. LIFTT has already invested in more than 35 companies and it has been ranked the third venture investor in Italy in 2022. In 2021, Stefano Buono co-founded and incorporated the nuclear technology company newcleo, of which he is CEO. The company is based in UK, Italy, and France. In its first year of operation, it raised EUR400m reaching around 200 employees. It has the goal of bringing forward the most sustainable strategy for the nuclear industry of the future, with innovations that increase safety, reduce costs, avoid mining, and dramatically reduce nuclear waste.

Ken joined Breakthrough Energy (BE) as Senior Scientist in January of 2021, but Ken has been helping to bring information and expertise to Bill Gates since 2007.  Ken is responsible for helping to assure that researchers and analysts in the Breakthrough Energy network have access to reliable and up-to-date scientific and technical information. Ken is committed to helping scale the technologies we need to achieve a path to net zero emissions by 2050, and thinking through the process of getting these technologies deployed around the world in ways that can both improve people’s lives and protect the environment. In addition to his Breakthrough Energy roles, Ken currently holds the position of Senior Staff Scientist (emeritus) in the Carnegie Institution for Science Department of Global Ecology and Professor (by courtesy) in the Stanford University Department of Earth System Sciences. Ken maintains a research group in the Carnegie Institution for Science facilities on the Stanford University campus. This research group is engaged primarily in idealized energy system and energy-climate-economic modeling. Ken has a wide-spectrum approach to analyzing the world’s energy and climate systems. He studies the global carbon cycle; marine biogeochemistry and chemical oceanography, including ocean acidification and the atmosphere/ocean carbon cycle; land-cover and climate change; the long-term evolution of climate and geochemical cycles; climate intervention proposals; and energy technology. Before 2005, Ken worked as an environmental scientist and physicist for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Prior to graduate school, Ken developed software in New York’s financial district for clients including the New York Stock Exchange and First Boston. Ken holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Atmospheric Sciences from New York University and a B.A. degree in Philosophy from Rutgers College. Ken lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife Lilian and his grown child, Kirill. In addition to his family, he also loves music and his home recording studio, hiking, skiing, and, most recently, tennis.

Dr. Gaurab Chakrabarti, MD, PhD is the co-founder and CEO of Solugen. As a physician-scientist, Gaurab took an oath to first do no harm—and for him, that goes beyond patients or medicine. So in 2016, he started Solugen to decarbonize the chemicals industry, one of the most damaging for people and the Earth. Gaurab believes in using biology in unconventional ways to solve incredibly complex problems and is building a world-class team to join him on the journey. Gaurab studied computational neuroscience as an undergraduate at Brown University and received his MD & PhD in cancer biology and enzymology at the University of Texas. He is an author or co-author on more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and patents, and he is a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Industry and Manufacturing.

Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch and the founder of Future Proof, a publication covering climate and energy. He is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing and has written for Wired magazine, The Wire China, the Chicago Tribune, and NOVA Next, among others. De Chant was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, and he received his doctorate in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.

As a Partner at Material Impact, Corinna is focused on applying fundamental technologies across sectors to meet new needs and solve emerging real-world problems. Her areas of interest include synthetic biology, bio-based materials, advanced electronic materials, next gen computing and climate tech. With experience in engineering, life sciences, medical devices, and aerospace, Corinna’s expertise spans many fields—including sensor technologies, biotechnology, systems hardware, electronics, and semiconductors. She has a successful record of transactions, totaling over $1.25B across eight products and several geographies, and including licensing, acquisition, divestitures, and new company formation. As vice president of corporate development and finance at Medeor Therapeutics, Corinna created the growth strategy for the firm’s cell therapy pipeline. She also led deal sourcing focused on technology platforms, clinical assets, and acquisitions. Prior to this, Corinna was responsible for business development and strategy for the Surgery and Perioperative Care business unit at the Medicines Company, where she focused on growth through worldwide partnerships and commercialization of novel therapies. At Incline Therapeutics, Corinna worked both in business development and in engineering. She helped design, develop, and commercialize the transdermal device IONSYS, and led the company’s integration by the Medicines Company following its $390M acquisition. Corinna also helped develop a sublingual therapy for acute pain at AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, and created additional diagnostic therapies in other roles. She began her career as a rocket scientist at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, designing instrumentation and building spacecrafts for NASA’s THEMIS mission to examine space storms. Corinna received her MBA from Duke University and her BS in Electrical Engineering from Boston University. She holds 9 patents in drug and device design, and has published on the economic impact of organ transplantation in the American Journal of Transplantation. Over the course of her career, she has advised and supported the launch of several startups. Corinna is dedicated to the advancement of science and technology to better human lives and the environment. She is also an avid swimmer, SCUBA diver, and urban farmer who is in constant pursuit of unique adventures.

Marie is a Founding Partner of Wavemaker Impact, the first VC backed climate tech venture builder in SouthEast Asia. Wavemaker Impact co-founds start ups with experienced entreprenuers with the aim of building a portfolio of scaleable companies that can abate 10% of the global carbon budget. Marie has worked with over 20 entrepreneurs to help them build their businesses. In the last two years, Marie has focused exclusively on launching climate tech startups in Southeast Asia and is passionate about increasing the pipeline of women founders in the sector. Prior to joining Wavemaker Impact, Marie led the Venture Build program at ENGIE Factory, where she was responsible for building a portfolio of 10 climate tech ventures valued at over US $8m at pre-seed round. Marie was also the general manager at a SAAS startup and a senior member of KPMG's Digital + Innovation team. Her career also includes stints in management consulting and in a construction company where she specialized in operations strategy, business development, cost reduction and process improvement. Marie has a MBA from the National University of Singapore where she graduated as valedictorian and holder of the Panasonic Marketing Award.

Lisa Coca is a partner for Toyota Ventures where she leads the firm’s Climate Fund, which focuses on investing in innovative solutions for carbon neutrality. Prior to Toyota, Lisa served as a managing director and entrepreneur-in-residence with Intel’s emerging growth and incubations division where she led teams creating disruptive new businesses. Lisa was also a founding member of GE Ventures, responsible for launching and leading the enterprise software investment practice, as well as the EDGE program, a platform for portfolio companies to leverage the global scale, expertise, and resources of GE. Previously, Lisa developed her passion for climate as the global sustainability and Ecomagination leader for GE real estate where she launched a program to leverage technology and operating best practices to reduce the environmental impact of its assets and improve financial performance. She has also held multiple roles focused on strategy, innovation and new businesses. Lisa started her career as a financial analyst on Wall Street. She serves on the boards of BizWorld and the Girls Middle School. She is also an independent board director for Broadscale Acquisition Corporation. Lisa graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with Honors, and earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and editor at TechCrunch.

Brendan Collins is the Co-Founder and CEO of Avalo. He is a cell biologist, programmer, and lover of nature. Prior to founding Avalo, Brendan co-founded and worked as a software engineer at two early-stage startups. He also played a key role in developing cell-based therapies for treating traumatic spinal cord injuries during his tenure at University College London. Brendan holds a BS from the University of Notre Dame and an MS from University College London.

Casey Crownhart is a climate reporter for MIT Technology Review, where she covers topics from renewable energy and transportation to food and climate policy. She is the author of The Spark , a weekly climate technology newsletter. Her work has also appeared in outlets including Popular Science and Atlas Obscura, and she is a regular contributor to Science Friday.

John Cumbers is the founder and CEO of SynBioBeta, the leading community of innovators, investors, engineers, and thinkers who share a passion for using synthetic biology to build a better, more sustainable universe. He publishes the weekly SynBioBeta Digest, hosts the SynBioBeta Podcast, and wrote “What’s Your Biostrategy?”, the first book to anticipate how synthetic biology is going to disrupt virtually every industry in the world. John also founded BetaSpace, a space settlement innovation network and community of visionaries, technologists, and investors accelerating the industries needed to sustain human life here and off-planet. He’s been involved with multiple startups, is an operating partner and investor at the hard tech investment fund Data Collective, and is a former bioengineer at NASA. He earned a PhD in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry from Brown University and is originally from the UK.

Kate Danaher is Managing Director of S2G Ventures' Ocean Fund. Kate has worked at the intersection of impact investing and sustainable food and agriculture for over ten years. Prior to joining S2G Ventures, Kate was the Chief Lending Officer at RSF Social Finance, where she oversaw the capital deployment strategy to evaluate products, investment sectors, and growth objectives in alignment with the organization’s strategic plan. She is a food and agriculture finance expert who has specialized in the US food system, fair trade supply chains, and consumer-facing brands. Kate received her MBA through the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise program at Colorado State University.

Stephanie Dorsey is Founding Partner at E²JDJ, an early stage venture capital firm investing globally in AgriFood technology and science. The fund invests in talented founders who are creating cutting edge technological or scientific solutions across the food value chain that improve the efficiency, quality, resilience and sustainability of the food system, and ultimately human and planetary health. E²JDJ focuses on scalable, high growth and early-stage businesses that promote human health, reduce global energy consumption, mitigate the environmental impact of the industry, and harness technology to drive substantial gains in productivity. Stephanie is a thought leader in the sustainable food space and serves on numerous advisory boards of food, sustainability and entrepreneurial organizations. Prior to founding E²JDJ, Stephanie was a lawyer at the corporate law firm of Davis, Polk & Wardwell.

Dr. Farahani received his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He has 3 patents on nanofiltration membranes. He has 10 years of membrane-related experience and over 30 publications with 2000+ citations in the field. He received the title “Innovators Under 35” in the Asia Pacific from MIT Technology Review in 2020 and the “Outstanding Young Alumni Award” from NUS. He also received the “Founder of the Year Award” by TechNode Global, “Innovator of the Year” by Singapore Business Review, “Leader of Tomorrow” by Gen.T List, and "The Outstanding Postgraduate Research Thesis Award" from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

Katie Fehrenbacher has been a journalist covering climate tech for over 15 years and is currently the climate tech deals reporter for Axios. She formerly worked for Fortune, Gigaom, Red Herring and GreenBiz.

Maria Gallucci is a senior clean energy reporter at Canary Media, where she covers hard-to-decarbonize sectors and efforts to make the energy transition more affordable and equitable. She was most recently a contributing writer for Grist and IEEE Spectrum, and was previously a staff reporter for InsideClimate News, Mashable, and Mexico City newspapers. Her reporting has taken her across the Americas and inside cargo ships, power plants, and nuclear waste facilities. She was the 2017-2018 Energy Journalism Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and a 2021 TED speaker. Maria now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Raffi Garabedian is co-founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen Co. Prior to Electric Hydrogen, Raffi served as chief technology officer at First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) since May 2012. He was responsible for the company’s technology platform and product development. Mr. Garabedian joined First Solar in June 2008. Before First Solar, Raffi spent over 15 years developing and commercializing new technologies ranging from MEMS sensors to fiberoptic telecommunications switching systems and semiconductor test equipment. He was the founding CEO of Touchdown Technologies, Inc., acquired by Agilent/Verigy, and of Micromachines Inc., which Kavlico acquired. Raffi serves or has served on the boards of several companies, including ESS Inc. (NYSE: GWH), Fulfil Solutions, and Covalent Metrologies. Mr. Garabedian is named on about 30 issued U.S. patents. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of California Davis.

Andy Gollach is a Principal on the team at SOSV's HAX where he leads investment operations and focuses on innovation in energy and heavy industry. Prior to joining SOSV Andy spent nearly a decade on large capital projects in the O&G and CCU industries all over the world. He was the site lead on LanzaTech's First-of-a-Kind commercial unit in China, where the facility went from a greenfield site to on-spec product in 18 months. Andy earned an MBA from Carnegie Mellon and during that time focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in the energy sector, launching his own climate tech venture and also interning at ARPA-E where he helped develop an early thesis around maritime decarbonization. Andy also holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University.

Kemp Gregory is the CEO and a co-founder at Renewell Energy. Raised in the bays of his father’s small automotive repair shop, he dreamed of running GM or Ford one day. An internship with Ford in the summer of 2011 showed him their lack of vision (at the time) followed by an internship in Shell’s wind energy group which pulled back the curtain on the oil industry not yet ready to move towards a dramatically new future. He knew he needed to develop an expertise in something that would drastically change the energy landscape. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 with his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, that technology was hydraulic fracturing. He spent the next 5 years mastering it, installing cutting-edge downhole technology, managing capital-intensive projects, and coordinating large operations teams across North and South America. By the time he was living in Argentina however, he was already being drawn to the immense challenge and promise of the energy transition. So, he left Argentina for California in 2018 to get a Master of Science in renewable energy engineering from Stanford, effectively creating a personal career that serves as forerunner of the larger energy transition required to decarbonize the electrical grid. Stanford's startup milieu was the best place in the world to get a crash course in entrepreneurism, and it was there the Renewell concept made its first steps towards reality when a pitch of the basic idea gained entry to Stanford Climate Ventures. Since then, he has committed to building Renewell to its full potential and his time with Shell created the ideal bank of experiences to deliver that success.

Dan is a Managing Director for ADM Ventures, the corporate VC arm of Archer Daniels Midland Company, focused on stage agnostic investments in food, agriculture, and climate technologies. Prior to ADM Ventures, Dan held strategy and investing roles at Zymergen and Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, respectively. Previously, Dan was a founding Associate at iSelect Fund, a Food & Agri-Tech VC, and an investment banking Analyst at Progress Partners, an M&A advisory. Dan earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a B.A. from Bucknell University.

Renee Grogan is a sustainability expert with nearly 20 years’ industry experience in permitting and approvals, regulatory compliance, stakeholder engagement, strategy, risk, feasibility and due diligence. Her experience includes working in Australia and the Pacific, the United States, Africa, Europe and Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. Renee has fulfilled senior sustainability positions with companies including Nautilus Minerals, Newcrest Mining Limited, Gold Fields Limited and Thiess Mining. Renee is a Co-Founder of Impossible Metals, and previously served as the Chief Sustainability Officer. Impossible Metals is aiming to enable responsible seabed mining and refining of battery metals, supporting the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Renee is a former Director of the World Ocean Council, where she served for over 6 years, and has also held Board positions for scientific and NGO organisations. Renee holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Business Administration. She currently serves as a member of the JANA Sustainability Advisory Council and remains a Director of Impossible Metals.

David is a climate tech investor at Transition and spends his time searching for solutions to global warming and its nexus of interlinked crises. Many years ago he founded Unity and remains on the board. His background is in programming, many unfinished degrees, creating companies, and helping entrepreneurs.

Scott Jacobs is the CEO and co-founder of Generate Capital, PBC, a leading sustainable investment and operating company delivering affordable, reliable resource solutions to businesses, communities and cities. Prior to Generate, Scott joined McKinsey & Company and co-founded its global Clean Technologies Practice, advising companies, institutional investors, NGOs and governments around the world on the economic imperatives of resource productivity and climate solutions. Before McKinsey, Scott spent over a decade in technology and venture capital and helped launch and scale several companies. Scott has dedicated much of his professional life to the energy transition and is a regular writer, keynote speaker and conference panelist on the topics of thematic investing and risk management, climate- and resource-related innovation, and building values-based and people-centric businesses. 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.

Jesse D. Jenkins is an assistant professor and macro-scale energy systems engineer at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He leads the Princeton ZERO Lab (Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization Laboratory), which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy systems models to evaluate and optimize low-carbon energy technologies, guide investment and research in innovative energy technologies, and generate insights to improve energy and climate policy and planning decisions. Dr. Jenkins earned a PhD and SM from MIT, worked previously as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career. Dr. Jenkins recently served on the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine expert committee on Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System, was a principal investigator and lead author of Princeton's landmark Net-Zero America study, and leads the REPEAT Project (repeatproject.org), which provides regular, timely, and independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies as they’re proposed and enacted. He regularly provides technical analysis and policy advice for non-profit organizations, policy makers, investors, and early-stage technology ventures working to accelerate the deployment of clean energy.

Benjamin Joffe is a partner at SOSV (www.sosv.com), a global deep tech fund focused on planetary and human health. SOSV has been the most active investor in climate tech since 2017 with over 150 startups backed. Benjamin works on deal flow, strategy and the annual SOSV Climate Tech Summit  (www.sosvclimatetech.com - Sept 26-27), a virtual and free event featuring top VCs and founders like Bill Gates and Chris Sacca, that attracts thousands every year. Born in France, Benjamin graduated with two MSc in Engineering, and worked in consulting, telecom, gaming for over a decade in China, Japan, South Korea and more, and was the founder of a cross-border consultancy on digital innovation. He is an angel investor in 20 startups including one unicorn. He has lectured at top universities including Berkely Haas, National University of Singapore and Zhejiang University where he gave a course on Deep Tech Ventures. He has written for TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat and IEEE Spectrum, been featured on Bloomberg TV, WSJ, The Economist, Nature, Wired and spoke at tech events in over 30 countries.

Christina Karapataki is an investor with experience building companies and commercializing technology in the energy and sustainability sectors. In 2017, Christina joined Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund that invests in companies addressing climate and sustainability challenges. She focuses on decarbonization solutions for the electricity, transportation and manufacturing sectors. Christina has a passion for working with extraordinary entrepreneurs and helping move technology out-of-the-lab and into the real world. Previously, Christina worked as a Venture Principal at the Schlumberger corporate venture capital group. She invested and established joint development partnerships with early-stage technology startups looking to adapt their products to oilfield applications. Christina holds BA and MEng degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge and an MS degree in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sonia Kastner is the CEO and Founder of Pano AI, the leader in early wildfire detection. Previously, Sonia spent over ten years building and leading supply chain and manufacturing organizations within fast-growing, mission-driven start-ups. Her global leadership experience spans Nest Thermostats, multiple solar energy companies, and extensive consulting across the IoT ecosystem. Prior to starting her career in technology, she worked in economic development for New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sarah Kearney is the Founder and Executive Director of Prime Coalition, a nonprofit public charity that steers and influences capital to support scalable solutions to climate change. She has designed and implemented interventions at the nonprofit/for-profit boundary of climate innovation since 2006, first on behalf of a philanthropic grantmaking organization, then as a scholar investigating both the innovation and philanthropy systems globally, and then founding and building Prime. Prime is a 501c3 public charity founded in 2014 that invests in extraordinary companies, projects and funds that combat climate change, have a high likelihood of achieving commercial success, and are otherwise unlikely to be sufficiently supported. It has mobilized over $300MM in catalytic capital since its founding from over 250 philanthropic partners, where 78 partners were first-time catalytic investors and 50 were first-time climate financiers. As its Executive Director, Sarah is responsible for envisioning the future of the organization, evangelizing its mission, staffing it for success, and overseeing its administration, programs and strategic plan. Before Prime, Sarah served as Executive Director and Trustee of the Chesonis Family Foundation, a grantmaking organization that supports transformational energy research, development and deployment. Her work at CFF led her to conduct research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where in 2012 she published her thesis “The Role of Philanthropic Capital in Entrepreneurship: An empirical analysis of financial vehicles at the nonprofit/for-profit boundary of science and engineering.” Sarah holds a B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia and an M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. Based on her work, Sarah was inducted into the Raven Society at the University of Virginia, and has been awarded the 2012 MIT Ronald Heller Entrepreneurship Award, 2014 Caltech Resonate Award, 2014 Echoing Green Fellowship, the MIT Technology Review’s 2014 35 Innovators Under 35, and the 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30. She was featured as ImpactAlpha’s “Agent of Change” in May 2020.

Deniz Kent, PhD is the Co-founder and CEO of Prolific Machines. Prior to starting Prolific, Dr Kent spent his career working in the pursuit of improving human health. After studying Cellular and Molecular Medicine, he began researching in a tumour immunology lab, working to reprogram the immune system to fight cancer. After this, he went to GSK and worked to reprogram the immune system to respond to allergens with tolerance instead of inflammation. He did his doctorate in stem cell biology, and during his PhD he co-discovered a new liver stem cell, and conducted the world's first high throughput screen on hiPSC-derived hepatocytes. During his PhD, Deniz conceived of the idea for Prolific Machines, a cell type agnostic assembly line for biomanufacturing. Applications for Prolific Machines span cultured meat, biologics manufacturing, cell based therapies, and beyond.

Vinod Khosla is an entrepreneur, investor, and technology fan. He is the founder of Khosla Ventures, focused on impactful technology investments in software, AI, robotics, 3D printing, healthcare and more. Mr. Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy systems and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. One of Mr. Khosla’s greatest passions is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology-based businesses. Mr. Khosla is driven by the desire to make a positive impact through using technology to reinvent societal infrastructure and multiply resources. He is also passionate about Social Entrepreneurship. Vinod holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT, New Delhi, a Master's in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Eugene is the co-founder and Executive Director of Work On Climate, a non-profit focused on building the workforce needed to solve climate change. Eugene started this non-profit after quitting his 15-year software career (most recently at Google, working on large-scale data processing and AI systems) to focus on climate, and meeting hundreds of other professionals in the same boat when his goodbye note went viral. Work On Climate has built the world's largest professional community of its kind and helped several thousand people land jobs working on climate solutions. Now they are focusing on the full scale of the climate talent transition - hundreds of millions of people across all roles and sectors - by rallying the power of the entire mainstream talent ecosystem. Eugene's story and his work have been featured by FastCompany, CNBC, The Weather Channel, New York Times, EDF, and other venues. Eugene dedicates his free time to rock climbing, enjoying art and music, and hanging out with his two cats, This One and That One.

Clea is a Partner and The Head of Science at Lowercarbon Capital where she leads many of the fund's core investments as well as leads the firm’s technical research, diligence, and scientific strategy efforts.

Natasha Kostenuk is a Professional Engineer and cleantech entrepreneur with expertise in business development and technology commercialization. In 2021, Natasha founded Ayrton Energy, developing next generation hydrogen storage solutions. Ayrton stores hydrogen in a room pressure, room temperature carrier fluid that safely stores and manages hydrogen no differently than diesel. This enables hydrogen storage and transportation in existing infrastructure, and for a cost that is 50% lower than compressed or liquified hydrogen. Natasha completed a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Calgary before beginning her career in the oil and gas industry at an energy service company where she spent 19 years gaining a breadth of experience. She worked as a field engineer, a project manager, a technical sales agent, and a technical manager. Ultimately, Natasha was worked in business development focused on commercializing technology through distribution and licensing agreements, finding channel partners and establishing revenue streams. She followed that by working as a consultant and board advisor to early stage tech companies, building and helping execute tech commercialization and growth strategies.

Gabriel Kra co-founded Prelude Ventures in 2013, after almost 25 years as an investor, entrepreneur, scientist, activist, and ski-bum. Before launching Prelude Ventures, Gabriel spent four years as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank in its solar and semiconductor groups. He also was an early employee at venture-backed telecommunications and semiconductor start-ups, where he was instrumental in raising money, launching products, developing technology and getting acquired. Gabriel’s early experience working a summer at Yellowstone National Park and for Greenpeace sparked his lifelong commitment to fighting climate change. ​ Gabriel serves on the Boards of Directors of Renew Financial, Ripple Foods, Sense Labs, Natron Energy, ClearMetal, Raxium, and Form Energy, and is active with Meati, Metalenz, Zymergen, Planet, Catalog, and Spark Thermionics. Other investments at Prelude include PLANT PV, Suniva (ShunFeng Clean Energy), SolarBridge (SPWR), and Clean Urban Energy. Gabriel also serves on the Board of Directors of Activate and The CREO Syndicate, and on advisory boards for Prime Coalition and Carbon180. ​ 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. Gabriel is still an avid skier, and spends as much of his free time as possible in the mountains, with his wife and four children. Gabriel now roots for the San Francisco Giants after years as a New Yorker, and his favorite guilty pleasure, much to his wife’s chagrin, is Clash of Clans.

Bret Kugelmass is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Last Energy. A visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Bret has been a leading voice on the essential role nuclear energy plays in achieving deep decarbonization and energy security for the near future. In 2017, Bret founded the Energy Impact Center, a Washington DC-based research institute. Over the course of 5 years EIC engaged in intense global industry and governmental collaboration becoming an internationally regarded thought leader on the role of nuclear power in accelerating the transition to clean energy. Their work on fast-tracking deployment roadmaps for small modular reactors became the basis of their key subject matter contributions to the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Sweden. Building upon a foundation of engineering excellence, years of nuclear industry research, strong government credibility, and access to private capital, Bret navigated the organizational transition leading EIC to become a full fledged commercial developer of small modular reactors, emerging as Last Energy. With a goal of revolutionizing the delivery model for nuclear power, Last Energy aims to accelerate the global energy transition to abundant clean power, ushering in a new future of human flourishing. A former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Bret is known for his work pioneering autonomous aerospace technology. Bret received his Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Paul is the Founder and CEO of Quilt, where he is helping to build the world’s most advanced home heating and cooling system. Paul’s career has evolved at the intersection of product, technology, and sustainability. Before founding Quilt, he was a partner and director at Google’s in-house incubator, Area 120, where he led the company’s sustainability drive. Paul has also worked as a product manager for Twitter and Google, and early in his career, he was the founder and CEO of Learndot, a learning management system acquired in 2014.

Rob Leclerc, PhD is a Founding Partner at AgFunder, one of the world's most active foodtech and agtech venture capital firms. Rob is a Forbes contributor and has also been published in TechCrunch, Harvard Business Review, Financial Post, and twice in Nature journals. Rob has been invited to chair, speak, and keynote at dozens of global conferences on food & agriculture, technology, and fintech. Rob has been interviewed by Bloomberg TV, CNBC (TV), Wall Street Journal, Forbes, LA Times, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, FastCompany, and Reuters. He has five degrees, spanning Philosophy, Computer Science (AI/Virtual Robotics), and Computational Biology, including a PhD from Yale University.

Franco holds a degree in Economics from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and an MBA/MA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Having worked for McKinsey & Company in Operations and Digital implementations across Argentina, Chile, Brasil, and Perú, he has always focused on the food value chain. With prior founder experience as the CEO of a restaurant software startup, he founded Puna Bio after meeting his three scientific cofounders in the midst of the pandemic. Since 2020, he has led Puna Bio's strategy, fundraising, and business development. Today, he leads a team of 25, with operations in Argentina, Brazil, and the USA, tackling one of humanity's most pressing challenges: ensuring food security and building resilience in agriculture.

Connie Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late '90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. She is currently the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch. She's also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series.

Coppelia is a Partner at Solvay Ventures, the venture capital fund of Solvay. With 160 years of existence, Solvay is a global leader in Materials, Chemicals and Solutions, and brings innovation in aerospace, cars, batteries, smart and medical devices, water and air treatment, to solve critical industrial, social and environmental challenges. Coppelia invests in start-ups developing technologies that leverage chemistry to tackle large climate issues. Topics cover energy transition, sustainable resources, health & wellbeing and future of manufacturing. She sits on the board of companies developing new technologies in batteries (Sepion, Sionic Energy), biotech (DMC), composites manufacturing (Plyable and formerly MultiMechanics), plastic-free personal care (Nohbo), and carbon capture. Her prior experience in VC was at Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based VC fund, where she specialized in cleantech and industrial biology. Before joining Solvay Ventures, Coppelia was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where she worked on resource productivity projects and biotechnology manufacturing. With a passion for climate for over 15 years, she was one of the pioneers of Life Cycle Assessment, and guest lecturer at Harvard and MIT on this topic. Coppelia also worked for start-ups in biotech and sustainability software / consulting. Trained as a chemist, Coppelia specialized in environmental sciences, and worked in the labs of two Nobel Laureates. She holds an MBA from INSEAD, MSc. in Environmental Sciences from Harvard University and MSc. in Chemistry from Chimie ParisTech.

Peter has a variety of experience and education around robotics and AI, with a masters in computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, a masters in robotics and AI from University of Michigan, an MBA and sustainability certificate from MIT, and five years working in the autonomous vehicles industry at Ford, Argo AI, and May Mobility. He and his team at Gaia AI are working on solving the biggest problems holding back forests from being an ideal carbon sequestration solution.

Laurie Menoud holds a Master's degree in biotechnology from the École Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Luminy in France, where she studied genetic engineering, biochemistry, and microbiology. Through her work with The French National Center for Scientific Research, she got involved in the characterization of the first "giant" virus ever discovered, which later shed new light on the origins of life. Driven by the desire to apply biotechnologies toward environmental health, she later joined Bluewater Bio in the UK, focused on optimizing the company's new biological process for wastewater treatment. Laurie then decided to get a Post-Master of Business Innovation from the EM Lyon Business School to study technology and innovation management. This led her to join the Corporate Research & Innovation group of Solvay, a large chemical company, where she supported strategy for long-term R&D programs, startup investments, and acquisitions. She worked on various sustainability topics such as bio-based materials, energy-efficient lighting, renewable energy, and radioactive waste recycling. After leaving Solvay, Laurie moved to the US to join SRI International. She built her operational experience by commercializing next-generation technologies funded by DoD, DoE, and NSF programs. She mentored over 50 entrepreneurs and built a dozen ventures related to computer vision, natural language processing, diagnostics, and robotics. More recently, at BASF Venture Capital, Laurie led equity investments in early-stage companies and funds in North America. She was responsible for the overall investment process from deal sourcing to due diligence, deal execution, and active portfolio management as a board observer. She focused on deep technologies transforming the chemical industry, such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and robotics. Today, Laurie is a Partner at At One Ventures, where she is responsible for finding, funding, and growing teams that catalyze planet-positive industries. She led a dozen investments for the firm and holds board of director and observer positions in 4 portfolio companies. She is an advocate for bioethics and respect for life beyond animals.

Robinson Meyer is the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a new media company focused on climate change. He is also a contributing Opinion writer at The New York Times. Meyer was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate change, technology, and science. In March 2020, he co-founded the COVID Tracking Project, an award-winning volunteer effort that collected coronavirus data from every U.S. state and territory. He lives in Washington, D.C.

James Irungu Mwangi is the founder and CEO of Africa Climate Ventures, where he is working to build and accelerate a new generation of transformative climate-smart and carbon-negative businesses across the continent. James is also the founder of the Climate Action Platform for Africa, which was launched in 2021, to help unlock Africa’s potential to transform its economies while playing a leading role in effective climate action. Prior to that, James helped found the Dalberg Group, and in a 20-year career, led the firm’s expansion into Africa in 2007, served as Global Managing Partner of Dalberg Advisors, and finally as Executive Director of the Dalberg Group. During his tenure, James led the growth, incubation, or acquisition of many of the entities that today constitute Dalberg’s operational footprint in over 25 countries on 6 continents. James also serves as an independent director on several boards including the Skoll Foundation, the Global Centre for Pluralism, One Acre Fund, Old Mutual Limited and Koko Networks. He is a 2009 Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellow of the African Leadership Institute, a 2013 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a 2021 Yale World Fellow. In 2022, James received the Climate Breakthrough Award in recognition of his efforts to shift Africa’s role in responding to the Climate Crisis. James holds an honors degree in economics from Harvard University.

Climate Tech Circle Founder + General Partner Matt Myers is a serial climate tech innovation platform creator, investor, community builder and content creator. The Climate Tech Circle umbrella consists of an early-stage fund, founder-focused media, and the Climate Tech Cocktails event series. For over six years Matt has centered his time, energy and resources on supporting climate tech founders, investors and ecosystem partners in the most impactful ways possible. Previously, Matt was Founder and Director of E-Capital Summit, a climate tech investment summit, and EarthxHack, the world’s largest climate tech innovation competition. He advised the DOE’s first Chief Commercialization Officer and the Director of ARPA-E on commercialization strategy for climate tech startups. He holds a M.A. in Public Administration in International Development from Tsinghua University and is fluent in Mandarin.

After Sean O’Sullivan’s first startup went public in 1994, he founded SOSV in 1995 as a “super angel”. In 2007, based off the success of two dozen investments that had done remarkably well, Sean began aggressively expanding SOSV, transitioning it from a personal investment vehicle into an organization which today has over 110 staff supporting investments in over 120 new startups every year. In 2022, SOSV has 12 general partners operating globally, with SOSV’s major offices in San Francisco, New York City, Newark, Taipei, Cork and Tokyo. 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.

John has over 30 years of experience taking novel solutions from conception to reality across the energy, semiconductor and supercomputer industries. Prior to founding Rondo, John served as co-founder and vice president of development for GlassPoint Solar, which delivered solar industrial heat worldwide. He previously cofounded and led Ausra, a pioneer in solar thermal electric systems. John served as a lead engineer for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where he designed award-winning technology to support fusion experiments. He is a published author of numerous technical papers and holds more than 20 patents in the U.S. and internationally. John earned a B.Sc. with Special Distinction in Computer Science from Yale University.

More than 20 years of experience in the creation and management of high-tech companies. In 2013, after more than 10 years as an entrepreneur, he began a research process to develop a model that links science with venture capital in Latin America. After three years, he founded GRIDX, an VC fund that, through a company builder model, creates and invests in science-based companies. In the last 6 years he invested in 56 new biotech startups in Latin America. He is part of the boards of Education and Biodiversity NGOs.

Sierra is an investor, board member and former executive and policymaker. Currently working on something new in climate tech investing. Previously, she was a Partner at Lionheart Ventures where she led the fund’s investing in early-stage technologies for climate stabilization. Prior to Lionheart, Sierra created and led corporate development teams for venture-backed financial technology platforms responsible for more than $3 billion in sustainability investment. She has worked in market-driven climate protection since 2005, serving with the International Energy and the Obama-era White House Office of Energy and Climate Change. Sierra currently serves on the Board of Directors of Climate Neutral and as an advisory board member with and investor in several phenomenal startups.

Lara is passionate about technologies that meaningfully reduce emissions and contribute to a cleaner environment. As the Director for Early Climate Infrastructure (ECI) at Prime, she is demonstrating systems innovation and catalytic investment approaches that will speed commercialization, deployment, and scale-up of climate change mitigation infrastructure. Before joining Prime, as co-CEO and a founding member of Actuate, Lara built the Actuate Climate program to design interventions that get emissions-reducing technologies on the ground faster. In December of 2022, Actuate Climate and the Prime team joyfully decided to join forces, and Lara’s team and programs became ECI. Prior to Actuate, Lara worked on energy technology innovation at Exelon. As Director of Technology Strategy for the company, she advised on energy technology trends, invested in early- and mid-stage energy storage companies, and ran Exelon’s partnership R&D program. Before her time at Exelon, she directed the Office of Energy Supply Security in the U.S. DOE Office of Policy and Systems Analysis, where she was responsible for policy and analysis related to coal, gas, and nuclear power and energy cyber and physical security. She served as AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, focusing on nuclear power and waste issues, energy finance, and electricity storage. She received her PhD from MIT in Engineering Systems, studying deployment of advanced technologies for nuclear waste recycling, and she holds dual masters degrees from MIT in nuclear engineering and technology policy. She completed her B.S. in physics at UCLA.

Emily is a founding staff writer at Heatmap where she covers climate policy and tech, including stories related to clean energy, building decarbonization, and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Previously she was a staff writer at the nonprofit climate journalism outlet Grist. She is based in New York City.

Sophie Purdom invests in and supports early-stage climate tech founders & their companies via her venture capital fund Planeteer Capital. She also writes CTVC, a strategic data platform and climate innovation newsletter with 50,000+ subscribers that's been cited in the WSJ, Financial Times, and NYTimes. Prior, Sophie launched an ESG fund at a major endowment, consulted at Bain & Co., published a book on sustainable investing, and helped found a carbon-negative ammonia fertilizer company.

SPAN Founder & CEO Arch Rao is an energy technologist with expertise in commercializing clean energy technologies. SPAN has reinvented the home electrical panel. The electrical panel has seen little innovation over the last 75 years. SPAN is developing products that enable electrification and simplify the adoption of clean energy including solar, batteries, electric vehicles, and electric home appliances. After a few years of pursuing a Ph.D. at Stanford, Arch decided to drop out and work on technologies that would have a non-linear impact on our efforts towards affecting climate change. Arch has spent over a decade working in clean energy. Previously, Arch was the Head of Products for the Tesla Energy business where he helped develop and launch flagship products like the Powerwall, Powerpack, and Solar Roof. He also led the Global Application Engineering team responsible for the development of large-scale solar & storage projects. In 2018, he left Tesla to found SPAN. Prior to Tesla, Arch was a Co-Founder at Verdigris Technologies, an energy monitoring & analytics company developing solutions for the commercial & industrial sector. Early in his career, as a Founding Engineer at Joby Energy he developed novel, airborne wind energy systems. Arch earned his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, where he worked on doctoral research on Energy Systems before starting his entrepreneurial path.

Peter is CEO & Co-founder at Charm Industrial, where they are developing a novel carbon removal pathway & fossil-free ironmaking. Prior to Charm, Peter was CEO and co-founder at Segment, a SaaS customer data platform which grew to 600 people before it was acquired by Twilio in 2020 for $3.2B. He previously studied aerospace engineering at MIT.

Antoine Rostand is the co-founder of Kayrros, the leader in environmental intelligence and asset observation technology. With the largest and most cost- effective database of more than 3 million energy, power and industry assets mapped across multiple sectors and geographies, Kayrros is trusted by the largest market players to provide accurate, critical insights on reducing greenhouse gases, protecting people ecosystems and assets, and managing the energy transition. Prior to establishing Kayrros, Antoine founded and served as President of the Schlumberger Energy Institute, a not-for-profit entity committed to energy-transition technology that has since transformed into the Kearney Energy Transition Institute. Antoine earned an MBA from Insead and an MSc in engineering from Ecole Polytechnique.

Shashank Samala is CEO and co-founder at Heirloom, a company with a goal of removing 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2035 to help mitigate climate change. He grew up in southeast India where he saw first-hand impacts of climate change on some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Shashank was previously Entrepreneur in Residence at Carbon180, a leading climate policy NGO working solely on atmospheric carbon removal. Prior to this, he was a founder at Tempo, a software-accelerated electronics manufacturer which builds mission critical electronics for surgical robots, satellites, reusable rockets, and more. Shashank previously worked at Square and received his Bachelors of Science from Cornell University.

Marina Schmidt is the Founder and Editor in Chief of the impact media outlet Red to Green Solutions. Red to Green hosts the most in-depth podcast on food tech and sustainability, covering each topic in 12 episodes. It is ranked in the 5% most shared and followed globally with a loyal listenership spanning over 160 countries. Red to Green has been listed and recommended as the top agrifood podcast by various industry insiders, including the MIT Food and Agriculture Club calling it an “excellent food tech series.” The past seven seasons covered the topics of cellular agriculture, plastic alternatives, consumer acceptance, food waste, and biotech in food, to name a few. Marina Schmidt combines a background in science and technology history focused on agriculture and food, with hands-on experience in entrepreneurship, communication, and market analysis. Marina co-founded Karrierehelden GmbH, a career consulting company working with the German government. The company is still up and running more than 10 years later. She then headed the Fightback Movement, a European collaboration platform focused on health & climate, working closely with the World Economic Forum. Before founding Red to Green Marina worked as a Lead Venture Developer for Creative Dock, the world’s largest independent corporate venture builder. She currently lives in lovely Lisbon.

Susan Schofer is a Partner at SOSV global venture capital firm and serves as Chief Science Officer at HAX, the world’s premier venture program accelerating early stage hard tech startups. She works with new startups via early stage investment, defining key milestones and go-to-market strategies, and is responsible for scientific oversight and building capabilities to support portfolio companies.Prior to joining HAX, Susan served as SVP Business Development for Modern Meadow and a member of the executive leadership team for over 7 years, developing new sustainable materials inspired by leather without any animals, where she led product, partnership, and go-to-market strategy and execution from early ideation through to commercialization. Before that, Susan spent 10 years in Silicon Valley working in roles spanning R&D, product development, product management, and business development for Amyris, a pioneer in synthetic biology, and Symyx Technologies, utilizing proprietary high-throughput robotic workflows to accelerate polymer and material discovery and development. Susan also worked as an analyst for management consulting company Mitchell Madison Group. Her passion is working closely with scientific and technical innovation to craft product and business strategy and partnering with founders and the broader ecosystem to implement and commercialize solutions to make a positive impact on people and planet. Susan was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Stockholm and Uppsala Universities, where she worked to develop catalyst systems for artificial photosynthesis. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech and an Sc.B. in chemistry from Brown.

Douglas Schultz is currently the Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Energy’s new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), which is executing on more than $20 billion in pilot and demonstration scale clean energy technologies funded through the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Prior to joining OCED, he was the Director of Loan Guarantee Origination for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO). An accomplished executive and proven innovator, Schultz has been active as a consultant, developer, and lender in the energy and infrastructure sectors for more than 25 years.

Eric Schulze, PhD is a professional molecular biologist, genetic engineer, and former federal biotechnology regulator. He is currently Vice President of Global Regulatory and Public Policy at UPSIDE Foods, where he leads the company’s regulatory-, policy-, and government affairs work. He previously served as Vice President of Product, where he led both design and development of the company’s meat products. Before that, he served as a U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulator, handling a portfolio of novel food and drug biotechnology products. As a civil servant, Dr. Schulze also served as a federal STEM education policy capacity within the National Science Foundation and currently works with the National Academy of Sciences on undergraduate STEM education transformation. He holds a doctorate in genetic, cellular, and molecular biology with a specialty in embryonic stem cell engineering and is trained in broadcast communication, speechwriting, and risk assessment.

Jon Shieber is a venture partner and the editor in chief at Footprint Coalition. He was a senior editor at Techcrunch and previously worked as a senior reporter for Dow Jones & Co., covering venture capital and private equity investment in cleantech, climate tech, and energy from Los Angeles, New York and Shanghai.

Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir was appointed Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation in Iceland in 2021. She was previously the Minister of Justice from 2019-2021.Born in 1990, Ms. Sigurbjörnsdóttir is the youngest female minister appointed in Iceland‘s history and the youngest Minister of Justice ever appointed in world history. As Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Ms. Sigurbjörnsdóttir has made it her mission that innovation becomes Iceland‘s biggest export. High quality education at the university level and access to foreign experts is paramount in that vision. Sustainable industries, climate innovation and increased use of innovation and technology in all corners of society are among the top items on the Minister‘s agenda. As the head of a newly formed ministry, Ms. Sigurbjörnsdóttir is not afraid to break down walls of tradition to create a ministry that is modern and embraces the significant technological advances taking place in today‘s world.

Rachel is an investor at DCVC, focused on climate, sustainability, and energy investments. Before joining DCVC, Rachel was an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where she held leadership roles in several data science and entrepreneurship efforts. Concurrent to being a professor, Rachel was a Division Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she ran the Cyclotron Road Division. She served as a Program Director at the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E, where she created the nuclear fission program and managed the agriculture portfolio as well as solar and virtual reality teams. Rachel received a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Pennsylvania State University, where she served as a licensed nuclear reactor operator, and a master’s degree and PhD in nuclear engineering and engineering physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Outside of DCVC, Rachel co-founded the Good Energy Collective and currently serves on its board. She is also an independent director for Radiant, a microreactor company.

Victoria Slivkoff is the Executive Managing Director of Extreme Tech Challenge, the world’s largest startup competition and ecosystem for founders building tech innovations to improve the world, as inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She also serves as the Head of Ecosystem at Walden Catalyst Ventures, a VC firm helping early-stage companies in the U.S., Europe, and Israel build the next generation of category-defining businesses in deep tech, with a focus on AI and data. Victoria is passionate about driving high-impact vision, strategy, and operations to transform complex innovation ecosystems at scale, and serving as a trusted partner for entrepreneurs with breakthrough technologies creating future-defining companies. Victoria comes from a multidisciplinary background in corporate development, investment, investor relations, business strategy & operations, and management consulting. She’s experienced in forming public-private partnerships to drive investments and scale innovative technologies in the U.S., Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

Greg is a Partner at Fifth Wall, where he co-leads the Climate Technology Investment team. Prior to joining Fifth Wall, Greg was a Partner at BMW i Ventures where he led the Sustainability investing practice, investing in companies such as Prometheus Fuels and PureCycle (NASDAQ: ROCH). Before joining BMW i Ventures, Greg led Finance & Operations for both The Boring Company and Neuralink simultaneously. Greg started his investment career at Battery Ventures where he covered early-stage enterprise technology startups, as well as industrial technology buyouts. Successful exits from his work there include Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), AppDynamics (acquired by Cisco System, Inc.), and IST (acquired by Scott Brand). Greg was born in Pretoria, South Africa and currently lives in Oakland, CA. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School where he received a BS in Economics and a BS in Computer Science.

Dave Snydacker is the founder and CEO of Lilac Solutions, a lithium extraction company based in Oakland, California. He holds a PhD in materials engineering from Northwestern University, where his research focused on lithium-ion cathode materials and solid-state lithium metal batteries, and a BA in chemistry from Wesleyan University. He consulted for several startup companies developing new battery materials and manufacturing processes prior to founding Lilac in 2016. Dave lives in San Francisco with his wife Stephanie and children Mason, Isaac, and Cora.

Claudio holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, with a focus on Turbomachinery, Energy Production and Conversion from the Polytechnic University of Milan. Claudio was awarded with the Sesini Award as a top graduate student and during his career filed 45 patents. Claudio Spadacini is Founder and CEO of Energy Dome, a leading provider of long-duration energy storage solutions. The company developed a breakthrough technology, the CO2 Battery, to store large quantity of energy in a cost-effective and efficient way, with the mission to unlock renewable energy and make solar and wind power dispatchable 24/7. An engineer by education, an entrepreneur by nature and experience, Claudio Spadacini has founded multiple successful energy ventures, having taken them from the early concept to market leadership. Prior to Energy Dome, Claudio founded and managed Exergy S.p.A. which has developed and installed more than 460 MWe of geothermal, waste heat recovery and CSP power plants under his guidance. These plants are based on the innovative technology of the radial outflow turbine, patented and developed by Claudio himself. Claudio also founded Sebigas S.p.A., which designs, constructs and manages biogas plants worldwide with a portfolio of over 80 plants. Together with Andrea Dossi, Claudio is also the founder of Idroelettrica Cavaglio, a developer of hydroelectric power plants using drilled rock tunnels, with a record of having drilled the longest tunnel of its kind. All of Claudio’s new ventures are based on disruptive technologies. Claudio is a skilled engineer with an extensive knowledge of conventional and renewable energy systems, turbomachinery, and thermodynamic processes.

Sabriya is Chief Scientific Officer at IndieBioNY. Prior to joining, she was Operations Director for Stellate Therapeutics, a biotech company developing microbiome-derived therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative diseases. After earning her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she was the founding Associate Director for the Master’s in Translational Medicine (MTM) program at The City College of New York, NYC’s first and only graduate degree that educates and trains scientists and engineers in the hands-on process of medical technology commercialization and healthcare innovation. A microbiologist, educator, and science communicator, her expertise is in working with individuals to identify unmet community needs, design sustainable clinical solutions, think critically about the world around them, and craft compelling scientific narratives. She also has worked for over a decade in fostering equitable and inclusive environments in the STEM disciplines and thinks deeply about how we can build sustainable healthcare solutions that work for all and not just some.

Ramya Swaminathan has developed Malta from concept to commercialization, guiding the company through multiple rounds of corporate venture funding and the recruitment of a multi-disciplinary team. She led the corporate independence of Malta from X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory (formerly Google X) in 2018 and has served as the company's CEO since its founding. Ms. Swaminathan was named one of Business Insider's "21 Rising Stars in Clean Energy" in 2020 and currently advises the U.S. Department of Energy a member of the DOE Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC) and as a DOE Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Ambassador. Before founding Malta as an independent company, Ms. Swaminathan was the CEO of Rye Development, a hydropower development firm that she grew to be the leading developer of new hydropower and pumped hydro storage projects in the United States. She earned a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor in Anthropology from Amherst College.

Bill Tai has been funding startups as a Venture Capitalist since 1991 and has had 22 of his startups become listed companies. He has served as Board Director of 8 publicly listed companies (AWRD EGHT HUT8 IAWK NPIX TMTA TUNE and IMGO) that grew from startups he funded at their formative stages. Originally trained as a chip designer, he holds a BSEE with Honors from University of Illinois and an MBA from Harvard. He co-founded as Chairman – Treasure Data (acquired by ARM/Softbank), IPInfusion.com (Tokyo TSE:4813) and iAsiaWorks (IPO via Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley) and is Board Chairman of Hut8 Mining (NASDAQ:HUT). He is among the first angel investors in Canva, Color Genomics, Class.com, Dapper Labs (Cryptokitties / NBA Topshot), Safety Culture, Tweetdeck/Twitter, and Zoom Video, where he was the 1st committed backer. He is co-founder of ACTAI Global a 501(c)3 community of Athletes Conservationists Technologists Artists & Innovators supporting 1) environmental conservation and 2) economic empowerment via entrepreneurship. He is creator or cofounder of the worldwide startup competition www.ExtremeTechChallenge.org, the annual www.NeckerBlockchainSummit.com and the annual www.WestTechFest.com, Western Australia’s largest technology festival held annually in Perth where he is an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University.

Mark Taylor is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at CTVC, a market intelligence firm focused on providing the clarity investors, corporates and other players need to more confidently operate in climate tech. CTVC is built on the foundation of the market-leading Climate Tech VC (CTVC) newsletter, read weekly by 50,000+ subscribers. Mark has been on the frontlines of cleantech since the true early days as one of the OG analysts at BNEF (pre-Bloomberg acquisition). Later in his 15-year tenure at BNEF he shifted focus to the business itself serving as Head of Product where he oversaw the company's product strategy and development across various teams and platforms, including the Bloomberg terminal. Notably, he launched and hosted the Bloomberg Switched On podcast. Most recently, prior to his current role at CTVC, Mark headed-up product at Kayrros, a satellite earth observation firm focused on carbon, climate, and risk, where he was responsible for overall product strategy, development, and implementation. Mark holds an MS in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and a BS in Microbiology from Brigham Young University. He lives in London with his family.

Duncan is General Partner at SOSV and Managing Director of HAX Shenzhen, where he oversee’s HAX, the world’s first and largest VC backed program for Hard Tech. He is responsible for strategic direction of the program, operations and investments. Prior to joining HAX, he led design and consumer engagement strategy projects for Fortune 500 companies at global design and innovation firm IDEO. Duncan has a strong entrepreneurial background and deep experience of growing businesses in China, having taken numerous hardware products to market from first concepts through research, funding, design, development, manufacturing and assembly to final sales. He obtained his Master’s from Royal College of Art & Imperial College. His design work has won multiple awards and is included in the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art.

Dr. Uma Valeti is the CEO and Founder of UPSIDE Foods, the world’s leading cultivated meat company. UPSIDE Foods was the first company focused on growing meat directly from animal cells and has led the industry ever since. Since 2015, UPSIDE Foods has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including being the first company to produce multiple species of cultivated meat (beef, chicken and duck), to partner with the existing meat industry, and to sell a cultivated meat product in the United States. UPSIDE Foods has raised over $600 million from a diverse coalition of investors including Richard Branson, John Mackey, Bill Gates, Temasek, ADG, Softbank, Threshold, Baillie Gifford, Norwest, Cargill, Tyson Foods and Whole Foods. Uma’s vision is to enable people around the world to eat the meat they love, while transforming the food system to become more sustainable and humane. Uma has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Aspen Ideas Festival and SXSW. In 2019 he was named a “Global Thinker of the Decade” by Foreign Policy magazine. Uma is a Mayo Clinic-trained cardiologist and an adjunct professor in Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University.

Jonathan Vardner completed his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Columbia University where he was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. He developed and co-invented technologies that enable the sustainable production of copper. He continued his postdoctoral studies at Columbia to realize the potential of his process. Now, he is driven to bring his technology to market to help facilitate the global transition to renewables.

Alex Wilhelm is a technology and finance reporter and editor who works for TechCrunch. Currently the Editor in Chief of TechCrunch+, he also hosts Equity, a startup-focused podcast and writes a daily column called The Exchange.

Seonghoon Woo is the founding CEO of Amogy, which builds zero-emission ammonia-fueled power systems to decarbonize heavy transportations focusing on global shipping. Seonghoon received his PhD from MIT in 2015 where his dissertation focused on semiconductor physics and spintronics, with a minor in Finance. He then built an academic and industrial career, including his recent work at IBM TJ Watson Research Center as a Staff Scientist prior to Amogy. He was selected as a Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018.

Pae is a General Partner at SOSV and CTO at IndieBio, where she is responsible for portfolio management and technical oversight. Prior to joining IndieBio, Pae served as the Scientific Director of Telefónica’s moonshot factory, Alpha (in Barcelona). She was Science Director at the US Office of Naval Research – Global (out of Singapore), and technical consultant at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Her whole career, Pae has been investing in high risk solutions to intractable problems for national defense, humanity, and the planet. Pae earned her PhD at Duke in Electrical Engineering and her BSE from Princeton.

Larissa Zimberoff is an author and journalist covering the intersection of food, business and technology. Her book, Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley's Mission to Change What We Eat, is out now. She's written on the promise of fake eggs, the potential of peas, and how artificial intelligence saved a winery. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Time, Bloomberg Businessweek, Insider and many more publications. She worked in the tech industry in San Francisco for over a decade before moving to the east coast and embarking on a new career. She received her MFA from The New School, and almost became a New Yorker after living there for seven years. Her decade spent working in tech helps her to translate the frenzy over today’s food startups. Her hard-earned belief in technology is matched by an equally precious hope for foods that come from the natural world. When not chasing a story you can find her hiking up steep mountains or cycling around town looking for the best bakery.

Kim is the CEO & Co-founder of CTVC, the leading source on climate tech followed by 50K+ industry professionals. CTVC generates data-driven insights on the technologies and capital flows of solutions critical to decarbonization, which have been featured in channels including Bloomberg, Reuters, Axios, and Financial Times. They are currently working with clients including governments, major banks, investment firms, and energy and industrial companies. She was previously a climate tech investor at Energy Impact Partners, a $3B AUM venture capital firm investing in a sustainable future backed by a coalition of 40+ energy & industrial companies. Prior to joining EIP, Kim worked was part of JPMorgan's Tech M&A investment banking team and graduated from Johns Hopkins University.