Bigger Than Us: Recent Episodes
Nexus PMG
Nexus PMG welcomes you to the Bigger Than Us™ podcast, which we, as energy geeks lovingly refer to as the BTU. Bigger Than Us is a podcast that focuses on ideas that will shape the future of our planet and ultimately, our existence. We will occasionally lean into energy topics because after all, it’s the key to our collective survival, but we’ll also explore other areas that we believe will have an effect that is Bigger Than Us.
Vince Beiser is an award-winning journalist and author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.” The book has been translated into five languages, was a finalist for a PEN America award and a California Book Award, and spawned a TEDx talk. Vince is currently at work on a new book, “Power Metal”, about how the materials we need for digital technology and renewable energy are causing environmental havoc, political upheaval, mayhem and murder—and how we can do better.
Vince has reported from over 100 countries, states, provinces, kingdoms, occupied territories, no man’s lands and disaster zones. He has exposed conditions in California’s harshest prisons, trained with troops bound for Iraq, ridden with the first responders to natural disasters, and hunted down other stories from around the world for publications including Wired, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Time, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Playboy, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
Vince’s work has been honored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Columbia, Medill and Missouri Graduate Schools of Journalism, and many other institutions. He has three times been part of a team that won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, and shared in an Emmy for his work with the PBS TV series SoCal Connected. He is also a grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
https://vincebeiser.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Steve Oldham is a prominent entrepreneur and carbon removal advocate. He currently serves as CEO of Captura where he is leading the commercialization of Direct Ocean Capture – a climate solution that combines innovative technology with the natural carbon removal powers of the ocean to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at scale.
Steve’s career has focused on bringing ground-breaking technologies to market in a variety of domains, including robotics, aerospace, and climate. Steve was previously CEO of leading Direct Air Capture (DAC) company, Carbon Engineering, where he grew the company from ~15 to ~150 people, and established the partnership with Occidental that led to their acquisition of Carbon Engineering in November 2023.
Steve also served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development for MDA, a leading Canadian technology firm. At MDA, Steve held a variety of senior executive positions across Canada and the US, covering General Management, Business Development, and Strategy, and secured financing from Government and commercial sources for a variety of complex technologies, including several large satellite programs.
https://capturacorp.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Riggs Eckelberry is a nationally-renowned entrepreneur who deploys his personal Break To Build™ process to help rebuild the water industry, which has reached a critical breaking point in recent years despite being essential to the planet's survival. As the founding CEO of OriginClear, Riggs has developed innovative solutions to help businesses face rising water bills by tapping into new investment markets. He is even pioneering the development of "water stablecoins,” a cryptocurrency backed by water-assets. With a diverse background in nonprofit management, oceangoing navigation, and technology disruption, Riggs is uniquely qualified to bring change to an outdated and overrun industry.
https://www.originclear.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Curtis has been CEO of Hydrostor since its inception and has led the company through technology development into commercial operations. Prior to Hydrostor, Curtis was Sr. Manager in Deloitte’s Corporate Strategy Consulting Practice where he advised and consulted for some of the top energy companies globally. He has also held positions at nuclear generator Bruce Power and wind developer Environmental Electric Company.
https://www.hydrostor.ca/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Chief Farming Officer, Co-Founder, Carlo Mondavi is a fourth-generation winegrower who has dedicated his life to permaculture, biodynamic and regenerative farming practices, along with a hands-off winemaking approach in the cellar.
In 2016, Carlo founded the Monarch Challenge, an effort focused on elevating farming by eliminating herbicides and powerful chemicals from farms in Sonoma, Napa and beyond. The Monarch Challenge led Carlo to meeting his fellow co-founders; it is the origin and namesake behind Monarch Tractor.
https://www.monarchtractor.com/carlo-mondavi
https://nexuspmg.com/
Rebecca is the founder and CEO of Glacier, a recycling startup building AI and robotics to help recyclers, brands, governments, and other stakeholders measure and improve recovery rates for their highest-priority recycled commodities.
Glacier works with several innovative recyclers across the US, major brands including Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, Coca-Cola, and AB InBev, and municipal and government agencies including the City of Phoenix and Michigan Department of Environment.
Glacier's circularity work has been featured in several leading publications, including CBS, NBC, Fortune, Axios, and TechCrunch.
Rebecca is a Waste360 40 Under 40 winner. Prior to founding Glacier, Rebecca was a consultant at Bain & Company and advisor to several early- and growth-stage startups. She is also a mentor for the Google Circular Economy Accelerator.
https://endwaste.io/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Nick Myers is the co-founder and CEO of Phoenix Tailings, a company building a sustainable future by refining metals from mining waste with zero direct carbon emissions or toxic byproducts.
Before founding Phoenix Tailings, Nick worked in Venture Capital at Techstars and was the Director of Finance and Partnerships for Meenta, a medical diagnostic testing startup. He also co-founded Huntington Angels, a strategic angel investment group where he now serves as the lead outside adviser.
Nick was also a founding member of Tengu, an early Web3 startup that created one of the first stable coins. At Tengu, Nick briefed the IMF about decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies' impact on the world economy.
Nick has a Bachelor's Degree from Saint Michael's College, where he was a starting pitcher for the college's baseball team. He also has an MBA from Northeastern University.
https://www.phoenixtailings.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sharina Perry is a serial entrepreneur with a long history of starting and growing new ventures. Sharina perfected a patent-pending plastic alternative formulated into compounded plant- based resins using crops farmers plant in regular crop rotations. Utopia PlastixTM helps solve the problem of plastic waste, carbon emissions and promoting agriculture. Utopia's compounded plant resin allows manufacturers to use their current equipment as they produce the sustainable, alternative plastic products that the world is demanding. Sharina founded Utopia Genetics to distribute products made with Utopia Plastix, as well as Utopia Solutions that makes Utopia PlastixTM. Sharina says she invented Utopia PlastixTM to create solutions, not problems.
https://utopiaplastix.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Joshua is a certified Data Scientist and the Founder & CEO of SparkCharge. His experience in entrepreneurship and startups spans over 6 years and he is a dynamic figure in the cleantech community. Joshua is also the most recent winner of the world’s largest pitch competition, 43North. Joshua holds a B.A. in Economics and a Masters Degree in Information Management and Data Science from Syracuse University.
https://www.sparkcharge.io/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Anoosheh Oskouian is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ship & Shore Environmental, Inc. she directs the corporate strategy for marketing and product development with her team of sales engineers, design engineers, project managers, fabricators, service technicians and other support staff to design, fabricate, install and commission state-of-the-art air pollution abatement equipment.
Her reputation in this industry has been proven through the many years of excellent rapport that she has developed with her clients. By studying each application carefully, she understands what data is critical to anticipate their needs for today and in the near future. Each engineering solution is custom designed to not only help a client meet their environmental obligations, but also contemplates how each facility’s unique manufacturing practices and requirements will be integrated into the design and operation of the best pollution abatement solution. Her in-depth process knowledge and expertise provide the foundation for designing superior, innovative, efficient equipment and reliable technologies that help industry to collect and destroy air pollution emissions.
For many years she has served, and continues to serve, as an advocate for manufacturers through active participation on several boards and committees i.e. BACT (Best Available Control Technology) committee member for the SCAQMD (South Coast Air Quality District), board member of Western Region SPI (Society of Plastics Industry), Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) group, board member of WPA (Western Plastics Association) and FBF (Film & Bag Federation). Board and committee participation along with planning of meeting agendas and annual conferences has enabled her to develop close relationships among the membership of these trade organizations. As a member of the Society of Plastics Industry she has served on the Public Policy Committee and Environmental Council and has met with legislators and testified at government hearings on behalf of industry.
https://shipandshore.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Before launching Gridraven, Georg led digitalization at Estonia's national grid, Elering. He spearheaded the digitalization task force, crafted the digital strategy, and guided IT investments. As head of the Smart Grid Unit, Georg also helped build a Europe-wide energy data platform.
Before that, Georg was the CTO and co-founder of Sympower, which now manages 1.5GW of grid flexibility and a team of 200+. He holds a Master's degree in Sustainable Energy from Imperial College London. Georg is passionate about pushing the limits of the grid to power a brighter future.
https://www.gridraven.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Brian Sheng is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aquaria, building air-water infrastructure to produce scalable water systems that create clean drinking water from the air. Aquaria’s mission is to safeguard and unlock global access to clean water. As a serial entrepreneur, Brian co-founded The Vanguard, Fresh VC, and he founded Asia Horizon. He served as a General Partner at The Arcview Group, and throughout his career has served as a board member of Eaze, Beam Coffee and FND Technologies.
Brian’s seed stage portfolio is valued at over $3B with 2 IPOs, Fiscalnote and Clever Leaves. While attending Princeton University, Brian wrote his thesis on atmospheric water generation. Brian was honored as a member of Forbes 30 under 30 class of 2024, and Aquaria was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024.
https://aquaria.world/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
John Belizaire is the CEO of Soluna Computing, the world’s first utility-scale company developing power plants and combining them with high-performance computing facilities. As a serial entrepreneur, John has successfully founded and scaled multiple industry-leading technology startups that have achieved market leadership and double-digit growth, including FirstBest, an insurance software company acquired by Guidewire, and The Theory Center, a software company acquired by BEA Systems. Before becoming an entrepreneur, John was the lead architect for Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group.
Soluna Computing builds modular, batchable computing centers for intensive applications like cryptocurrency mining, AI and machine learning. Soluna’s scalable data centers provide a cost-effective alternative to battery storage or transmission lines. Soluna Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLNH) is the leading developer of green data centers that convert excess renewable energy into global computing resources. Soluna Holdings was formed when Mechanical Technology, Inc. (MTI) acquired Soluna Computing in 2021.
https://www.solunacomputing.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
MICHAEL SHELDRICK is a policy entrepreneur and a driving force behind the efforts of Global Citizen to end extreme poverty. As a Co-Founder and Chief Policy, Impact, and Government Affairs Officer, he leads the organization's campaigns to mobilize support from governments, businesses, and foundations. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, From Idea to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World.
With a career that spans the world of pop and policy, Michael has worked with an impressive roster of international artists such as Beyoncé, Coldplay, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Priyanka Chopra, Rihanna and Usher, as well as prominent political leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and former Australian Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
He has co-produced some of the world's most impactful social campaigns and events, including the annual Global Citizen Festival in New York, the Guinness World Record-winning virtual concert One World: Together At Home, and the Nelson Mandela 2018 centennial celebration, Mandela 100. These initiatives have reached millions of people in over 150 countries and helped secure over $40 billion in support for local and regional organizations working to provide access to essential resources such as healthcare, education, and climate resilience.
A sought-after speaker and author on policy advocacy, sustainable development, and corporate responsibility, Michael has shared his insights at conferences and summits worldwide. His insights have also featured in leading outlets including Forbes, The Guardian, The Hill, HuffPost, Nikkei and Fairfax Media, and his voice heard on major news networks such as ABC, BBC, France 24, Sky News and CNN.
He has been recognized as a finalist for the 2017 Young Commonwealth Person of the Year and serves on: the board of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global citizens; the Leadership Council of aable, a fintech company connecting compassionate investors with underserved communities; and the Advisory Board of the Nigerian Solidarity Support Fund. He is also a co-host of the Global Town Hall, a North-South, East-West meeting featuring world leaders and leading minds to connect with global citizens.
From Ideas to Impact
https://michaelsheldrick.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Lionel Selwood Jr. is a proud US Virgin Islander and Engineer, who has spent his entire career pioneering energy solutions that have reshaped industries. His vision in anything he does, is addressing global energy poverty through the mass adoption of advanced technology. Lionel's experience includes leading a company to IPO via the NYSE and managing a strategic sale of a startup to a major automaker.
He founded his newest endeavor, Zelena AI Inc., which aims to enable data centers that are more innovative, efficient and green, than the AI solutions they power.
https://zelena.ai/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Amy Blankson is the Co-founder and Chief Evangelist of the Digital Wellness Institute and the bestselling author of The Future of Happiness. A graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Management, she’s the only person to receive aPoint of Light award from two US Presidents. She is also a member of Harvard’s AI for Human Flourishing Council, a former member of the UN Global Happiness Council, and a featured professor in Oprah’s happiness e-course.
Most recently, Amy was named to the AI75 by Dallas Innovates. Her newest book, SuperThinkers, will be released in Summer 2025.
https://amyblankson.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Ross Faranso is the CEO of Nexus PMG.
A seasoned leader in advisory, engineering, construction, and technology solutions throughout the energy sector.
Over 20 years in increasing roles of responsibility fromproject management to operations management to business development. I’ve led multiple initiatives and contracts for clean energy projects for multinational companies and responsible for creating strategic alliances and leading cleanenergy and EPC project deployments.
I hold a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and an MBAfrom University of Houston, and I am a certified Project Management Professional (PMG). I also serve on the Executive Advisory Committee on the Board ofDirectors for the Association for Capital Projects Engineering & Construction Community (ECC).
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Tom Dickson, CEO of New Energy Risk since 2015, has more than 35 years of experience in the insurance and reinsurance industry and finance; including senior executive and underwriting leadership positions in the US, Europe, and Asia; notably as the former CEO and Chief Underwriting Officer of the Centre Group, a $10B reinsurer that pioneered innovative products to address high-value business risks and financing.
Tom has also served on the boards of public and private companies, including Flagstone Re, Paragon Insurance Services, Reformation Insurance Services, and as an advisor to Cellcontrol and Fairmatic. He graduated with honors from Stanford University, where he remains an active alumnus, and received a Master’s degree from John Hopkins University (SAIS). Currently, Tom serves on the Natural Capital Advisory Council at Stanford University and the board of Adara Group, a non-profit engaged in health and education development for women and children in remote communities.
https://newenergyrisk.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period. Peter is also the author of The Energy Switch - a book about how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
In POWER METAL, award-winning journalist Vince Beiser chronicles the destructive side effects that the global hunt for critical metals has on our clean energy transition, from environmental damage to political upheaval to murder.
Vince Beiser is an award-winning journalist and author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.” The book has been translated into five languages, was a finalist for a PEN America award and a California Book Award, and spawned a TEDx talk. Vince is currently at work on a new book, “Power Metal”, about how the materials we need for digital technology and renewable energy are causing environmental havoc, political upheaval, mayhem and murder—and how we can do better.
Vince has reported from over 100 countries, states, provinces, kingdoms, occupied territories, no man’s lands and disaster zones. He has exposed conditions in California’s harshest prisons, trained with troops bound for Iraq, ridden with the first responders to natural disasters, and hunted down other stories from around the world for publications including Wired, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Time, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Playboy, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
Vince’s work has been honored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Columbia, Medill and Missouri Graduate Schools of Journalism, and many other institutions. He has three times been part of a team that won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, and shared in an Emmy for his work with the PBS TV series SoCal Connected. He is also a grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
https://vincebeiser.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur, and, most of all, A teacher.
Seth is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker.In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 21 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn). His book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world. His latest books are The Song of Significance and The Practice, and creatives everywhere have made it a bestseller.
Though renowned for his writing and speaking, Seth also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!).
By focusing on everything from effective marketing and leadership, to the spread of ideas and changing everything, Seth has been able to motivate and inspire countless people around the world.
In 2013, Seth was one of just three professionals inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. In an astonishing turn of events, in May 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame as well. He might be the only person in both.
https://thecarbonalmanac.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Martin Gross is the founder and chief executive officer ofGross-Wen Technologies. His vision for using algae to clean water and solve many other of the Earth’s problems is driving the rapid expansion of Gross-Wen.
After founding Gross-Wen Technologies in 2016, Gross led the development and commercialization of the revolving algal biofilm™️ treatment technology (RAB™️), a sustainable, next generation wastewater treatment system using algae. The RAB system recovers nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater, produces clean water and air, and yields valuable algae biomass.
Propelling the growth of Gross-Wen, Gross led substantial equity investments, Department of Energy and Agriculture grant funding awards exceeding $3 million, $15 million in equity investments and the approval ofmore than ten patents. Gross-Wen Technologies won the Carbon Zero Grand Challenge from a project with PUB, Singapore’s water agency.
A frequent speaker and respected thought leader, Gross’ work is essential in pollution mitigation, offsetting climate change, and using algae as a nascent industry. His deep knowledge includes growing algae, fermentation,biofuels, renewable energy, wastewater, and agriculture. He serves on the board of directors of the Algae Biomass Organization and the Iowa Biotechnology Association.
After earning a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Iowa State University, Gross went on to earn a doctorate in food science and technology and a doctorate in biosystems engineering. Gross is on the faculty at IowaState University, where he developed and teaches a course called Entrepreneurship for Graduate Students in Science and Engineering.
Gross’ Ph.D. in food science focused on growing microorganisms to make foods and chemical nutraceuticals. To this end, he founded GW Nutrition afood ingredient company that aims to improve the sensory profile of alternative proteins and make them easier to include in food formulations; GW Nutrition,Inc. is a spin-off from GWT.
When he is away from the office, he enjoys spending time with his wife and playing with his four young children.
https://algae.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Preston Bryant is a graduate of SMU Cox School of Business with a B.A. in Economics, specializing in energy. In college, he established an oil and gas company in memory of his late father. Preston furthered his expertise in commodities recovery at the firm LPI, where he uncovered a groundbreaking critical materials processing method called Membrane Solvent Extraction. After obtaining exclusive licensing rights from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Lab, he founded Momentum Technologies with the mission to revolutionize the way metals were recovered by challenging the conventional norms that processing facilities must be large, expensive, and centralized.
https://momentum.technology
https://nexuspmg.com/
Riggs Eckelberry is a nationally-renowned entrepreneur who deploys his personal Break To Build™ process to help rebuild the water industry, which has reached a critical breaking point in recent years despite being essential to the planet's survival. As the founding CEO of OriginClear, Riggs has developed innovative solutions to help businesses face rising water bills by tapping into new investment markets. He is even pioneering the development of "water stablecoins,” a cryptocurrency backed by water-assets. With a diverse background in nonprofit management, oceangoing navigation, and technology disruption, Riggs is uniquely qualified to bring change to an outdated and overrun industry.
https://www.originclear.com/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
John Szoka is a West Pont graduate and served a distinguished career in the United States Army. After retirement from active duty, he founded several successful small businesses and holds two US patents.
First elected to the NC House of Representatives in 2012 he served in senior House Republican leadership positions including Chairman of the Energy and Public Utilities Committee, and Chairman of the Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy. In 2017, he sponsored HB589 which saved ratepayers over $350M in energy costs. In 2021 he was a primary sponsor of HB951 which set carbon reduction goals for NC to be met by the least cost forms of generation and directed establishment of the NC Carbon Plan. Szoka is widely recognized as a leading conservative advocate for free market solutions to a clean energy future.
In 2023 he became CEO of The Conservative Energy Network (CEN), a national network of state-based organizations focused on promoting clean energy innovation rooted in conservative principles. Working with policymakers and industry partners in 25 states, CEN assists legislators across the country understand the benefits of clean energy and how to best save money for ratepayers. At the county and local level, CEN has assisted in the siting of over 10 Gigawatts of clean energy and storage and is currently assisting in the siting of another 40GW across the nation.
https://conservativeenergynetwork.org/
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Jeff is the founder of the Critical Minerals Associations in the UK, Australia and the U.S. as well as CMIA. He is an internationally recognised critical minerals expert with strong ties to the UK, Australia, across Africa and the Middle East. Jeff is an experienced public affairs and campaign strategist having been a Director at Aspect Consulting and an International Affairs Advisor and Chief of Staff to members of the UK parliament.
https://www.cma-usa.org/about
https://www.nexuspmg.com/
Chief Farming Officer, Co-Founder, Carlo Mondavi is a fourth-generation winegrower who has dedicated his life to permaculture, biodynamic and regenerative farming practices, along with a hands-off winemaking approach in the cellar. In 2016, Carlo founded the Monarch Challenge, an effort focused on elevating farming by eliminating herbicides and powerful chemicals from farms in Sonoma, Napa and beyond. The Monarch Challenge led Carlo to meeting his fellow co-founders; it is the origin and namesake behind Monarch Tractor.
https://www.monarchtractor.com/carlo-mondavi
https://nexuspmg.com/
Emma serves as the Executive Vice President of Commercial at ClimeCo. She generates new opportunities, supports existing accounts, and explores how to strengthen ClimeCo’s existing Environmental, Social, & Governance (ESG) and Climate Strategy Consulting services. Before joining ClimeCo, Emma built and headed the Impact & Sustainability practice at MSL, a global PR and communications agency, helping companies better tell their stories and drive progress around environmental sustainability, social impact, DEI, and purpose.
Previously, Emma was the Global Renewable Energy Lead for McDonald’s Corporation, where she built and executed a strategy to achieve their ambitious climate goals. Within three years, she procured enough renewable energy equivalent to planting over 70 million trees. Emma also sat on the Board of Directors for the Clean Energy Buyers Alliance (CEBA). She advocated for a clean energy policy on Capitol Hill to make renewable energy more accessible and affordable for all. She incorporated environmental justice, human rights, and community impact considerations into McDonald's procurement strategy, demonstrating that large brands can use their Scale for Good to transform the renewable energy market. In 2020, McDonald's became the US’s fourth-largest corporate buyer of renewable energy. Emma also led all energy, water, and waste sustainability programs for the 15,000 restaurants in the US before heading up renewable energy for McDonald's.
Before joining McDonald's, Emma focused on driving impact through environmental and social sustainability. After graduating from Columbia University, she worked for the US Green Building Council, then moved to Chicago to lead business development and marketing for Green Per Square Foot, an energy and sustainability tech start-up. Emma later led the energy and sustainability consulting group at Cushman & Wakefield, where she worked with large occupier clients to develop their ESG strategies and created tools to help them achieve their goals.
https://www.climeco.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jason Hochman is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Direct Air Capture Coalition. In this role, he leads a growing global, non-profit, multi-stakeholder coalition of nearly 120 companies, organizations, and institutions working to advance and accelerate the deployment of direct air capture technology to help address climate change.
Previously, he helped craft the policy and regulatory construct promoting utility clean energy and energy efficiency efforts at Con Edison, and has worked on climate and sustainability issues at the Department of Defense, Acclimatise, and Demos.
He earned an M.S. in Global Energy; Environmental Policy from New York University and a B.A. in History and Public Policy from Brown University.
https://daccoalition.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Daniel has delivered over 3,000 keynote speeches worldwide and is a strategic advisor to executives from Fortune 500 companies, helping them to develop game-changing strategies based on his proven methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact. His client list includes Lockheed Martin, Verizon, Microsoft, VISA, Deloitte, Google, Procter & Gamble, KPMG, Honda, FedEx and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Burrus is an innovative entrepreneur who has founded six businesses, four of which were U.S. national leaders in the first year. He is the CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology-driven trends to help clients profit from technological, social and business forces that are converging to create enormous, untapped opportunities.
He is the creator of the Hard Trend Methodology, the Anticipatory Organization® Business Model – used by leading organizations worldwide, and he is a founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group.
https://www.aistrategyreport.com/ai-report-daniel-burrus
https://www.burrus.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Rebecca is the founder and CEO of Glacier, a recycling startup building AI and robotics to help recyclers, brands, governments, and other stakeholders measure and improve recovery rates for their highest-priority recycled commodities.
Glacier works with several innovative recyclers across the US, major brands including Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, Coca-Cola, and AB InBev, and municipal and government agencies including the City of Phoenix and Michigan Department of Environment.
Glacier's circularity work has been featured in several leading publications, including CBS, NBC, Fortune, Axios, and TechCrunch.
Rebecca is a Waste360 40 Under 40 winner. Prior to founding Glacier, Rebecca was a consultant at Bain & Company and advisor to several early- and growth-stage startups. She is also a mentor for the Google Circular Economy Accelerator.
https://endwaste.io/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Teri Williams is President, COO and owner of OneUnited Bank, the largest Black owned bank in the country, and supporter of the #BankBlack and #BuyBlack Movement. She is responsible for the Bank’s strategic initiatives, as well as the day to day operations, including all retail branches, marketing, compliance, lending, information technology, customer support, legal, and human resources. Ms. Williams brings 30 years of financial services expertise including Bank of America and American Express, where she was one of the youngest Vice Presidents in Amex history. Ms. Williams holds an M.B.A. with honors from Harvard University, and a B.A. with distinctions in Economics from Brown University. She currently is Chair of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA), and on the board of the 79th Street Corridor Initiative in Miami, Florida. Ms. Williams is the author of “I Got Bank! What My Granddad Taught Me About Money” (Beckham Publishing), a financial literacy book for urban youth.
Williams has received countless awards and honors, and in 2022 was named in Forbes prestigious 50>50 list as one of the most influential women in America.
She is married and has two children
Social Media Handles
Facebook/YouTube = /OneUnitedBank
Twitter/Instagram = /OneUnited
LinkedIn = /company/OneUnited-Bank/
https://nexuspmg.com/
The Parrot and the Igloo - A New York Times Editors’ Choice * Named a Best Book of the Year in The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Tribune, and EcoLit Books * A Goodreads and Apple Books Most Anticipated Books of 2023 • A USA Today Must-Read Summer Book • Next Big Idea Must-Read Book • Library Journal What To Read in 2023 Book • An Amazon Best Book of July
David Lipsky is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Absolutely American and Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, the basis for the acclaimed movie The End of the Tour. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, This American Life, All Things Considered, and New York, and is the recipient of the National Magazine Award and the GLAAD Media Award.
His work has been collected in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Magazine Writing. He teaches at New York University and lives in New York City.
Shrikant is business Head and Executive Director at Praj Americas Inc., a role he has held since June 2022. With a rich 23-year history at Praj Industries, Shrikant has risen through the ranks, demonstrating his expertise in biofuels, especially bioethanol. His journey began as a Trainee Engineer at Praj in 2001, evolving through various roles, including Process Engineer, Senior Engineer in Technology Development, and Manager in Technical Sales for decarbonizing bioethanol facilities.
During his tenure at Praj, Shrikant was instrumental in the design and implementation of numerous bioethanol projects. His innovative approach and commitment to research have led to the acquisition of four patents, primarily focused on cellulosic biofuels production and pioneering decarbonizing technologies for bioethanol production. His contribution is not just limited to technical advancements but also includes driving growth through strategic business initiatives and partnerships. He has been instrumental in forging various strategic associations and collaborations in the Americas.
https://www.praj.net/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Tom Dickson, CEO of New Energy Risk since 2015, has more than 35 years of experience in the insurance and reinsurance industry and finance; including senior executive and underwriting leadership positions in the US, Europe, and Asia; notably as the former CEO and Chief Underwriting Officer of the Centre Group, a $10B reinsurer that pioneered innovative products to address high-value business risks and financing. Tom has also served on the boards of public and private companies, including Flagstone Re, Paragon Insurance Services, Reformation Insurance Services, and as an advisor to Cellcontrol and Fairmatic. He graduated with honors from Stanford University, where he remains an active alumnus, and received a Master’s degree from John Hopkins University (SAIS). Currently, Tom serves on the Natural Capital Advisory Council at Stanford University and the board of Adara Group, a non-profit engaged in health and education development for women and children in remote communities.
https://newenergyrisk.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mr. Hubbard is the CEO of Nexus Holdings, a leading infrastructure advisory and project development organization dedicated to reducing carbon intensity and enhancing resource efficiency.
Mr. Hubbard cut his teeth managing domestic and international high-profile projects, acting in various roles for a global Engineering & Construction firm. After co-founding Nexus PMG in 2013, Mr. Hubbard developed deep knowledge of investment underwriting, empowering the firm to bridge the gap between project development and project finance. His powerful ability to translate strategic organizational goals into clear operational plans has led to measurable results for the growing firm.
Mr. Hubbard maintains a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts. He also serves as an investment committee member of Nexus Dev, a development capital provider to renewable and circular economy assets.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Josh Kaufman is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Nexus Development Capital, a platform investing development capital in renewable and circular economy projects. Previously he was an energy investor at the Australian fund QIC, and prior to that was on the GE Power M&A team. Josh has a BA in math and economics from Williams College.
https://www.nexusdevcap.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
MICHAEL SHELDRICK is a policy entrepreneur and a driving force behind the efforts of Global Citizen to end extreme poverty. As a Co-Founder and Chief Policy, Impact, and Government Affairs Officer, he leads the organization's campaigns to mobilize support from governments, businesses, and foundations. He is the author of the upcoming Amazon best-selling book, From Idea to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World (to be published by Wiley on April 9, 2024).
With a career that spans the world of pop and policy, Michael has worked with an impressive roster of international artists such as Beyoncé, Coldplay, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Priyanka Chopra, Rihanna and Usher, as well as prominent political leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and former Australian Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
He has co-produced some of the world's most impactful social campaigns and events, including the annual Global Citizen Festival in New York, the Guinness World Record-winning virtual concert One World: Together At Home, and the Nelson Mandela 2018 centennial celebration, Mandela 100. These initiatives have reached millions of people in over 150 countries and helped secure over $40 billion in support for local and regional organizations working to provide access to essential resources such as healthcare, education, and climate resilience.
A sought-after speaker and author on policy advocacy, sustainable development, and corporate responsibility, Michael has shared his insights at conferences and summits worldwide. His insights have also featured in leading outlets including Forbes, The Guardian, The Hill, HuffPost, Nikkei and Fairfax Media, and his voice heard on major news networks such as ABC, BBC, France 24, Sky News and CNN.
He has been recognized as a finalist for the 2017 Young Commonwealth Person of the Year and serves on: the board of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global citizens; the Leadership Council of aable, a fintech company connecting compassionate investors with underserved communities; and the Advisory Board of the Nigerian Solidarity Support Fund. He is also a co-host of the Global Town Hall, a North-South, East-West meeting featuring world leaders and leading minds to connect with global citizens.
https://michaelsheldrick.com/
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Vince Beiser is an award-winning journalist and author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.” The book has been translated into five languages, was a finalist for a PEN America award and a California Book Award, and spawned a TEDx talk. Vince is currently at work on a new book, “Power Metal”, about how the materials we need for digital technology and renewable energy are causing environmental havoc, political upheaval, mayhem and murder—and how we can do better.
Vince has reported from over 100 countries, states, provinces, kingdoms, occupied territories, no man’s lands and disaster zones. He has exposed conditions in California’s harshest prisons, trained with troops bound for Iraq, ridden with the first responders to natural disasters, and hunted down other stories from around the world for publications including Wired, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Time, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Playboy, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
Vince’s work has been honored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Columbia, Medill and Missouri Graduate Schools of Journalism, and many other institutions. He has three times been part of a team that won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, and shared in an Emmy for his work with the PBS TV series SoCal Connected. He is also a grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
https://vincebeiser.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Steve Oldham is a prominent entrepreneur and carbon removal advocate. He currently serves as CEO of Captura where he is leading the commercialization of Direct Ocean Capture – a climate solution that combines innovative technology with the natural carbon removal powers of the ocean to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at scale.
Steve’s career has focused on bringing ground-breaking technologies to market in a variety of domains, including robotics, aerospace, and climate. Steve was previously CEO of leading Direct Air Capture (DAC) company, Carbon Engineering, where he grew the company from ~15 to ~150 people, and established the partnership with Occidental that led to their acquisition of Carbon Engineering in November 2023.
Steve also served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development for MDA, a leading Canadian technology firm. At MDA, Steve held a variety of senior executive positions across Canada and the US, covering General Management, Business Development, and Strategy, and secured financing from Government and commercial sources for a variety of complex technologies, including several large satellite programs.
https://capturacorp.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur and most of all, A teacher.
Seth is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker.In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 21 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn). His book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world. His latest books are The Song of Significance and The Practice, and creatives everywhere have made it a bestseller.
Though renowned for his writing and speaking, Seth also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!).
By focusing on everything from effective marketing and leadership, to the spread of ideas and changing everything, Seth has been able to motivate and inspire countless people around the world.
In 2013, Seth was one of just three professionals inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. In an astonishing turn of events, in May 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame as well. He might be the only person in both.
https://thecarbonalmanac.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Stacy Flynn is CEO and a founding partner of Evrnu, a textile innovations company. An accomplished sustainable systems expert, Stacy is committed to developing innovative fiber technologies that reduce textile waste and preserve natural resources.
Under Stacy's leadership, Evrnu is working to solve the most pressing challenges facing the global textile and apparel industry. In 2019 Evrnu debuted NuCyclTM, a technology that transforms garment waste into a resource by recovering the raw materials for reuse. A future where textile producers, brands, retailers and customers reimagine their relationship with nature is now becoming a reality.
Evrnu has been recognized as an organization making notable contributions to the circular economy as well as being an honoree in the 2020 Fast Company World Changing Ideas.
Stacy is a TEDx and keynote speaker and a passionate voice of authority advocating for materials reuse for sustainability in textiles. She is an Unreasonable Impact Fellow, along with a cohort of CEOs that are advancing other world changing ideas. Prior to founding the company in 2014 with her business partner Christo Stanev, Stacy worked as a global textile specialist for nearly two decades in roles at DuPont, Eddie Bauer and Target.
She holds an MBA in Sustainable Systems from Presidio Graduate Institute and a Bachelor of Science degree in Textile Development and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
https://evrnu.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Bernard has over 20 years of public andprivate experience involving project development. Mr. Brown owned and operated Sustainergy Solutions which was responsible for developing a series of projects in the Cleantech sector. Mr. Brown utilizes project experience to support the company’s vision of bettering the planet by focusing on projectsthat reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance resource efficiency.
Mr. Brown holds a master’s degree inEnergy (Engineering) from Texas A&M University, a master’s degree in PublicAdministration from Clemson University, and a Bachelor’s degree from ArizonaState University in Planning (minor in Sustainability).
Bernard Brown holds a Renewable EnergyProfessional certification from the Association of Energy Engineers.
https://empirediversifiedenergy.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period. Peter is also the author of The Energy Switch - a book about how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Raj Asava, originally from India, enjoyed a successful corporate career in senior/executive roles for renowned companies, including serving as President of two startup organizations. He retired in 2010 as the Chief Strategy Officer at Perot Systems. Aradhana (Anna) Asava, has over 20 years of experience in the Global Information Technology industry, specializing in leading organization-wide transformational programs. In 2009, Anna transitioned from corporate America to philanthropic endeavors, demonstrating her results-oriented approach and knack for creative problem-solving.
Together, Raj and Anna founded HungerMitao in 2017, a movement aimed at uniting the Indian American community to combat food insecurity. Within six years, HungerMitao expanded to multiple cities, facilitating over 55 million meals for the Feeding America network of Food Banks. Notably, the HungerMitao model has been shared with the Chinese and Hispanic communities.
Their outstanding contributions to philanthropy have garnered recognition and accolades:
•August 2021: Raj and Anna honored as top 100 philanthropists of Indian origin.
•August 2022: President Joe Biden awarded them the prestigious "Lifetime Achievement" medal.
•January 2023: Raj was selected as one of the prominent Indo-Americans in "Jewels of India: Leading Indo-American Personalities (Vol II)" where his personal, professional, and philanthropic journey is highlighted along with that of other leaders like US Vice President Kamala Harris and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
•May 2023: Hunger Free America commended the impactful HungerMitao movement and honored Raj and Anna Asava for their tireless efforts.
•November 2023: Anna and Raj received the 2023 National Philanthropy Day Outstanding Volunteer Fundraisers award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
The Asavas' dedication to eradicating hunger and their innovative approach through HungerMitao have left a lasting impact on communities in need.
https://www.hungermitao.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dip is a technologist, engineer, and entrepreneur. He lives on the beach with his fantastic family (Wife, Daughter, and Dog). He is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Soluna (Nasdaq: SLNH), a company aiming to make stranded green energy profitable using off-grid high-density computing. Before Soluna, he was a co-founder of Ecovent, a smart home technology company sold to ConnectM in 2016.
Before Ecovent, Dip led the design, development, and production of complex radar systems at Lockheed Martin. Dip has a BSEE from Drexel University, an MSEE from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he currently serves as a lecturer.
https://www.solunacomputing.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Marcus Lehmann, serves as the CEO of CalWave Power Technologies Inc. Marcus founded CalWave in2014 and uses his experience in systems engineering, energy systems and entrepreneurship, to lead a diverse team of engineers, advisers, and industry partners to unlock the vast and steady carbon-free power from ocean waves.
Prior to CalWave, Marcus held research positions at UC Berkeley, Mechanical Engineering, the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was a project lead at the Cyclotron Road program. Marcus holds a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Technical University Hamburg, graduated from Technical University Munich with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and received an honors degree in technology management from the Center for Digital Technology and Management.
https://calwave.energy/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period. Peter is also the author of The Energy Switch - a book about how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Brandon Banks is the Director of Advisory Services at Nexus PMG. He has extensive experience focused on evaluating and developing alternative, renewable, and sustainable infrastructure projects — providing strategic leadership in the circular economy. Brandon holds an MBA from the University of Miami and is a licensed Project Management Professional (PMP). He recently served as the Chairman of the YP Board for Junior Achievement of Greater Miami and he lives in Miami, Florida with his wife and two daughters.https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Shuchi Talati is an emerging climate technology governance expert and the founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering. She is also currently a co-chair of the Independent Advisory Committee to oversee SCoPEx, an effort to provide oversight for the potential outdoor solar geoengineering experiment proposed by Harvard University. Dr. Talati is a Visiting Scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and a Scholar in Residence at Forum for Climate Engineering at American University. She most recently served as a Presidential Appointee in the Biden-Harris Administration as Chief of Staff of the Office of Fossil Energy & Carbon Management at the U.S. Department of Energy where she was focused on creating just and sustainable frameworks for carbon dioxide removal.
She was also previously the Deputy Director of Policy at Carbon180 and the Fellow on geoengineering research governance and public engagement at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Talati was a AAAS/AIP Congressional Science Fellow in the U.S. Senate and served at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Obama. Dr. Talati earned a BS in environmental engineering from Northwestern University, an MA in climate and society from Columbia University, and PhD from Carnegie Mellon in engineering and public policy.
https://sgdeliberation.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
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, the leading provider of solar thermal energy for industry worldwide. He is also the former founder and president of Ausra, Inc., a pioneer in solar thermal and solar electric systems. John launched his career as the lead engineer for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national lab, where he designed award-winning technology to support real-time 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.
https://www.rondo.energy/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Matthew David LeDucq, Chief Executive Officer, has 15+ years of experience in renewables business, has overseen $5B+ in transactions in EPC, OEM, and long-term investments, and bountiful experience leading transactions for utility scale solar, community solar, standalone storage, electric vehicle, fuel cell & microgrids. Prior to becoming CEO of Forum Mobility, Matt was the Executive Director of NextEra Energy’s distributed generation team where he oversaw all greenfield origination, land acquisition, early-stage development, and M&A. His team built the distributed generation pipeline to nearly $2B in owned assets. Matt has also held various leadership roles with Suntech, Yingli, EI Solutions, and PowerLight, where he started his career as a construction manager in 2003. He holds a BA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
https://forummobility.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Walter L. McLeod is a recognized expert and thought leader in clean technology policy, finance, and development. He is an angel investor, entrepreneur, and Professor of Practice (Energy) in the College of Science at George Mason University. Walter is also the author of The Carbon Creed. Walter resides in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with his wife Laurel.
http://www.carboncreed.com/about.html
https://nexuspmg.com/
Durreen Shahnaz is a global leader in social impact and a pioneer in impact investing. She is also the founder of Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) and IIX Foundation. IIX is the home of the world’s first social stock exchange and one of the world’s largest crowdfunding platforms for impact investing. IIX is also a leader in impact assessment methodology and innovative financial structures, such as the world's first gender-focused social bond, the Women's Livelihood Bond Series. IIX connects the Back Streets of underserved communities to the Wall Streets of the world by innovating financial solutions and structures for women empowerment, climate action, and community resilience, thus driving Sustainable Development Goals. IIX and IIX Foundation’s work has unlocked nearly US$300 million of private sector investment capital and impacted over 150 million direct household lives.
Shahnaz is the recipient of the UN Women’s 2020 Asia-Pacific Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP) award, the 2019 Sustainability Superwoman award from CSR Works, the 2017 Oslo Business for Peace Award, often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize for Business’, the 2017 Global Steering Group for Impact Investment Impact Market Builder of the Year award, the 2016 Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award, in addition to the prestigious 2014 Joseph Wharton Social Impact Award given by the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania. Recently, Shahnaz was named in the Forbes 50 over 50 list as a notable leader in the financial industry. Shahnaz has recently authored a book entitled The Defiant Optimist, which just had a global launch.
Shahnaz holds a BA from Smith College and a joint degree – an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a MA from the School for Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University.
Orange Bond Initiative™ Insights Paper - IIX - Impact Investment Exchange (iixglobal.com) Sustainable Finance for Global Impact | IIX Global
https://nexuspmg.com/
Corey Tyree is the co-founder and CEO of Trillium Renewable Chemicals. He raised $16M in financing from venture, strategic, and government sources in the Company’s first 18 months. He built an experienced team and secured partnerships with Solvay, Hyosung, HELM, and others. He started his career as a chemical plant operator and went on to serve in various roles in engineering, plant management, and executive leadership. He holds a BS and PhD in Chemical Engineering.
https://trilliumchemicals.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Tim Hade is the COO and Co-Founder of Scale Microgrid Solutions, where he focuses on developing sustainable distributed generation technologies to serve mission-critical facilities. Tim brings his 12+ years of deep energy knowledge and experience to the clean energy projects being developed at Scale and can offer valuable insight into the operational requirements and challenges commonly encountered during the development of clean energy microgrid projects. Tim believes the greatest challenge humanity faces in the 21st century is the need to build a cleaner and more resilient energy system that is affordable and accessible for all, with unprecedented speed. He founded Scale Microgrid Solutions with the aim of achieving this end by building distributed energy systems for businesses and electric vehicle transit fleets throughout the country. More recently, Tim has been invaluable in helping close projects with a public transit fleet, indoor vertical farming facilities, a water utility, a school district, a food production facility and a leading university.
https://www.scalemicrogrids.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired, an award-winning magazine he co-founded Wired in 1993. He is co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, a membership organization that champions long-term thinking. He is the founder of the popular Cool Tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily for 20 years. He is also the author of multiple best-selling books about the future of technology. His newest is Excellent Advice for Living, a book of 450 modern proverbs for a pretty good life. He is best known for his radical optimism.
https://kk.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Larry Keeley is a renowned innovation scientist with over forty years of experience in the field. He co-founded Doblin, the leading global firm focused on enhancing innovation effectiveness, and has nurtured over 700 alumni through the organization.
Keeley's contribution to academia is noteworthy. He has been a professor at the IIT Institute of Design for 39 years, a board member, and a leading employer of graduates. He also held a professorship at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management's MMM Program for 12 years, earning the title of Distinguished Professor in 2015. Throughout his academic career, he has helped educate over 5,900 Masters or PhD students as innovators, creating a robust global network of colleagues.
Adding to his achievements, Keeley is the author of the #2 all-time best-selling book on innovation, "Ten Types of Innovation," which has been translated into 15 languages. His outstanding contributions to the field earned him recognition by BusinessWeek as one of the top seven global "gurus" of the innovation field, and one of the top 27 designers in the world.
In 2021, the Bankinter Foundation in Spain appointed Keeley as the new director of their famed Future Trends Forum, which is conducted bi-annually in Madrid. Despite retiring as a Managing Director from Deloitte (the firm that now owns Doblin) in late 2020, Keeley continues his mission to advance the methods of innovation through research, currently with Keeley Innovations LLC.
Keeley is a frequent lecturer on innovation at the Berkeley Haas Business School and an EY Luminary, where he works on cases and capabilities that are reshaping the field of innovation. His dedication and passion continue to have a profound impact on the innovation landscape.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Brittany Zimmerman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Yummet. Brittany is the CEO of a globally recognized organization with a diverse team of over 300 graduate-level experts hailing from over 50 countries. This organization has bridged the gap between space technology and terrestrial applications by bringing advanced solutions to meet the needs of humanity on earth. By mimicking the natural process of mother nature, Yummet's innovative, proven, and patent-pending technological approach breaks down waste, disassembles the molecules, and rebuilds them into valuable resources, minerals, soils, water, and clean air - just as nature does. In doing this they produce the strongest, most net-negative concrete ever tested made entirely from waste. They produce biochar that serves as a sustainable alternative to synthetic fertilizers, restoring soil health and purifying water. They desalinate water and treat waste water with no production of brine or other waste products. They produce Green hydrogen at costs that rival dirty hydrogen, providing an alternative to fossil fuels.
Ms. Zimmerman was selected early in her career as the Youngest National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Principal Investigator. She served as Principal Investigator (PI) for three NASA Programs.
She served as Program Manager and Lead Engineer for the NASA Integrated water Recovery Assembly (IRA) designed to reclaim water from planetary surface habitats for NASA. As Lead Systems Engineer for the Brine Processor Assembly (BPA), currently on the International Space Station, Ms. Zimmerman spent years designing, analyzing, testing, and managing programs that utilize membrane distillation for water recovery during on-orbit and planetary surface operations. This includes her role as Program Manager and Lead Engineer for the Boeing Starliner Humidity Control System (HCS) ammonia testing campaign, and her role as a PI, Lead Engineer, and Inventor of the NASA Condensate Separator for Microgravity Conditions (COSMIC).
Ms. Zimmerman’s role as Lead Engineering Analyst for the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) RAIDER program showcased her strength at mathematical analysis of thermal and fluid solutions. She has supported the development of the environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) for a single person spacecraft and has been instrumental in the design of many extreme environment United States Department of Defense (DoD) ECLSS solutions.
Ms. Zimmerman earned her B.S. of Mechanical Engineering in 2011, followed by an M.S. in Space Studies focused on bioregenerative physical-chemical hybrid life support systems for long-duration spaceflight. Ms. Zimmerman specialized in the ecology of closed environments and biospherics, for which she designed the greenhouse module for the NASA Inflatable Lunar/Martian Habitat (ILMH).
Ms. Zimmerman has been a crew member on several analog Mars missions, including a mission to the Mars Desert Research Station, as an officer of Mission 171. She served in the ILMH, leading Crew 3, the first all-female crew.
Her background also includes rocket design, robotic launch systems, and high-altitude ballooning.
Achievements:
•Patented the most sustainable concrete ever tested
•Exceeded $85 Million in Awarded Grants
•Youngest NASA Principal Investigator
•Principal Investigator for 3 NASA Programs
•Patents and/or technologies developed for the ISS, spacesuits, spacecraft, U.S. Department of Defense, Artemis Program returning human's to the Moon, habitats for Mars, and private space industry life support systems.
•20 Under 35 Awardee from the Space and Satellites Professional International
•2020 Promise Award recipient identifying her as a leader in the space industry
•Future Space Leader Awardee
•Analog Astronaut: Commanding Crew 3 in Inflatable Lunar/Martian Habitat
•Analog Astronaut: Mission 171, Mars Desert Research Station
https://www.yummet.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
John Cleland is Co-founder and CEO of RenewWest, an environmental asset developer that addresses climate change through the development of natural working land emission reduction projects.
https://www.renewwest.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Preston Bryant is a graduate of SMU Cox School of Business with a B.A. in Economics, specializing in energy. In college, he established an oil and gas company in memory of his late father. Preston furthered his expertise in commodities recovery at the firm LPI, where he uncovered a groundbreaking critical materials processing method called Membrane Solvent Extraction. After obtaining exclusive licensing rights from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Lab, he founded Momentum Technologies with the mission to revolutionize the way metals were recovered by challenging the conventional norms that processing facilities must be large, expensive, and centralized.
https://momentum.technology
https://nexuspmg.com/
NJ Ayuk is the Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, CEO of pan-African corporate law conglomerate Centurion Law Group, and the author of Big Barrels as well as Amazon and Wall Street Journal’s bestselling Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals. His experience includes advising major companies and governments on energy issues and investment strategies. NJ graduated from the University of Maryland College Park and earned a Juris Doctor from William Mitchell College of Law and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology.
https://njayuk.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jennifer has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector, including a proven track record in the development and commercialization of fuels and chemicals technologies. Prior to LanzaTech, Jennifer was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. Under her management, UOP technology became instrumental in producing nearly all of the initial fuels used by commercial airlines and the military for testing and certification of alternative aviation fuel. Today, under Jennifer’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards deploying carbon capture and reuse facilities globally to make fuels and chemicals from waste carbon.
https://lanzatech.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Josh Brooks is a partner with WayBright, LLC, with office in Jacksonville, FL, Asheville, NC, and Torreon, Mexico. WayBright is a project development, finance, and management platform designed to accelerate the deployment of clean energy, clean water, and other infrastructure services across the U.S. and Mexico.
Prior to WayBright, Josh served as aide to Amory Lovins, founder and former Chief Scientist of RMI, a world-leading energy and economy think tank. There, Josh focused on implementing integrative design across the energy-intensive sectors: transportation, industry, buildings, and electricity generation as well as utility business model innovation and energy regulatory reform which resulted in numerous successful legislative initiatives.
Prior to RMI, Josh served as Project Developer for NTE Energy, a private sector energy production company, where he directed the company’s renewables development and related wholesale customer programs in multiple national markets. His work with NTE and other regional utilities produced some of North Carolina’s first community solar installations and one of the nation’s most diverse public generation portfolios at Appalachian State University, Josh’s alma mater.
Today, along with his work at WayBright, Josh services as an advisor to the Council for New Energy Economics, which participates in electric-utility resource planning processes across the country and sits on the Board of Blue Link Pro, LLC, the first full-service partner for water and sewer utility infrastructure management, monitoring, renovation, and upgrade, including financing as beneficial to the utility.
https://waybright.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Josh Dorfman is a sustainability entrepreneur and brand builder dedicated to scaling mission-driven ventures. He is co-founder & CEO of Plantd, a carbon-negative building materials company pioneering a new path to reach gigaton-scale carbon capture. Previously, Josh led Vine.com, an Amazon business unit specializing in natural, organic, and sustainable products. He has founded two award-winning modern design sustainable furniture companies: Vivavi, named to Inc. Magazine's "Green 50" as a pioneer accelerating the green economy, and Simbly, recognized by the National Wildlife Federation for its sustainable practices to preserve forest ecosystems. Earlier in his career, Josh was the author and host of The Lazy Environmentalist reality TV series on Sundance Channel, radio show on SiriusXM, and book series designed to make sustainable living easy, convenient, and delightful. Josh served for four years as the national spokesperson for Brita’s FilterForGood campaign to reduce bottled water waste. He currently serves on Governor Roy Cooper’s North Carolina Entrepreneurship Council. Josh holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
https://www.plantdmaterials.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sanjay Shrestha joined Plug Power as Chief Strategy Officer in 2019. Prior to joining Plug Power, Mr. Shrestha served as the CIO of a global solar IPP and President Sky Capital Americas since 2015. Under his leadership, Sky Capital America built and acquired over 100MW of operating solar assets and secured pipeline over 100MW. He also sourced various types of financing solutions to support this growth including project debt, construction equity and long-term equity. He brings almost two decades of experience in the broader clean tech sector to our team. Before global solar IPP, he led the renewables investment banking effort at FBR Capital markets. During 2014, and under his leadership, the firm was ranked among the top renewable energy underwriters in the U.S.
Prior to joining FBR, Mr. Shrestha spent seven years as the global head of renewables research coverage at Lazard Capital Markets. During his tenure at Lazard Capital Markets, he was a member of the Institutional Investor All America Research team and was also ranked as one of the top five stock pickers on a global basis. Prior to Lazard Capital Markets, Mr. Shrestha spent seven years at First Albany Capital, where he built the firm’s renewables and industrial research practice. Starmine/Forbes Magazine ranked him the number 1 stock picker and the number 1 earnings estimator during his tenure at First Albany Capital. Mr. Shrestha serves as an independent director on the board of directors of Fusemachines, an AI company.
https://www.plugpower.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period. Peter is also the author of The Energy Switch - a book about how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Get motivated to step into 2023 with advice from our 2022 guests.
https://nexuspmg.com/
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, the leading provider of solar thermal energy for industry worldwide. He is also the former founder and president of Ausra, Inc., a pioneer in solar thermal and solar electric systems. John launched his career as the lead engineer for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national lab, where he designed award-winning technology to support real-time 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.
https://www.rondo.energy/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Gruber, CEO and Board Member of Gevo, has spent over 30 years developing and commercializing renewable biobased technologies to replace petrochemicals. His teams have developed and commercialized several renewable resource-based products, including organic acids, plastics, fibers, advanced alcohols, hydrocarbon fuels, and the like. Gruber led the development and commercialization of PLA at Cargill and co-founded Natureworks. As CEO of Gevo, Dr. Gruber leads the business to commercialize Isobutanol for gasoline blendstock, renewable, low carbon jet fuel, and low carbon renewable gasoline.
Dr. Gruber received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Minnesota. He also earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Gruber has received numerous awards including: The George Washington Carver Award from BIO, The Presidential Green Chemistry Award, The Discover Award for Environmental Innovation from Discover Magazine, The Lee W. Rivers Innovation Award from CDMA, an Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of MN in 2011, The Julius Stieglitz Award from the University of Chicago, The Kirkpatrick Award from Chemical Engineering, Design and Engineering Award from Popular Mechanics, Technology of the Year Award from Industry Week, Technology of the Year Award from United States DOE, and numerous others. Dr. Gruber was the editor of the two-volume book “Biorefineries—Industrial Processes and Products,” and holds more than 60 US patents, with several others pending.
https://gevo.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Laura Lammers is the founder and CEO of Travertine Technologies, Inc., a start-up working to scale a new technology for carbon dioxide removal and inorganic chemical upcycling. Dr. Lammers obtained a PhD in environmental geochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012. Her expertise focuses on carbon mineralization and carbon cycling, as well as selective critical element extraction. She has spent the majority of her postgraduate career as an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management department at the University of California, Berkeley as well as a Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since its founding in 2022, Travertine has raised $3M in seed funding led by the Grantham Environmental Trust and Clean Energy Ventures, along with $2M in grant funding from the US Department of Energy ARPA-e program. Travertine was recently recognized as Chemical & Engineering News' Top 10 Start-Ups to Watch for 2022.
https://www.travertinetech.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jason Salfi is co-founder and CEO of Dimensional Energy, a clean energy company that transforms carbon dioxide into the fuels and products that people use every day.
Dimensional Energy’s mission is to replace the use of newly extracted fossil carbon from the supply chains for hydrocarbon-based fuels and products and do so in alignment with globally agreed upon climate justice practices outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Salfi has served as an Innovation Advisor for New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) from 2016 - 2019
In 1997 Salfi founded Comet Skateboards, a founding B Corporation, licensed in 2014, with the mission of building and sharing skateboards for space travel in ways that care for the earth and its community. His experience as a manufacturer led him to consult on product design standards and acquisition strategy, building profitable and regenerative business models for a market-leading fortune 500 company from 2015-2017.
He has a BS in Natural Resources Management from Cornell University.
https://dimensionalenergy.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
As an efficiency expert, Dan has spent the past 20 years eliminating waste for Fortune 100 Companies in a variety of industries. In 2013, Dan turned his focus to organic waste for his new venture, seizing on an opportunity to repurpose the billions of tons of waste biomass generated annually. In collaboration with Villanova University, he developed and commercialized Hydrothermal Carbonization technology that became the cornerstone of SoMax’s larger Resource Recovery Platform which transforms organic waste into advanced biofuels, carbon negative products, and fertilizers in a closed loop system. In 2021, SoMax’s Resource Recovery Platform was recognized as a grand prize winner of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Resource Recovery Challenge.
https://somaxhtc.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
After serving in the United States Marine Corps, Jake dove headfirst into the oil and gas tech scene in 2013 co-founding some of the first cloud-based tech startups and later co-hosting the first podcast in oil and gas. Now, Jake is the co-founder at Digital Wildcatters and spends most of his time at the intersection of O&G and tech.
https://digitalwildcatters.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
A mechanical engineer by training, Adam is a seasoned management executive with over 15 years experience building and growing companies across a variety of fields including 3D printing, ocean engineering, real estate, and Bitcoin mining. Prior to co-founding Vespene Energy in 2022, Adam was Director of Manufacturing for Mantle, Inc., a 3D printing company developing a new way to print high-precision metal components. Adam also spent 6 years as CEO of DeepFlight, a marine technology manufacturer that, under Adam’s leadership, expanded to become a global provider of personal and tourism submarines.
Adam has continued the family legacy to pursue and support climate-related causes – his grandfather founded the Oceanic Society, a non-profit dedicated to ocean conservation and research. Adam holds a degree in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley and speaks fluent Mandarin.
https://vespene.energy/
www.nexuspmg.com
Manik Suri is the Founder and CEO of technology company Therma. Before founding Therma, Manik co-founded the Governance Lab (GovLab), an innovation center at NYU that developed technology solutions to improve government. He is a former Affiliate of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and has held positions at global investment firm D.E. Shaw & Company and the White House National Economic Council.
Manik holds an A.B. in Government summa cum laude from Harvard College, an M.Phil in International Relations (Highest Honors) from Cambridge University, where he studied as Harvard University’s annual Paul Williams Scholar, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he earned numerous Dean’s Scholar commendations. He is admitted to the California Bar, has published in leading academic journals, edited volumes, and national media outlets.
THERMA:
Therma° combats climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of one of the least understood and most significant causes of global warming: refrigeration. The global refrigeration system – the cold chain – warms the planet in 3 distinct ways: food waste, energy use, and refrigerant leakage. Therma’s integrated suite of software, IoT sensors, and equipment controls optimize refrigeration to reduce electricity usage and prevent catastrophic food loss. These customer benefits yield substantial energy savings and produce measurable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Therma° enables its customers to simultaneously improve business profitability and advance sustainability. For more information, please visit For more information visit us at www.hellotherma.com.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Megan O’Connor is the founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a company that has developed and deployed an electro-extraction technology to recover critical minerals from battery waste. Dr. O’Connor holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Duke University and was previously an entrepreneurial fellow in the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
https://nthcycle.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Nick Myers is the co-founder and CEO of Phoenix Tailings, a company building a sustainable future by refining metals from mining waste with zero direct carbon emissions or toxic byproducts.
Before founding Phoenix Tailings, Nick worked in Venture Capital at Techstars and was the Director of Finance and Partnerships for Meenta, a medical diagnostic testing startup. He also co-founded Huntington Angels, a strategic angel investment group where he now serves as the lead outside adviser.
Nick was also a founding member of Tengu, an early Web3 startup that created one of the first stable coins. At Tengu, Nick briefed the IMF about decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies' impact on the world economy.
Nick has a Bachelor's Degree from Saint Michael's College, where he was a starting pitcher for the college's baseball team. He also has an MBA from Northeastern University.
https://www.phoenixtailings.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Scott is the founder and CEO of ReMo Energy.
Scott most recently built and led First Solar’s PV + Storage (“PVS”) team. Reporting directly to the CTO, Scott’s group was tasked with developing this new line of business for the company. These responsibilities included characterizing the unique value proposition offered by PVS, communicating these benefits to both partners and prospective customers, optimizing the designs of prospective PVS projects, and coordinating the technical development and commercial offering of the company’s PVS product line.
Scott has led the development of new energy businesses for most of his career. His previous roles included VP of Business Development for GMZ Energy and OsComp Systems. Prior to that, he was the CEO of four venture-backed energy startups. As part of these efforts he raised over $20M in venture capital, negotiated strategic partnerships and licensing agreements, built multiple technology teams, and directly contributed to the development of a number unique technologies.
Education
Scott holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
https://www.remo.energy/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jim is a licensed Professional Geologist with 36 years of experience in the environmental field. In addition to his undergraduate degree in Geology, Jim has a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Environmental Policy and Management. He has over 20 years of environmental consulting experience and has been at the Minneapolis Health Department for the past 12 years. Jim spent a year in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard as a Hydrologist on an Agri-Business Development Team. It was during this time that he first looked at biochar to improve soil health. Jim is currently the Carbon Sequestration Program Manager with the City of Minneapolis.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mark Toman is the Founder & President of EggTech, as well as a forward-thinking and mission-driven entrepreneur.
Prior to founding EggTech, Mark held several strategic business development roles, focused in the areas of corporate strategy, innovation and partnership cultivation.
After being involved in the mining industry, Mark identified the possibility of utilizing a vast wastestream from liquid-egg processing operations, which would otherwise predominantly go to landfill, in the interest of offsetting the need to mine for raw material, and in hopes of being in a position to manufacture a pure form of calcium (as well as other nutritionally advantageous ingredients) for supply into the premium nutritional/ingestible markets.
Mark and his team were successful in developing an industrially-scalable and cost-effective process that has been formally patented in the US, Canada, Mexico, the EU, China, and India.
Mark was invited to sit on the Innovation Advisory Council of the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) in order to contribute to the shaping and improvement of the Canadian innovation ecosystem in the FoodTech and AgTech sectors.
Mark is a strategically-minded impact entrepreneur who is largely propelled by the desire to innovate, drive change, differentiate, and alter the landscape of an existing marketplace, while having a positive impact on the environment and create value where there previously was none, or very little thereof.
Mark holds a B.A from Dalhousie University, is a proud husband and father of 2 children. He resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
https://theshellproject.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Suma is an entrepreneur, organizer and educator committed to solving some of our society's largest systemic challenges. Suma is Co-Founder/CEO of Future Acres, which builds advanced mobility and AI solutions for farms to increase production efficiency, farmworker safety and provide real-time analytics. She is a 3x AgTech + ClimateTech founder, is on the advisory board of Scale for ClimateTech, a Board Member of GrainPro, and teaches the Future of Food and Climate: Just Entrepreneurship at the NYC School of Visual Arts. She has also built and is active in inclusive tech communities, and has been awarded the White House Champion of Change for her Asian & Pacific Islander LGBTQ+ advocacy work. She started her career at a microfinance startup-turned-unicorn in India and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali. She is a graduate of The Wharton School (MBA).
https://www.futureacres.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Nicole Johnson-Hoffman is the CEO of Future Meat Technologies, bringing more than 25 years of experience across the agriculture, food manufacturing, food services, and meat production industries.
Prior to joining Future Meat, Nicole was the Managing Director of Further Processed Foods for OSI Europe, based in Gersthofen, Germany. She led OSI's European processed foods division across Europe and served as Chief Sustainability Officer and Senior Vice President. OSI is one of the world’s largest privately held food manufacturers and is the brand behind leading food service and retail brands. OSI has been in business for 111 years and operates 57 facilities across 18 countries.
Previously, Nicole spent 19 years at Cargill Incorporated, practicing law as in-house counsel, and worked in various leadership roles from financial services to beef plant operations in the US and Asia. From 2010 to 2013, Nicole was the General Manager of Cargill’s Fort Morgan, Colorado beef processing plant, one of the largest beef primary processing plants in the United States. During that time, she worked to increase the industry’s transparency with consumers, including making an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2011.
Nicole was the founding Chairperson of the US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and was elected to two terms as the President of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. She also serves on corporate boards as an independent non-executive director. She is a passionate advocate for continuous improvement in the food industry’s ability to feed the world sustainably.
Nicole holds a JD from the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a BA in International Relations from St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
https://future-meat.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
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, the leading provider of solar thermal energy for industry worldwide. He is also the former founder and president of Ausra, Inc., a pioneer in solar thermal and solar electric systems. John launched his career as the lead engineer for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national lab, where he designed award-winning technology to support real-time 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.
https://www.rondo.energy/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Paul Bunje is the co-founder and CSO of Conservation X Labs, an organization that brings innovation to global conservation threats. Conservation X Labs is a leader in using technology and entrepreneurship to protect biodiversity using a mix of crowdsourcing, open innovation, directed research, and acceleration. Paul was formerly the Chief Scientist at the XPRIZE Foundation, where he led the impact strategy across grand challenge domains at XPRIZE, spanning civil society, environment, energy, health, and exploration. Dr. Bunje is a global thought leader in bringing innovation to solve environmental grand challenges. Paul was formerly the founding Executive Director of the UCLA Center for Climate Change Solutions, the Managing Director of the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, and served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Oceans. The American Association for the Advancement of Science selected Paul as one of 40 individuals that exemplify the thousands of AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellows who are dedicated to applying science to serve society. Paul is trained in biology, with a B.S. from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
https://conservationxlabs.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Curtis has been CEO of Hydrostor since its inception and has led the company through technology development into commercial operations. Prior to Hydrostor, Curtis was Sr. Manager in Deloitte’s Corporate Strategy Consulting Practice where he advised and consulted for some of the top energy companies globally. He has also held positions at nuclear generator Bruce Power and wind developer Environmental Electric Company.
https://www.hydrostor.ca/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jennifer has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector, including a proven track record in the development and commercialization of fuels and chemicals technologies. Prior to LanzaTech, Jennifer was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. Under her management, UOP technology became instrumental in producing nearly all of the initial fuels used by commercial airlines and the military for testing and certification of alternative aviation fuel. Today, under Jennifer’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards deploying carbon capture and reuse facilities globally to make fuels and chemicals from waste carbon.
https://lanzatech.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Ali Haji is the CEO of ION Energy - a leader in the exploration and development of lithium salars within Mongolia and a strong pioneer in the third wave of the green energy revolution. Since 2019 the company has been aggressively growing its assets in its extensive growth strategy through acquiring new resources and sites.
https://www.ionenergy.ca/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dan White began working in agriculture in high school at a family orchard outside of Gettysburg, PA. After completing his BA at Dickinson College in philosophy and political science, he moved to Italy where he did international business development work for Italian artisans, igniting his passion for business and sales. Prior to Clean Crop, he spent more than a decade working around the world in agricultural development and consulting. He has focused his career on finding novel technologies with the potential to sustainably grow more food with less resources and bring them to market, with experiences across the middle east, southeast asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
https://cleancroptech.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Lacey has a background in civil engineering with a concentration in water resources and environmental engineering. She is the CEO and founder of Olokun Minerals, a startup focused on improving the water quality of brine wastewaters by filtering out metals and minerals that can then be used for more productive applications. She is passionate about finding solutions that improve human-environmental interactions and increase clean water access for vulnerable communities.
https://olokunminerals.com/
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production.
Taj Ahmad Eldridge is a 25+ year investment professional whose career has included high level executive roles in banking, asset management, alternative investments, and entrepreneurship. As General Partner of Include Venture Partners and former Senior Director of Investments at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), Eldridge has built a longstanding career with expertise in the fields of fintech, media, energy, transportation, and the circular economy. Eldridge is also one of the 70 Black Investors in Bevy.com - a $325 million virtual conference platform as noted in AfroTech.
Include Ventures website
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production.
Ed McGinnis is CEO of Curio - a nuclear innovation and technology development company. A 30-year veteran of the Department of Energy, Ed previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Office of Nuclear Energy (Acting) and Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Curio
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production
Anthony Kane is President & CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure in Washington, DC where he oversees the organization’s overall operations and leads the development of the Envision framework for sustainable infrastructure. Kane also sits as a commissioner on the Washington DC Commission on Climate Change and Resiliency.
Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production.
Jonathan is a founding partner of Intelis Capital and a member of its investment committee. Jonathan serves in all aspects of the firm’s operations, with a particular focus on developing investment theses, creation of internal processes and systems, sourcing potential investments, providing operational and strategic support to portfolio companies.
Intelis Capital
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production.
Erin Fitzgerald serves as Chief Executive Officer. She is passionate about encouraging contagious collaboration to build the sustainable food systems of the 21st century. Erin previously worked in dairy where she led a voluntary carbon goal, innovation projects, and sustainable supply chain framework. Erin has been recognized in Chicago’s 40 under 40, a White House Champion of Change for Sustainable and Climate-Smart Agriculture, and an Aspen Institute First Movers Fellow.
https://usfarmersandranchers.org/
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production
A serial entrepreneur and a strategic investor, John has 20 years of experience founding and investing in technology-enabled companies in the communications, healthcare, finance and energy industries. Before co-founding Ample, John was a co-founder, president, and CEO of MedHelp, the largest consumer health platform offering tools, device integrations, and communities to millions of people empowering them to manage their own health. MedHelp’s platform powered online offerings of companies such as Walgreens and GE, until it was acquired by Merck Pharmaceuticals mid 2014. Following the acquisition, John served as the President of the Consumer Health and Healthcare Solutions Division of Aptus Health, a subsidiary of Merck. Prior to MedHelp, John led the Technology Practice of the Private Equity Group at Goldman Sachs, focusing on software and technology companies. Earlier, John co-founded Flash Communications, an Internet startup company that developed real-time two-way messaging systems, which was acquired by Microsoft. Furthermore, he co-founded Smartleaf, a financial software company.
John holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Collège des Ingénieurs in France
https://ample.com/
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production
Roger Sorkin — Founder & Executive Director
Roger Sorkin is an award-winning producer, writer, editor, and director of mission-driven films designed to strengthen civilizational security. Prior to founding ARP, Roger consulted with and created documentary and dramatic films for a wide range of nonprofit, academic and government institutions, including the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, USAID, NATO, Flex Your Rights Foundation, American Cancer Society, and more. He has taught energy and environmental communication at the Fordham University Gabelli School of Business, and he has lectured at NASA, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and at the U.S. Naval Academy. Roger is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, and he has served on the Climate and Security Working Group at the Center for Climate and Security, and on the Managed Retreat Expert Group with the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. After graduating in anthropology from the Johns Hopkins University in 1993, Roger worked as a public radio journalist and producer, as an English teacher in Spain, and then received a master of communication from Stanford University with a focus in documentary film.
https://www.amresproject.org
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production
John Belizaire is the CEO of Soluna Computing, the world’s first utility-scale company developing power plants and combining them with high-performance computing facilities. As a serial entrepreneur, John has successfully founded and scaled multiple industry-leading technology startups that have achieved market leadership and double-digit growth, including FirstBest, an insurance software company acquired by Guidewire, and The Theory Center, a software company acquired by BEA Systems. Before becoming an entrepreneur, John was the lead architect for Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group.
About Soluna
Soluna Computing builds modular, batchable computing centers for intensive applications like cryptocurrency mining, AI and machine learning. Soluna’s scalable data centers provide a cost-effective alternative to battery storage or transmission lines. Soluna Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLNH) is the leading developer of green data centers that convert excess renewable energy into global computing resources. Soluna Holdings was formed when Mechanical Technology, Inc. (MTI) acquired Soluna Computing in 2021.
https://www.solunacomputing.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Pat Crowley is the founder and CEO of Chapul Farms, building and scaling modular insect farms. His diverse career path has had a singular focus of ensuring the food and water availability to future generations, with previous positions as a climate modeler, hydrologist, and agronomist in public and private sectors, and has more than 15 years working in the field of sustainable food and agriculture. He is founder of Chapul, LLC (2012), and introduced the first commercial edible insect protein on the US market. As CEO of Chapul Farms, he has helped integrate BSFL technology into operations for multiple Fortune 500 food/ag companies and some of the largest national and international waste management service providers, and regularly collaborates with the leading academic research institutions for insect food and agriculture development. Pat is Board Chair for the Industry Advisory Board for the National Science Foundation’s Center for Environmental Sustainability through Insect Agriculture.
https://www.chapulfarms.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Chris Wedding is a former environmental private equity investor, 3x entrepreneur, Board member, Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill professor, podcast creator (Climate Torch), newsletter author (ZERO), an occasional monk with 25+ years of meditation practice, and Founder of Entrepreneurs for Impact, which runs Climate Mastermind peer groups for climate change-focused CEOs and cofounders across the US and Canada. He brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000 professional students taught, too many mistakes to keep to himself, and an obsession with constant improvement. He’s also a husband, father of three, kayaker, hiker, ax throwing champion, and aspiring polyglot with failing language abilities in Spanish, Japanese, and Creole.
https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. BJ Johnson is CEO and co-founder of ClearFlame Engine Technologies, a growing startup dedicated to developing clean engine technology for heavy-duty truck, off-highway, and industrial applications.
Together with co-founder Dr. Julie Blumreiter, BJ founded ClearFlame to develop solutions that increase the performance of and reduce emissions from internal combustion engines using decarbonized fuel, such as ethanol. BJ was the lead inventor on a patent filed by Stanford University for this work, which now forms the center of ClearFlame’s intellectual property.
BJ’s passion and leadership for this work have helped him to secure investors and strategic partners, including the support of multiple industry manufacturers, agencies like the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, and world-class accelerators like StartX, I-Corps, Ameren Accelerator, and WERCBench Labs.
In 2021, BJ was named one of the Grist 50—an annual list of emerging leaders from across the US working on fresh, real-world solutions to our world’s biggest challenges—and competed in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield and SXSW Pitch. BJ earned his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.
https://www.clearflameengines.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period. Peter is also the author of The Energy Switch - a book about how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sarah Shanley Hope, Brad Hunstable, Ralph Chami, Joshua Aviv, H.G. Chissel, Jason Jacobs, Dr. Graciela Chichilinsky, Skye D'Almeida
Catherine Von Burg, Juan Verde, Marc Conte, Steve Schmida, Azzedine Downes, Kelly Herring, Chante Harris, Catherine McLean, Jon Friedman
Venkatesh Kini, Zecca Lehn, Katie Worth, Sharina Perry, Corey Glickman, Nneka Kibuule, Sunny Sanwar, Julia Armstrong D'Agnese
Dr. Graciela Chichilnisky is the co-founder and CEO of Global Thermostat, and co-creator of a carbon removal technology that can reverse climate change. Under Dr. Chichilnisky’s leadership, the company was awarded a Silver designation on Pepperdine Graziadio Business School’s 2020 Most Fundable Companies List, and its technology was chosen by MIT Technology Review as one of the Ten Breakthrough Technologies of 2019, a list curated by Bill Gates.
In addition to her role at Global Thermostat, Dr. Chichilnisky is a Professor of Economics and Mathematical Statistics at Columbia University, and Director of the Columbia Consortium for Risk Management.
Dr. Chichilnisky acted as the lead U.S. author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the 2007 Nobel Prize for its work in deciding world policy with respect to climate change, and she worked extensively on the Kyoto Protocol, creating and designing the carbon market that became international law in 2005.
Dr. Chichilnisky is the author of more than 300 scientific articles and more than 15 books, including the recently published Reversing Climate Change and the award-winning Saving Kyoto, which won the American Library Association’s 2010 Outstanding Academic Title of the Year and the American Geographical Society’s Book of the Month Award in October 2009. She holds two Ph.D. degrees, in Mathematics and Economics, and her graduate studies were at MIT and the University of California, Berkeley.
https://globalthermostat.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Julia Armstrong D’Agnese is Co-Founder and CEO of Earth Knowledge and is on a mission to provide the most authoritative integrated planetary intelligence, translating the complexity of our Earth Systems into clear actionable impact to help build a more sustainable world.
Julia is an experienced leader in transforming businesses into sustainable operations and investments that are more resilient and actively contributing to the restoration of our planet. As Earth Knowledge’s CEO, Julia constructively challenges business and organizational leaders, advocating and driving reinvention through technology to deliver sustainable change.
https://earthknowledge.net/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sanchali founded Joro to empower people to take climate action that matters, starting with how they spend money. Prior to Joro, Sanchali worked on sustainable development in East Africa and South Asia at Dalberg, where she saw firsthand the devastating effects of the climate crisis for vulnerable populations, and at Tesla. Sanchali holds a BA from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
https://www.joro.app/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Matthew Kleiman is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus. Prior to co-founding Cumulus, he was the Program Director at Shell TechWorks, Shell’s Skunk Works-style technology center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focused on developing and deploying new technologies for Shell’s capital projects and operating facilities. Before joining Shell, Matt held various commercial positions in the biomedical and aerospace industries. When he isn’t working, you can find him enjoying time with his family, skiing, and scuba diving.
https://www.cumulusds.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sunny Sanwar is an engineer and entrepreneur who lived through cleantech 1.0 and is building the rails on which climatetech can thrive. He was formerly co-founder and CTO at Verd2GO, an energy storage startup. Currently he is Founder and CEO of Dynamhex, Inc - an intelligence platform for climate action planning for organizations. Sunny holds a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering, a Masters degree in Public Policy and a PhD based on the clean economy, and was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2019.
https://dynmhx.io/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Nneka Kibuule is a Senior Vice President for Aligned Climate Capital LLC. In this role she focuses on investing in growth equity companies in energy, sustainable land use, clean transportation, resilient and efficient infrastructure. Previously, Nneka was the Director of Energy Innovation at Elemental Excelerator and worked at Pacific Gas & Electric and NextEra Energy Resources in several finance and strategy roles. She has experience in capital investments, stakeholder engagement, customer strategy and experience, innovation, and organizational design. Nneka holds an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, a Masters in Energy Finance from Tulane, and a BS in Finance from Hampton University. She is the founder of GreenTech Noir a collective for elevating Black people working in ClimateTech.
https://www.alignedclimatecapital.com/
https://www.greentechnoir.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Heidi Kujawa is the founder and CEO of ByFusion, an innovative manufacturing company on a mission to clean up the planet and block plastic waste for good. ByFusion's modular systems convert all types of plastic waste (including marine debris) into a high-performing, reusable building material made entirely of plastic waste.
Heidi's passion for innovation, technology, and sustainability propelled her to embark on a mission to develop a viable, scalable solution to help address the global plastic crisis that threatens our waste management systems and our planet.
She is an accomplished, visionary leader with a 25-year track record of developing, executing, and managing strategic plans that address complex problems across multiple industries including management consulting, technology, construction, and sustainability.
https://www.byfusion.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Matt Prindiville is the CEO and Chief Solutioneer for Upstream®, a norms-disrupting non-profit sparking innovative solutions to plastic pollution and today’s one-way “throw-away” society. In this role, Prindiville works with entrepreneurs, policymakers and culture hackers to ideate and accelerate the transition from single-use to reuse. His responsibilities include content creator, spokesperson, brand strategist, executive leader, fundraiser, and relationship cultivator.
Prindiville is a recognized thought leader within the plastic pollution community and helped found the global Break Free from Plastic Movement, the Cradle2 Coalition and the Make It Take It Campaign; and spearheaded the establishment of the Electronics Takeback Coalition, the Multi-State Mercury Campaign, and Safer Chemicals and Healthy Families Coalition, where he worked on dozens of successful legislative policy campaigns. Most recently, he has advised the United Nations Environment Program on their plastic pollution strategies and written for The Guardian, GreenBiz, and Sustainable Brands among other publications. Prindiville’s work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Fast Company, on NPR’s 1A, Jack Johnson’s Smog of the Sea film, and 60 Minutes, among others. For more information visit UpstreamSolutions.org and www.mattprindiville.com. Follow Upstream on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.For a podcast on the story of Upstream listen here.
https://upstreamsolutions.org/
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Influenced and informed by time spent with the Indigenous in multiple countries, Ragland continues to engage in a long term photographic and film exploration into humanity’s relationship to culture and the wild. Recognizing culture to be an accumulation of ideas where we explore ways of exploring, this infinite play is where she’s found the best terrain to collaborate, listen carefully and recognize expansion due to authoring and co-authoring.
Photographs and films have become her best challenge to create imagery that does not cause dispute but rather reconfigure who we are. She intends an aesthetic meant to push boundaries and bridge difference.
In addition, Nicol has founded REGENERATE OKLAHOMA - A state wide soil health initiative that seeks to advance the practices of regenerative agriculture.
More of her work can be seen @ www.nicolragland.com
https://nexuspmg.com/
Veeral Hardev is VP of Strategy at Ubiquitous Energy. Hardev has over a decade of experience commercializing novel nano-materials products for the electronics industry. This includes his time at Nanosys, Inc. where he led materials and business development, and product management. Hardev holds an MBA from the Berkeley Haas School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Economics from UCLA.
https://ubiquitous.energy/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Alison Blay-Palmer, the UNESCO Chair on Food Biodiversity and Sustainability Studies, is the founding Director for the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and a Professor in Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research and teaching combine her passions for sustainable food systems, biodiversity and community viability through civil society engagement and innovative governance. Alison collaborates with academics and practitioners across Canada and internationally including partners in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Kenya, South Africa, and the United States . This work gained national recognition in both 2012 and 2019 when her partnership was one of three nominees for a national SSHRC Partnership Impact Award. Alison has been a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists since 2016.
https://www.balsillieschool.ca/alison-blay-palmer/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Corey Glickman is vice president and head of the Infosys Sustainability & Design business, which develops and deploys Smart Space technologies at private and public organizations. Corey has over 35 years of experience in industry consulting, providing advice on technology and business. He is an expert in strategic design, digital transformation, customer experience strategy, and the use of visualization applied to the development of innovative products, processes, and services. Corey specializes in the formation of design and innovation programs, overseeing execution teams, working in a global centers of excellence that creates breakthrough business solutions and technologies.
Corey is a member of the World Economic Forum Pioneer Cities working group, and he is also a Singularity University faculty expert guest lecturer. He has served on review boards for publications like the Harvard Business Review, and he has won international design awards, including being named one of the 100 most influential designers of the decade by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He lives in the Pittsburgh area.
https://www.infosys.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sharina Perry is a serial entrepreneur with a long history of starting and growing new ventures. Sharina perfected a patent-pending plastic alternative formulated into compounded plant- based resins using crops farmers plant in regular crop rotations. Utopia PlastixTM helps solve the problem of plastic waste, carbon emissions and promoting agriculture. Utopia's compounded plant resin allows manufacturers to use their current equipment as they produce the sustainable, alternative plastic products that the world is demanding. Sharina founded Utopia Genetics to distribute products made with Utopia Plastix, as well as Utopia Solutions that makes Utopia PlastixTM. Sharina says she invented Utopia PlastixTM to create solutions, not problems.
https://utopiaplastix.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
KATIE WORTH is an investigative journalist who writes about science, politics, and their myriad intersections. She joined FRONTLINE in 2015 as the inaugural FRONTLINE-Columbia Tow Journalism Fellow, and in 2018 was selected as an O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism. She has worked on several FRONTLINE’S enterprise reporting projects and co-produced the cinematic interactive story “The Last Generation,” which won an Emmy for “Outstanding New Approaches: Documentary.” Her work has appeared in Scientific American, National Geographic, Slate, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016.
Worth grew up in Chico, California, just a few miles from Paradise, site of one of the worst of the massive fires that, because of climate change, are currently devastating the American West. During her reporting for Miseducation, she returned to her old middle school to find that climate change is being taught there as the subject of an unresolved scientific dispute, not a proven reality.
https://www.amazon.com/Miseducation-Climate-Change-Taught-America/dp/1735913642
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Sara Enright is a Director of Collaboration at BSR (Business for Social Responsibility), where she oversees the design and facilitation of a portfolio of private sector collaborations that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals. BSR is an organization of sustainable business experts that works with its global network of the world's leading companies to build a just and sustainable world. Previously, she worked at the Business Call to Action, a multilateral alliance hosted by the UNDP focused on the advancement of inclusive business models that contribute to poverty reduction, and McKinsey & Company, where she consulted for global companies and development organizations on projects related to strategy, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropy. Sara has an MBA from IE Business School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Plan II and Latin American Studies from The University of Texas at Austin.
https://www.bsr.org/en/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Brandon is an American broadcast journalist and serial entrepreneur with a social conscience. He is co-host of Southern California's longest running public radio program covering the digital revolution: KPFK 90.7 FM's Digital Village Radio. His segment, DigitalCulture.LA, co-produced and co-hosted with Brittney Gallagher, is on investigation into the history and future of science and technology and how computers and the internet are changing our society. Mr. Barney is a leading researcher on technological disruption and has advised government officials and corporate leaders from around the world on the impacts of emerging technologies. Brandon is committed to the advancement of the Southern California and specifically the innovation ecosystem known as Silicon Beach. Mr. Barney manages the Non-Profit, Intellectual Property, and Startup groups at the Barney Law Firm. He trains students of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds in after school and summer school programs throughout Southern California that provide Americans with real world experience on the front lines of technology working with the most innovative organizations to solve the biggest problems facing humanity. Brandon has made his home in the creative soul of Los Angeles: Venice Beach. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Venice Symphony Orchestra and the Open Temple and he volunteers at the Israel Levin Senior Center helping Los Angeles' most senior citizens live well. Brandon is working now to connect Silicon Beach to the new blue economy and the potential of seaweed to heal the sea, soil and air.
They Say It Can't Be Done Move https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GFpvo4nguU
https://nexuspmg.com/
Daron Babcock - Founder & CEO, Bonton Farms Disrupter. Social Justice Advocate. Sower of Seeds.
Moved by his personal beliefs, Daron Babcock, couldn’t sit idly by as he encountered his brothers and sisters in South Dallas ravaged by institutional inequities. He left a successful corporate career and moved from his home in North Dallas to serve inner-city residents of Bonton with his wife, Theda, for the past nine years. Known for crime, violence, and extreme poverty, Daron knew an intervention at the macro-level was not only necessary but possible in Bonton.
Daron is referred to as a “social entrepreneur,” having started multiple successful social ventures; Bonton Honey Company, The Market at Bonton Farms, a Coffee House, a Farmers Market, CityBuild Housing, and most notably, Bonton Farms, one of the largest urban farms in the United States.
Daron is not only the Founder and CEO, he is the perpetual visionary and re-inventor of what’s possible. Bonton Farms is so much more than a farm, it is the catalyst that is helping to level the playing field; creating the systematic change necessary so the residents of Bonton and as a model to other marginalized neighborhoods across Dallas and the country can achieve the “American Dream” that was promised 200 years ago.
“Our goal is not to simply grow food because we’re in a food desert, but to address WHY Bonton is a food desert. We’re not here to fix broken people, but to be the hands and feet to fix broken systems.
https://bontonfarms.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jeff Gold is founder and CEO of Nexus, a plastics-to-oil conversion company utilizing advanced designs and technology to achieve high energy efficiencies, oil yield, and high quality chemical feedstocks. Under Jeff’s leadership, Nexus has advanced quickly to become the global leader in sustainable, circular molecular recycling.
Prior to starting Nexus, Jeff founded and is president of a 30-year-old technology-based high-hazard chemical remediation, engineering and management firm currently serving governmental and industrial clients around the globe. Jeff is the named inventor on over 30 patents that helped propel this specialized company to its world-class reputation.
Jeff is also the founder and president of an ISO 9001 engineering and manufacturing company specializing in high-pressure containment devices and high-hazard robotic handling systems for the global industrial gas industry.
Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University.
https://www.nexusfuels.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Ryan Hunt has degrees in Physics and Bioengineering from the University of Georgia. Ryan has a passion for circular technologies including algae, photosynthesis, and thermoplastic compounding. Ryan co-founded ALGIX that creates sustainable technologies for environmental restoration and biomaterials under the BLOOM brand. His team collaborates with government and corporate partners for cleaning air and water pollution and transforming waste into consumer products.
https://algix.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Zecca Lehn is the General Partner of Responsibly Ventures, based in California, backing U.S. PreSeed startups in both Social and Sustainable Tech—using multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guidepost per investment.
Over the past 15+ years, he has worked as an Environmental Economist, Data Scientist, Non-Profit Board Member, and Co-Founder. He grew up in an off-the-grid Japanese-style home, on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. Through his world travels and living in Scandinavia during his early 20’s, he discovered a deep love for people, planet, and diverse cultures.
For the past years, he has produced the podcast posi2ive, on Venture Scale Positive Impacts. He also leads regular community roundtables and interviews on Clubhouse – for posi2ive’s current community base of 4k+ members. He also manages the VC Impact Capital Community — an invite only private network of GPs / LPs / Angels / Family Offices focused on positive impacts.
He holds a degree in Environmental Economics from Western Washington University, and a Certified Specialization in Data Science from Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, he’s certified under the UN Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). He often speaks on panels, podcasts, and publishes articles on the PreSeed VC impact arena.
https://www.responsibly.vc/about
https://nexuspmg.com/
Venkatesh Kini is co-founder of Ubuntoo, a global environmental solutions platform that helps scale impactful innovations that address the planet’s biggest challenges. Venkatesh holds 30 years of experience in marketing and general management with some of the world’s most reputable brands and corporations.
Prior to founding Ubuntoo, Venkatesh served as President, India and Southwest Asia, for The Coca-Cola Company. In his 19 years with The Coca-Cola Company, Venkatesh led major brand launches and marketing campaigns in India and globally, including Sprite, Thums Up and Minute Maid. Prior to Coca-Cola, Venkatesh worked for ITC and Asian Paints in India.
Venkatesh is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is based in Atlanta where, in addition to working on his entrepreneurial venture, he is an active environmentalist, an angel investor, and startup mentor
https://ubuntoo.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Rob Moir is a nationally-recognized and award winning environmentalist and president & executive director of nonprofit Ocean River Institute. He continues his several decades of tireless efforts to make the planet bluer and greener.Rob andOcean River Institute has assisted environmental groups on a local, national and global scale including Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the Coastal Bird Programof Cape Cod, Sunshine Wildlife (Florida), the Campaign for Environmental Literacy, the British Virgin Islands Environmental Council, and Sea Change, Friends of the Wester Ross Marine Protected Area (Scotland).
https://www.oceanriver.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Craig Kasberg began working on commercial fishing boats in Alaska at age 14, and by 19 was captaining his own fishing vessel in Southeast Alaska. Craig then started a sustainable seafood marketing business, where he began to envision the development of technology to upcycle seafood byproducts as the opportunity that could make the largest impact to the industry. Craig eventually began to focus full-time on seafood byproduct upcycling, with the goal to reduce waste and encourage sustainably managed fisheries. This led to the development of the world’s first green process of turning discarded fish skins into aquatic leathers. At the same time, Craig was working on developing extraction methods for producing chitosan from crustacean shells - which led to the co-founding of Tidal Vision in 2015 with partner Zach Wilkinson.
https://tidalvisionusa.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
TJ is a former NHL forward, playing with the Colorado Avalanche, San Jose Sharks, and Calgary Flames following his time at Dartmouth College. As Co-Founder of Outcast Foods, TJ has quickly become one of the young leaders in food and agriculture with his unique outlook on sustainability. Additionally, TJ has been a guest lecturer on food waste at Rice University, a speaker at the Tuck School of Business, and an active angel investor and real estate developer for 10 years.
https://outcastfoods.us/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jon Friedman saw a need for urban agriculture to emerge as a competitive industry in the food landscape. In 2010, he and a business partner Brad focused on rooftop greenhouses, but quickly realized that to achieve their goals they needed a modular and scalable solution. In an effort to cut down on costs and logistics, Brad and Jon began to seriously consider building their new technology inside shipping containers. Not only were containers widely available, but they would allow farms to exist in areas that couldn’t support traditional methods. As a result, Freight Farms was born with the mission of building the infrastructure and technology that can allow local food to thrive.
https://www.freightfarms.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Catherine developed a passion for clean energy and technology in 2011. She worked at the United Nations developing relationships with governments on public-private partnerships and subsequently took a job as a Consultant at Acre Resources, a global recruitment firm focused on energy and sustainability. Catherine founded recruitment business McLean Ross in 2011, with a core focus on placing sales and marketing professionals within the energy and utility industry. In 2017, McLean Ross merged with global engineering recruitment business JDR Energy, creating JD Ross Energy.
With a growing need for diversity in clean energy, Catherine launched Dylan Green in 2019, placing diverse commercial professionals within the clean energy market.
https://www.dylan-green.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Rob Day has been a sustainable resources private equity investor since 2004, and acts or has served as a Director, Observer and advisory board member to multiple companies in the energy tech and related sectors. Rob also serves on the Board at the New England Clean Energy Council and the Investment Committee of the Clean Energy Trust. From 2005-2016 he authored the column Cleantech Investing, which appeared on GreentechMedia.com, and co-hosted several conferences with that group on the topic of new investment models for the sustainability sector.
Formerly a consultant with Bain & Company, Rob has worked with companies and evaluated private equity transactions in the energy/ utilities, telecom, IT, medical/pharmaceutical, and retail industries. Earlier in his career, Rob was a member of the World Resources Institute’s Sustainable Enterprise Program, where he co-authored the report The Next Bottom Line: Making Sustainable Development Tangible. Rob received his MBA at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University), and his BA at Swarthmore College. A strong advocate for youth sports, he also serves as the President of the Marblehead Youth Soccer Association.
https://springlanecapital.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Blair Levin serves as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Project at the Brookings Institution. He also is the Policy Advisor to New Street Research, an international equity research firm. Blair began his career practicing law in North Carolina. He then served as Chief of Staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt (1993-1997), was a policy analyst for the equity research teams at Legg Mason and Stifel Nicolaus, co-lead the Obama technology and government innovation transition team, and returned to government to direct the writing of the United States National Broadband Plan (2009-2010).
Since then, he has split his time advising institutional investors and private companies, serving with various non-profits, and has been involved with a number of pro bono projects including working with three dozen university communities seeking to obtain next generation broadband networks, and working with the World Bank and UNHCR to create a Global Broadband Plan for Refugees. Barron’s Magazine noted that his work, "has always been on top of developing trends and policy shifts in media and telecommunications … and has proved visionary in getting out in front of many of today's headline making events." Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler also praised his work, noting “no one’s done more to advance broadband expansion and competition through the vision of the National Broadband Plan.” Levin is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.
https://www.newstreetresearch.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Chante Harris currently leads the investor network and corporate partnerships for Venture for ClimateTech, a climate tech venture studio and accelerator sourcing the best climate tech solutions across the globe. She also oversees the For ClimateTech Global Innovation Challenge and is spearheading the exploration of a thesis for a new financial mechanism funding early stage climate tech alongside the 2M Capital team. Additionally, she is the co-founder of Women of Color Collective in Sustainability (WOC/CS), a digital community for women of color to build their careers, create professional success, and advance their well-being.
Named by America on Tech as an Innovator and Disruptor in tech policy and Women Enews as a Pioneering Woman in Sustainability, Chante is passionate about urban innovation, building sustainable cities, cross-sector collaboration, and tapping into community to launch better solutions, initiatives, and technologies. She has worked to scale nationwide campaigns, technologies, and ideas for the Obama Administration, Fortune 500 companies, and startups. Most recently, she launched and grew two new practice areas at an urban and political strategy firm based dedicated to business strategy and sustainability. With deep expertise in developing go-to-market strategies for startups and established companies across the sustainability industry, she brings unique insight into building ecosystems with a shared vision for people and the planet. Chante is also a Venture Partner with Republic and Next Gen.
https://forclimatetech.org/
https://www.woccs.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Kathy Hannun is the Cofounder and President of Dandelion Energy, the largest residential geothermal company in the United States. Dandelion transitions homeowners from fossil-fueled to geothermal heating and cooling using their custom geothermal drilling suite and Dandelion Air heat pump. Before founding Dandelion, Hannun was a Rapid Evaluator at X, Alphabet’s innovation lab, where she focused on finding “Moonshots,” i.e business opportunities to harness technology for large-scale positive impact.
She initiated Dandelion as an X project and then launched it into an independent startup company in May 2017. Dandelion has since raised millions in funding from top venture capitalists, set a new standard for geothermal quality and cost- effectiveness, and empowered homeowners to avoid over 100 million pounds of carbon emissions and counting. In February 2021, Dandelion announced a $30M Series B funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
The company has partnered with Con Edison utility to promote heat pumps as an alternative to natural gas heating and successfully advocated for increased policy support for heat pumps throughout the Northeast.
In addition, Dandelion has increased public awareness of the benefits of ground source heat pumps through stories in publications media such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fast Company, WIRED, Bloomberg, and TechCrunch and many others. Hannun has been recognized as a TED Fellow, a DOE C2E Award recipient, one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and as one of MIT Technology Review’s “35 under 35.” She graduated from Stanford with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science.
https://dandelionenergy.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Andrew Behar is CEO of As You Sow,the nation’s leading non-profit practitioner of shareholder advocacy and engagement. Since 1992, As You Sow has used shareholder power to align investments with values and compel companies to reduce material risk on issues including climate change; toxins in the food system; ocean plastics; diversity, equity, and inclusion; racial justice; and wage equity. Previously Andrew was a documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur founding start-ups developing an innovative physiological monitoring medical device and grid-scale fuel cells. He is on the XPrize Brain Trust for Abundant Energy and the advisory boards of Real Impact Tracker and 1-Earth Institute.His book,The Shareholders Action Guide: Unleash Your Hidden Powers to Hold Corporations Accountable, was published in November 2016 by Berrett-Koehler.
https://www.asyousow.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dan is CEO of SparkMeter, the leading provider of smart metering systems that enable utilities to implement pre-paid billing and real-time monitoring and control on micro-grids and central grids alike. He has served as a consultant to the United Nations Office for Project Services in Haiti, and for the World Bank. From 2014 to 2015, he was the Chair of the United Nations SE4All Practitioner Network Microgrid Working Group, and he was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 for energy list in 2012. Dan received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Engineering & Public Policy in October 2014, where his research focused on energy access in developing countries.
Dan was formerly employed by KEMA, Inc. (now DNV GL) as an energy analyst, where he worked on utility energy efficiency programs and renewable energy policy analysis and engineering in the US electricity sector. Dan received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 2007, where he triple-majored in Physics, Economics and Environmental Studies.
https://www.sparkmeter.io/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Kelly is the CTO and co-founder at Charm Industrial, where she leads the engineering team developing their pyrolysis and gasification systems. Prior to Charm, she led the early upper stage design at Astra, a small rocket company, and the mechanical design at Planet for their constellation of Dove satellites. She studied mechanical engineering at Brown University.
https://charmindustrial.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
From the newsroom to the boardroom, Lisa Ann has used her keen analytical skills to share technology stories with the world for over a decade. She is Founder and CEO of the award-winning Technica Communications, Founder and Chairwoman of the non-profit Women In Cleantech & Sustainability, an international speaker and moderator and documentary filmmaker. She was named a PR Executive of the Year by the American Business Awards (2020), Female Entrepreneur of the Year for Advertising and Marketing by the Women in Business and the Professions World Awards (2020), and a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal (2017).
Before founding Technica Communications, Lisa Ann was a Senior Account Executive and managed new business operations for the San Francisco PR firm Antenna Group. She got her start as a broadcast journalist covering environmental science in 2001. She was awarded the Best Environmental Journalism award by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2005. Her work has been broadcast on National Public Radio, PBS Television, WPXI-NBC, American Public Media, The Environment Report, Great Lakes Radio Consortium, Free Speech TV, WYEP 91.3FM-Pittsburgh, WRCT 88.3FM-Pittsburgh, and WCPN/WVIZ PBS ideastream in Cleveland.
https://www.womenincleantechsustainability.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Ibrahim AlHusseini is an award winning serial entrepreneur turned tech investor. He made his fortune in fiberoptics and rolled it into Cleantech in the early 2000s after witnessing the acceleration of plastic-pollution in our seas and oceans. He is the founder of FullCycle, a growth equity fund accelerating the deployment of climate critical technology worldwide. He is an early investor in Tesla, Uber, Beyond Meats, and Zoom as well as neobank Aspiration, CleanChoice Energy, and Devoted Health. He is a frequent contributor on CNBC, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance, and a passionate advocate for immigrants and sound environmental policies.
https://www.fullcycle.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
When Azzedine Downes became President and CEO of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in 2012, one thing was clear to him: “Talking to people who already agreed with us just isn’t enough to get real results.”
As IFAW’s Executive Vice President since 1997, Azzedine had worked closely with experts from across the sciences and decision makers from around the world. But when he became President, IFAW started bringing together what Azzedine likes to call “the unusualsuspects.” Seamstresses in Malawi. Auction houses in China. Military intelligence officers in Minnesota. Working together, IFAW’s eclectic network is now helping animals and people thrive together in more than 40 countries.
Azzedine has led IFAW through a groundbreaking period of geographic expansion and strategic consolidation. He’s helped open offices on four continents, including IFAW’s first office in the Middle East. He’s deployed IFAW’s world-class Tiger Team to South Asia, where new programs are proving critical support for the species. And he established IFAW’s Wildlife Crime program.
Azzedine has also influenced international policies to create positive change on the ground. In Azzedine’s first year as President, IFAW signed a historic lease agreement with a Maasai community near Amboseli National Park in Kenya, securing 16,000 acres of precious habitat for elephants. Months later, Azzedine helped establish a first-of-its-kind cooperative framework between IFAW and INTERPOL’s Environmental Crime Program. For years, Azzedine has served as the Head of the Delegation to the CITES Conference of the Parties. And recently, he directed IFAW’s successful campaign for membership to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Before joining IFAW, Azzedine served as the Chief of Party for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jerusalem and Morocco, as well as the Acting Regional Director for the United States Peace Corps in Eurasia and the Middle East.
In 2015, Fast Company named Azzedine one of the “The Most 100 Creative People in Business,” and he has been listed among The NonProfit Times’s “Power and Influence Top 50.” He is a member of the Global Tiger Forum Advisory Council, and he currently sits on the U.S. Trade and Environmental Policy Advisory Committee.
A graduate of Providence College and Harvard University, Azzedine is fluent in Arabic, English, and French.
https://www.ifaw.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Steve Schmida is the Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Resonance, an award-winning global development and corporate sustainability consulting firm with more than 100 consultants and offices in Vermont, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Manila. Resonance clients include Fortune 500 companies, international donor agencies, and leading nonprofits and foundations.
His writings have appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Medium.com, The Huffington Post, and The Moscow Times. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
https://www.resonanceglobal.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Marc Conte is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at Fordham University and a faculty research fellow at New York University, and a recent Visiting Associate Professor at the Yale School of the Environment. As an environmental economist, his research pursuits often explore how market prices fail to accurately reflect the impacts of market actions on the environment (and the resultant implications for society) and how market interventions can be used to achieve more desirable environmental and social outcomes. Prior to his arrival at Fordham, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at Stanford University, where he was a key contributor to the Natural Capital Project. Marc earned his Ph.D. at the Bren School at UCSB, as a trainee in the NSF-funded IGERT Economics and Environmental Sciences program.
Marc developed an interest in the environment at a young age, thanks to time spent outdoors with his family, notably exploring the ponds and beaches of Cape Cod. He developed an academic interest in economics and ecology while an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. He continues to be an active hiker and is an enthusiastic amateur birder, whose 2020 highlights include a Lapland Longspur, Snow Buntings, and a Snowy Owl (the first in Central Park since 1890!).
https://nexuspmg.com/
Juan Verde is an internationally renowned strategist for both the public and private sectors, with a particular focus on sustainable economic development. His specialty is designing innovative strategies to attract investment, accelerate economic development, and support strategic alliances.
In the public sector, Mr. Verde served as Deputy assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the United States Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama. In this capacity, Mr.Verde led the Department’s efforts to solve trade policy and market-access issues faced by U.S. firms seeking to grow their business operations in Europe and Eurasia. Additionally, he was responsible for developing and recommending policies and programs to support U.S. economic and commercial relations with52 countries in the region. Mr. Verde previously served in theDepartment of Commerce during the Clinton Administration as an international trade analyst, coordinator, and consultant, working first in the Office of Latin America and later in the MinorityBusiness Development Agency.
In the private sector, Mr.Verdehas served as a consultant for a variety of prestigious companies, such as Google, Cisco, SAS, American Express, and Banco Santander Investments US. He has also collaborated with institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank, Harvard UniversityKennedy School, and the world bank. He founded and led the Canary Islands and Gibraltar chapters of the American Chamber of Commerce, and is a current member of the Board of Directors oftheAmericanSustainableBusiness Council, the leading business organization in the U.S. serving the public policy interests of sustainable, responsible companies, their customers, and other stakeholders.
https://www.aleadership.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Catherine Von Burg’s career spans a diverse portfolio of strategic planning, policy development, executive management, and multidisciplinary team building in renewable energy, biomedical engineering and research, health and human services, environmental conservation, and education. A member of the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) board of directors, Catherine was selected for an exclusive entrepreneurship program hosted by the U.S. Department of State and the Unreasonable Group. As CEO of SimpliPhi Power, she has recently been honored as part of the Meaningful Business 100 and was selected as a Global Power & Energy Elite in 2021, among many other awards. She speaks publicly, has published articles and white papers, and has spearheaded policy initiatives with organizations including CALSSA, Pew Charitable Trusts, Rockefeller Institute, Columbia University, NY March of Dimes Foundation, John Hopkins School of Biomedical Engineering, Wilderness Education Association and First 5 Commission of California.
https://simpliphipower.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Skye d’Almeida is a Senior Vice President in Macquarie’s Green Investment Group, where she leads investor coverage for the Americas. Skye has spent the last 13 years working in sustainable infrastructure and energy for private, government and non-profit organizations. In her role at Macquarie, Skye manages relationships with pension funds, infrastructure funds, private equity funds and strategic investors looking to acquire green assets developed by the Green Investment Group. In prior roles, she co-created a sustainable infrastructure investment program for some of the world’s largest cities and worked for the Australian Government on international clean energy negotiations and renewables investment incentive programs.
https://www.macquarie.com/au/en.html
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Graciela Chichilnisky is the co-founder and CEO of Global Thermostat, and co-creator of a carbon removal technology that can reverse climate change. Under Dr. Chichilnisky’s leadership, the company was awarded a Silver designation on Pepperdine Graziadio Business School’s 2020 Most Fundable Companies List, and its technology was chosen by MIT Technology Review as one of the Ten Breakthrough Technologies of 2019, a list curated by Bill Gates.
In addition to her role at Global Thermostat, Dr. Chichilnisky is a Professor of Economics and Mathematical Statistics at Columbia University, and Director of the Columbia Consortium for Risk Management.
Dr. Chichilnisky acted as the lead U.S. author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the 2007 Nobel Prize for its work in deciding world policy with respect to climate change, and she worked extensively on the Kyoto Protocol, creating and designing the carbon market that became international law in 2005.
Dr. Chichilnisky is the author of more than 300 scientific articles and more than 15 books, including the recently published Reversing Climate Change and the award-winning Saving Kyoto, which won the American Library Association’s 2010 Outstanding Academic Title of the Year and the American Geographical Society’s Book of the Month Award in October 2009. She holds two Ph.D. degrees, in Mathematics and Economics, and her graduate studies were at MIT and the University of California, Berkeley.
https://globalthermostat.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jason is a longtime entrepreneur, most recently as founder of Runkeeper, one of the largest fitness apps, which was acquired by ASICS in 2016. He felt compelled to make his next chapter about purpose, and is over 2 yrs into focusing on helping address climate change full-time, via a podcast called My Climate Journey, a vibrant community of thousands of members that former organically around the podcast, and a fund that backs several new climate tech startups every quarter, across many geographies and sectors.
https://www.myclimatejourney.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Josh Kaufman is currently the President of Nexus Dev, a platform investing development capital in renewable and circular economy projects. Previously he was an energy investor at the Australian fund QIC, and prior to that was on the GE Power M&A team. Josh has a BA in math and economics from Williams College.
https://nexusdevcap.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
H.G. Chissell is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Energy Group. Previously, H.G Chissell served as Chief Commercial Officer at GridMarket and Senior Vice President of Strategic Accounts for Viridity Energy, a software/service firm focused on virtual power generation and advanced energy optimization. Mr. Chissell was with Viridity Energy from its beginning in 2009, leading the company’s growth of MWs under management and strategic expansion throughout PJM, NYISO and ERCOT across all key verticals. Key accomplishments include the first behind-the-meter frequency regulation battery project in PJM, first 1 MW behind-the-meter battery project in Chicago, first full spectrum DR battery project in New York City and multi-site EV2Grid project with the Pentagon in PJM and ERCOT.
https://goadvancedenergy.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Lauren Robinson is currently an educator going on her 7thyear of teaching in the greater Houston area. With a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Science from Texas Tech University, Lauren found a love for teaching during her time being a graduate assistant. She combined both her loves of teaching and science to become a high school teacher. Lauren is not only an educator, but is married with two young children that she is excited to share this journey with. She is super enthusiastic to grow her reach of educating children on Science, Math, and Technology. She is very active in the education field, and can’t wait to continue to inspire students to love all the fields that the STEAM programs influence.
https://nexuspmg.com/category/mira-nexi/
Joshua is a certified Data Scientist and the Founder & CEO of SparkCharge. His experience in entrepreneurship and startups spans over 6 years and he is a dynamic figure in the cleantech community. Joshua is also the most recent winner of the world’s largest pitch competition, 43North. Joshua holds a B.A. in Economics and a Masters Degree in Information Management and Data Science from Syracuse University.
https://www.sparkcharge.io/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Ralph Chami is currently Assistant Director in the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD), International Monetary Fund, where he oversaw the development and implementation of the internal economics training program for all IMF economists as well as the revamping of the Institute’s external training program for officials from member countries.
Most recently, he was Assistant Director and Division Chief in the Middle East and Central Asia Department where he oversaw surveillance and program work on fragile states: Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen, and was Mission Chief for Libya and Somalia. He is the recipient of the 2014 IMF Operational Excellence Award for his work on Libya.
Previously, he was the Chief of the Regional Studies Division, where he oversaw regional surveillance of 32 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia regions, and the production of the Regional Economic Outlook. Prior to that, he was the Chief of the Middle Eastern Division of the IMF Institute where he oversaw capacity development in that region. He joined the IMF in 1999. From 1991 till 1999, he was on the faculty of Finance in the Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
He also served as a consultant to the World Bank, and to the private sector in the US. Ralph Chami has a BS from the American University of Beirut, an MBA in Finance and Statistics from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of specialization are: banking regulation and supervision, financial markets, and remittances. His hobbies include music and yoga. Ralph was a semi- professional guitarist for over 40 years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/04/living-whales-are-worth-an-enormous-amount-money/
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/natures-solution-to-climate-change-chami.htm
https://nexuspmg.com
Ralph Chami is currently Assistant Director in the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD), International Monetary Fund, where he oversaw the development and implementation of the internal economics training program for all IMF economists as well as the revamping of the Institute’s external training program for officials from member countries.
Most recently, he was Assistant Director and Division Chief in the Middle East and Central Asia Department where he oversaw surveillance and program work on fragile states: Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen, and was Mission Chief for Libya and Somalia. He is the recipient of the 2014 IMF Operational Excellence Award for his work on Libya.
Previously, he was the Chief of the Regional Studies Division, where he oversaw regional surveillance of 32 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia regions, and the production of the Regional Economic Outlook. Prior to that, he was the Chief of the Middle Eastern Division of the IMF Institute where he oversaw capacity development in that region. He joined the IMF in 1999. From 1991 till 1999, he was on the faculty of Finance in the Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
He also served as a consultant to the World Bank, and to the private sector in the US. Ralph Chami has a BS from the American University of Beirut, an MBA in Finance and Statistics from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of specialization are: banking regulation and supervision, financial markets, and remittances. His hobbies include music and yoga. Ralph was a semi- professional guitarist for over 40 years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/04/living-whales-are-worth-an-enormous-amount-money/
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/natures-solution-to-climate-change-chami.htm
https://nexuspmg.com
Dr. Caye Drapcho is an Associate Professor in the Biosystems Engineering program at Clemson University in the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences. She is the past Chair of the Clemson University Sustainability Commission. Dr. Drapcho teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in biological kinetics and reactor modeling, heat and mass transfer in biological systems, and sustainable engineering design. Her research focuses on modeling, design and optimization of biological reactor systems for the production of sustainable biofuels, capture and sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide using phytoplankton, and treatment of organic wastewaters. She is co-author of the textbook Biofuels Process Engineering Technology (Drapcho, Nghiem and Walker, McGraw-Hill 2008, 2020)
Dr. Terry Walker is a Professor and graduate student coordinator of Biosystems Engineering at Clemson University with over 20 years of experience in sustainable bioprocessing. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biosystems Engineering in 1997 at the University of Tennessee in cooperation with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was an assistant professor at LSU before arriving at Clemson as an associate professor in 2002. His research focuses on biofuels and co-products from fungal and algal fermentation and bioproduct separations, publishing over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and co-authoring a book entitled "Biofuels Engineering Process Technology" with the 2ndedition planned for release in June, 2020. With great concerns for our current global climate crisis, he strongly advocates the immediate switch to renewable energy and sustainable food systems to draw down carbon from the atmosphere in balance with the oceans. He formed Resilient Biosystems, LLC for production of biodiesel from food waste with hopes to fuel the local economy. He also helped establish GreenLight SC, an umbrella non-profit organization under GreenLight New Orleans directed by musician Andreas Hoffman that addresses energy efficiency, sustainable food and poverty through installing efficient light bulbs and building raised-bed organic gardens with rain-water capture.
http://www.greenlightneworleans.org/index.html
https://nexuspmg.com/
Brad is CEO and co-founder of Linear Labs, a smarter energy company designing ultra-high efficiency motors and generators. Linear Labs’ patented breakthroughs lead to double the torque of competitive motors, increased range, and significantly lowered power consumption.
Prior to founding Linear Labs, Brad served as CEO and founder of Ustream, a global enterprise software company. Under his leadership, Ustream powered the top global Fortune 500 companies, scaling to $40M in revenue. In 2016, Ustream was acquired by IBM for $150M and became the foundation of the IBM Cloud Video division.
In 2020, Brad won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Southwest Award and was named Top Private CEO by the Fort Worth Business Press. The San Francisco Business Times honored him as an influential young leader in their 40 Under 40 list, he was ranked among the 50 Digital Power Players by the Hollywood Reporter, and honored as Variety’s Producers Guild of America’s Digital 25: Visionaries, Innovators and Producers.
Brad is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds an MBA from The Ohio State University where he received the 2017 Entrepreneur and Innovation Alumni Award.
Linear Labs
Bigger Than Us is a Nexus PMG production.
Sarah Shanley Hope is the VP of Brand + Partnerships at The Solutions Project following seven years as the organization’s first Executive Director. Under Sarah’s leadership, the organization transformed its mission and culture to center racial and gender equity, launched the field’s first and only award-winning intermediary climate and equity fund, and grew a celebratory, collaborative and inclusive movement for 100% clean energy. Sarah has held executive or leadership roles at the Alliance for Climate Education, Green For All, Cargill and Best Buy over her 15+ years of experience in brand strategy and social change. She has raised and helped deploy more than $50 million in support of a racial equity and climate solutions agenda over her tenure in the field.
https://thesolutionsproject.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Stuart’s focus is on driving growth and profitability at ORPC through overseeing the commercial rollout of the company's demonstrated and proven technology in the U.S., Canada and Chile.
Prior to becoming CEO of ORPC in early 2020, Stuart was an investor in early stage companies with a primary focus on companies with products and services that either reduced carbon emissions or improved the health of the environment. Stuart comes to ORPC with nearly two decades of experience at Sankaty Advisors where he served in many different roles including the Chief Investment Officer of Opportunistic Credit and Portfolio Manager. He also was a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. During his tenure, Stuart served as a director or an observer on the boards of dozens of companies in the energy, manufacturing, food, consumer product, retail and packaging industries. Stuart graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics and from the MIT Sloan School of Management with an MBA. He is also a member of Sloan’s renewable energy finance round table.
ORPC improves people’s lives, and their environment, through sustainable energy solutions. Constantly pushing the boundaries of innovation, ORPC brings marine renewable energy technology and project development solutions to its community and industrial partners, specializing in microgrid to utility-scale river and tidal energy applications, and underwater mobile power supplies for offshore energy applications. With a growth-oriented business model and an engaged workforce committed to collaboration with all stakeholders and customers, ORPC delivers practical, high performing, sustainable solutions that provide clean, affordable energy while ensuring positive economic results for all.
https://orpc.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period. Peter is also the author of The Energy Switch - a book about how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Valerie Rockefeller chairs the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a private foundation advancing social change that contributes to a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. She also co-chairs BankFWD, a network to persuade banks to phase out financing for fossil fuel and to lead on climate. Her professional background is as a middle school special education teacher for adolescents with learning differences and emotional disabilities. She began her teaching career at Central Park East Secondary School in East Harlem, New York, and also taught in Australia.
Valerie has a M.Ed. in Special Education from Bank Street College of Education and a MAT in secondary Social Studies from Columbia University Teachers College. She majored in International Relations at Stanford University, and worked as a confidential assistant to Secretary Richard Riley at the U.S. Department of Education during the first Clinton administration. She also serves as a trustee of Achievement First, the Asian Cultural Council, Columbia University Teachers College, Greenwich Academy, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. She was a trustee of Spelman College, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Valerie lives with her daughters Percy and Lucy and her son Davis in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.
https://bankfwd.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Lionel is an accomplished Product Management Leader with expertise in Operations Management, Financial Management (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow), Lean Six Sigma, Supplier Development, Strategic Sourcing and Product Quality Management. His experience spans General Electric where he graduated from the highly regarded Operations Management Leadership Program (OMLP) and owned Profit & Loss Responsibility as Manufacturing Shop Operations Manager of a High Volume Production Facility and three Fast Moving Innovative Start Ups (SpaceX, Faraday Future & Romeo Power) where he has held various Roles including Director of Procurement, Vice President of Engineering and Chief Operating Officer. Lionel holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University and MPS in Supply Chain Management from The Penn State University.
https://romeopower.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Listen in on another bookclub we recorded earlier this year before the pandemic hit during which our founders and a few employees engaged in a discussion about the importance of sleep, negotiation, and personal development.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sanjay Shrestha joined Plug Power as Chief Strategy Officer in 2019. Prior to joining Plug Power, Mr. Shrestha served as the CIO of a global solar IPP and President Sky Capital Americas since 2015. Under his leadership, Sky Capital America built and acquired over 100MW of operating solar assets and secured pipeline over 100MW. He also sourced various types of financing solutions to support this growth including project debt, construction equity and long-term equity. He brings almost two decades of experience in the broader clean tech sector to our team. Before global solar IPP, he led the renewables investment banking effort at FBR Capital markets. During 2014, and under his leadership, the firm was ranked among the top renewable energy underwriters in the U.S.
Prior to joining FBR, Mr. Shrestha spent seven years as the global head of renewables research coverage at Lazard Capital Markets. During his tenure at Lazard Capital Markets, he was a member of the Institutional Investor All America Research team and was also ranked as one of the top five stock pickers on a global basis. Prior to Lazard Capital Markets, Mr. Shrestha spent seven years at First Albany Capital, where he built the firm’s renewables and industrial research practice. Starmine/Forbes Magazine ranked him the number 1 stock picker and the number 1 earnings estimator during his tenure at First Albany Capital. Mr. Shrestha serves as an independent director on the board of directors of Fusemachines, an AI company.
https://www.plugpower.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Scott is the Founder of Chabina Energy Partners. Having successfully advised numerous clients across a wide range of complex circumstances, Scott is in a unique position in the renewable fuels and related decarbonization industries. He is fully qualified to partner with a wide range of clients such as management teams, investors, lenders, and others to provide strategic advisory services well ahead of any immediate transaction or capital markets opportunity. Scott’s extensive experience advising different types of capital providers and project participants gives him the ability to understand their respective concerns and build consensus in difficult situations.
Previously served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Turnaround Management Association (NYC Chapter). Member of The Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas, Renewable Fuels Association, American Coalition for Ethanol, American Bankruptcy Institute, Association for Corporate Growth, Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors, and various other relevant trade associations.
https://chabinaenergy.com/about/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Maxine Bédat is the founder and director of New Standard Institute, a research and action think tank using data to drive accountability in the fashion industry. Prior to NSI, Maxine co-founded and was the CEO of Zady, a fashion brand and lifestyle destination creating a transparent and sustainable future for the apparel industry. For its work in sustainability, Zady was named one of the world’s “Most Innovative Companies” in retail by Fast Company. Bédat has been recognized by Oprah in her Super Soul 100, for leaders elevating humanity and serves as an ambassador for Rainforest Alliance. She has spoken at some of the world’s leading conferences, including the WWD Apparel/Retail CEO Summit, and has been regularly featured as an expert by Bloomberg, Forbes, Business of Fashion, CNN, and The Huffington Post. Bédat began her career in international law working at the Rwandan Criminal Tribunal and received a Juris Doctor with distinction from Columbia Law School.
https://www.newstandardinstitute.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Kerry Bowie is the Managing Partner of Msaada Partners and the Majira Project. Msaada is Swahili for "service", and the strategy firm empowers social impact through consulting, coaching, and connecting. Majira is Swahili for "summer'', so in a nod to the growing season the nonprofit accelerator program and innovator support organization helps small businesses and startups grow with a mission of community development through entrepreneurship.
Kerry also launched the Browning the Green Space Initiative which is a group of cross-sector leaders striving to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in clean energy and beyond. Kerry works at the nexus of social, economic, and environmental justice and has more than 20 years of experience in private, public, and nonprofit management. In addition to holding leadership positions at his church, Kerry is a Food Solutions New England Trailblazer, mentors and teaches start-up firms as part of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and the New England Regional Innovation Node, and serves on the Black Innovation Alliance Leadership Team, Boston Ujima Project Investment Committee, MIT Graduate Alumni Council, MIT Sloan Affinity Groups Alumni Advisory Council, SI Ventures Advisory Board, and the Board of Museum Advisors of the Museum of Science. Kerry holds bachelors and masters degrees in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Michigan, respectively, as well as an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Kerry lives in Somerville, MA with his wife, Sherri-Ann, and two young daughters, Alexis and Sophia.
https://www.msaadapartners.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Ashley Meeky is a freshman at Vanderbilt University. She plans to double major in Economics and Communications and minor in Human and Organizational Development. She is the Youth Ambassador Board Member of the Foundation for Climate Restoration and is also a Content Creator Ambassador for Beauty and Brains Organization. She is an advocate for climate restoration, inclusivity, women’s empowerment, and domestic violence awareness. She also loves volunteering at South Suburban Family Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, and Progressive Housing. For fun, she enjoys reading, playing tennis, and operating her own natural hair care business called Hair Chronicles By Ashley. She aspires to be an international businesswoman that works for climate restoration and cultural awareness. Since she was young, she has longed to travel the world, which sparked her interest in restoring the climate so that we all can have the opportunity to experience the Earth’s beauty for years to come.
Youth Leaders 4 Climate Restoration Interest Form
https://forms.gle/jeCPixtQ5iY7gdoS9
https://nexuspmg.com/
Graham is the president and Chief Cannabis Officer of Glass House Group, one of the most rapidly growing, privately-held cannabis and hemp companies in the country, and the founder of Glass House Farms, perhaps the largest greenhouse operation in California. He was part of the original team at Software.com, taking the company public in 1999, and one of the first employees at Sonos, where he was involved with product design, development, sales and customer support.
With 25 years of experience in the technology sector as well as in starting successful businesses in new and emerging markets, Graham has now created one of the largest earth-friendly cannabis and hemp businesses in the country, conducting precision agriculture in greenhouses with a cutting edge water reclamation system, filtration, recycling, integrated pest management and other industry-leading cultivation techniques. His sun-grown and ocean-grown operation is viewed as a model for tech innovation, sustainability and financial success in the cannabis space.
https://www.glasshousegroup.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Laura Schifter, Ed. D., is a Senior Fellow leading K12 Climate Action with the Aspen Institute, a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a fellow with the Century Foundation. Previously, she worked as a policy and research consultant, a senior education and disability advisor for Rep. George Miller (D-CA) on the Committee on Education and Labor, and an education fellow for Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. After graduating from college, she taught elementary school in San Francisco. Laura earned an Ed.D. in Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice and an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in American Studies from Amherst College. Laura is also the mother of three daughters, Ellie, Issie, and Thea, and she hopes that engaging more people on climate change can help build a sustainable future for them and the next generation.
https://www.k12climateaction.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Emily Stengel is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of GreenWave, a non-profit organization dedicated to training a new generation of regenerative ocean farmers and building the foundation for a new blue-green ocean economy that creates jobs, mitigates climate change and grows healthy food for local communities. She brings to GreenWave a background in sustainable food systems, working for several years at a B-Corp catering company in NYC dedicated to supporting the regional farm and food economy, and more recently, working on a research team focused on workforce development in agricultural communities. Emily has an MS in Community Development and Applied Economics from the University of Vermont.
https://www.greenwave.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Peter is associate manager of the Sustainability and Circular Economy program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center (CCC), where he contributes to the Foundation’s original research, programming, content and convenings in corporate sustainability. Peter brings particular expertise in climate solutions including clean energy and electrified transportation, and circular economy themes including recycling and recovery system optimization, circular business models, and alternative materials innovation.
Prior to joining the Chamber Foundation, Peter was a founding employee of Generation180, a national nonprofit committed to helping consumers embrace their role in the clean energy transition. Projects of focus included research and programming in renewables procurement for K-12 schools, electric vehicle deployment, and implementation of climate-focused consumer behavior change frameworks.
Peter is a Washington, D.C. area native and holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law (PPEL) from the University of Richmond. He discovered his passion for sustainability issues while studying international politics and economics abroad in Cape Town, South Africa and Córdoba, Argentina.
https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/
https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/best-practices/business-community-climate-leadership-case-study
https://nestpowerproject.withgoogle.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Alexander Gillett is the co-founder and CEO of HowGood, an independent research company with the world's largest database on food and personal care product sustainability. Since 2007, Alexander has guided HowGood’s business trajectory, driving innovative partnerships with like-minded companies and organizations. Under Alexander's leadership, HowGood has provided critical data and insights into the quickly-shifting world of sustainability for retailers, consumers, and CPGs, while maintaining its mission to increase transparency and reduce the impact of food and consumer goods on our world.
HowGood is an independent research company with the world's largest database on product sustainability. With more than 33,000 ingredients, chemicals and materials assessed, HowGood SaaS and impact data offerings help leading brands, retailers and investors improve their environmental and social impact. Through in-depth, ingredient-level insights into factors ranging from greenhouse gas emissions to animal welfare to labor risk, HowGood data powers strategic decision-making for the sourcing, manufacturing, merchandising, and marketing of sustainable products.
https://howgood.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Lionel is an accomplished Product Management Leader with expertise in Operations Management, Financial Management (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow), Lean Six Sigma, Supplier Development, Strategic Sourcing and Product Quality Management. His experience spans General Electric where he graduated from the highly regarded Operations Management Leadership Program (OMLP) and owned Profit & Loss Responsibility as Manufacturing Shop Operations Manager of a High Volume Production Facility and three Fast Moving Innovative Start Ups (SpaceX, Faraday Future & Romeo Power) where he has held various Roles including Director of Procurement, Vice President of Engineering and Chief Operating Officer. Lionel holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University and MPS in Supply Chain Management from The Penn State University.
https://romeopower.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Guy Elitzur holds significant management experience. He currently serves as CEO of Vertical Field, a leading agro-tech provider of vertical farming and living green wall solutions for urban environments and smart cities.
He previously headed up STK Bio-ag Technologies (STK), a leading global crop protection company as its CEO and served as a member of the board. At STK, Elitzur led the company to successful geographical expansion and fundraising of $90 million in return for a majority stake. Prior to this, Guy served private and public companies in senior executive roles. He is a licensed CPA and earned his L.L.M. from Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
https://www.verticalfield.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mark Herrema is the Co-Founder and CEO of Newlight Technologies.
In 2003, Mark co-founded Newlight with a vision of using greenhouse gas as a resource to make high-performance, sustainable materials.
After a decade of research, Mark and his team developed a technology that uses a natural process found in the ocean to make a material called AirCarbon. AirCarbon is a meltable energy storage molecule made in almost all known living things that is strong, meltable, and ocean-degradable.
AirCarbon is now being used to replace plastic in single-use foodware, fashion products, and a variety of other applications. Newlight has been honored to receive recognition as “Biomaterial of the Year” by the Nova Institute, “Innovation of the Year” by Popular Science, and “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum. In 2016, Newlight was awarded the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Mark graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, and has since garnered over 15 years of expertise in process engineering, polymer functionalization, and strategic business development.
https://www.newlight.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Naveen Sikka
Founder & CEO
Naveen Sikka is the founder and CEO of TerViva, a Series-D agriculture technology company that is building the world’s most sustainable supply chain of plant protein and vegetable oil. Utilizing experience in management consulting, technology, natural resources and agriculture, Naveen established TerViva to understand and extend the benefits of the ancient pongamia tree’s resilience and protein and oil-packed beans. TerViva has since introduced pongamia as a new commercial crop that converts distressed farmland into sustainable, productive acreage. Under his leadership, TerViva has unlocked pongamia’s potential as a climate-friendly, nutritional powerhouse for feeding the world’s rising population. TerViva is the first company to develop high-yielding, non-GMO cultivars of pongamia and to create edible protein and oil from its beans to feed people. Product partners draw on TerViva’s plant protein and vegetable oil supply chain that is world class in its low-carbon intensity, traceability and cost competitiveness with existing oilseed supplies.
Naveen and TerViva have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Food Navigator, Growing Produce, All About Feed, Food Business News and Pacific Business News, among other leading publications covering sustainable innovation and technology in agriculture and food. Naveen completed his MBA from UC Berkeley where he co-chaired the development of the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley Lab to evaluate its existing portfolio of commercial technologies. Prior to earning his MBA, Naveen worked as a management consultant at Gemini Consulting and TPI. He graduated as a Class Senior Marshal with a BA from Columbia University, during which time he studied and worked in France and West Africa. He is a mentor and member of Environmental Entrepreneurs and the New Innovators Council of the World Resources Institute.
**Sudhir Rani
CFO, Board of Directors**
Sudhir brings extensive financing and structuring experience to TerViva. Before joining TerViva in 2011, Sudhir was a Director in the Private Equity group at D.E. Shaw & Co. in New Delhi, India where he structured, negotiated and conducted due diligence on growth capital investments. Prior to that, he spent eight years at UBS in Asset Management and Investment Banking. Sudhir has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Columbia University.
https://www.terviva.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Adam Zurofsky currently serves as Founding Executive Director of Rewiring America, a non-profit dedicated to combatting climate change and spurring economic growth through the rapid and widespread electrification of the U.S. economy. As Executive Director, Adam sets RA’s strategic priorities, manages its policy development, partnership, and communications activities, and manages all day-to-day operations.
Until mid-2019, Adam served as Director of State Policy and Agency Management for the State of New York where he led the development and implementation of all major policy initiatives for Governor Cuomo and was responsible for strategic management of the State’s executive agencies and authorities and their more than 150,000 employees.
Prior to that, Adam served as Deputy Secretary for Energy and Finance for the State of New York where he directly oversaw all policy and regulatory aspects of New York State's energy, climate, and finance portfolios as well as the following State agencies and authorities: the Department of Public Service (DPS), the New York Power Authority (NYPA), the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), including its New York Green Bank, the Department of Financial Services (DFS), including its Banking, Insurance and Consumer Protection divisions, and the Department of Taxation and Finance, among others. Adam was responsible for leading implementation of Governor Cuomo's climate agenda, including establishing the U.S. Climate Alliance of 25 states committed to upholding the Paris Climate Accords and the decarbonization of the over $200 billion New York Common Retirement Fund.
Before joining the Cuomo administration, Adam was a partner in the New York law firm of Cahill Gordon and Reindel, LLP, where he advised leading companies, financial institutions and their boards in a wide variety of regulatory, litigation and corporate governance matters. During his almost 18 years with Cahill, Adam also chaired the Firm’s associate development program and was recognized as one of the Top 10 Securities Lawyers under 40 in the nation.
Adam currently teaches climate policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He previously co-founded Fordham Law School’s Corporate Sustainability Initiative and has served as a member of Fordham’s Adjunct Faculty, teaching on issues such as corporate social responsibility and impact/ESG investing. He is a published author and a regular speaker at conferences on topics ranging from climate policy to clean energy finance to corporate social responsibility.
Adam holds an A.B. with honors in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. Adam was previously a member of The Brookings Institution's Leadership Council for Governance Studies as well as the Board of Directors of the Roundabout Theatre Company. He was also a founding Board member of Civics Unplugged. Adam lives in New York City with his wife and their three children.
https://www.rewiringamerica.org/
https://www.rewiringamerica.org/household-savings-report
Saul Griffith on the Green New Deal and the enormous opportunity in shooting for the moon
https://nexuspmg.com/
Valerie Rockefeller chairs the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a private foundation advancing social change that contributes to a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. She also co-chairs BankFWD, a network to persuade banks to phase out financing for fossil fuel and to lead on climate. Her professional background is as a middle school special education teacher for adolescents with learning differences and emotional disabilities. She began her teaching career at Central Park East Secondary School in East Harlem, New York, and also taught in Australia.
Valerie has a M.Ed. in Special Education from Bank Street College of Education and a MAT in secondary Social Studies from Columbia University Teachers College. She majored in International Relations at Stanford University, and worked as a confidential assistant to Secretary Richard Riley at the U.S. Department of Education during the first Clinton administration. She also serves as a trustee of Achievement First, the Asian Cultural Council, Columbia University Teachers College, Greenwich Academy, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. She was a trustee of Spelman College, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Valerie lives with her daughters Percy and Lucy and her son Davis in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.
https://bankfwd.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
After majoring in electrical engineering and minoring in economics at MIT, Russ was a materials scientist specializing in microchips and circuit boards. During the stock market bubble, he put his math and economics education to work trading currencies, stocks, and options at the PHLX, CBOE, and AMEX. Russ changed career paths and went into private tutoring because he saw an opportunity to transform math and science education. He has been teaching math and science at all levels for over 10 years. He taught Algebra I at Muse School (now MUSE Virtual) and was instantly attracted to the unique approach of the school. Russ is looking forward to integrating the MUSE Virtual foundations of seed to table and sustainability in the science program. Russ finally left Chicago in 2012 to fulfill a dream of living in LA with his wife Annie. Together, Russ and his wife enjoy dog walks, hiking, and bike riding all over Southern California.
https://www.museschool.org
https://nexuspmg.com/
Lisa Jacobson is the President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE), a 55-member trade association representing the energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy industries. In this role, Ms. Jacobson advises states and federal policymakers on energy, tax, air quality and climate change policy. She is a member of the Department of Energy's State Energy Efficiency Steering Committee, the United States Trade Representative’s Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee, the Energy Efficiency Global Alliance Steering Committee and the Gas Technology Institute’s Public Interest Advisory Committee. Ms. Jacobson has testified before Congress and has represented energy industries before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Prior to her position with the BCSE, Ms. Jacobson was a legislative aide in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has a master’s degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Vermont.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: @LJacobsonEnergy, @BCSECleanEnergy
LinkedIn: Lisa Jacobson
https://bcse.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Gary has led the Office of Sustainability at UT Dallas since 2018 with previous sustainability experience in higher education and municipal government. He is responsible for facilitating the integration of sustainability into campus stewardship, student life, administration, and student learning. UTD, as well as universities across the nation and the world, track the effectiveness of sustainability programs according to the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS Report) administered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). As UTD’s sustainability program has grown in recent years, UT Dallas earned AASHE STARS Gold certification for sustainability in 2019 for the first time in school history. For continued progress, Gary advocates for greater emphasis on the connection between environmental stewardship and social justice, and has adopted the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals as the basis for sustainability education and service so that students better understand the connection between our society and the environment. Gary believes that sustainability is a transdisciplinary field to which all members of the UTD community can contribute, and he is always happy to grab a cup of coffee, even virtually, to discuss ideas for collaboration.
https://www.utdallas.edu/sustainability/contact/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Diego is the founder and CEO of Pachama, a Y Combinator-backed startup working to accelerate the flow of capital to carbon capturing projects starting with forests biomass projects. Pachama harnesses satellite images and machine learning to verify the carbon storage on forests and then connects directly project developers with carbon credits buyers in an open marketplace.
Prior to Pachama, Diego co-founded Bluesmart, an IoT company that raised $20M in venture capital in Silicon Valley and China and was acquired by industry leader TravelPro. Diego also co-founded WeHostels, a pioneering online travel marketplace which was acquired by StudentUniverse. Diego was awarded with the MIT 35 Innovators under 35 and was selected as High-impact Entrepreneur by Endeavor Global.
https://pachama.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Tinia Pina accepted her Bachelor of Science in Business Information Technology from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2006. She began her career in sustainability as a former student pursuing a Masters of Science degree at Columbia University prior to becoming the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Re-Nuble, Inc., a waste-to-resource company headquartered in New York City. A strong advocate for sustainable waste management, regenerative agriculture, and urban resilience, she has been involved in management and business development roles within the sustainability industry for ten years. Her professional interests focus on using unique and distributed technologies to extract the optimal value from organic waste streams for upcycling into value-added products.
https://www.re-nuble.com/
https://www.re-nuble.com/blogs/re-nuble/launching-our-30-min-lunch-series-with-re-nuble
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mr. MacDonald has over 35 years of both public and private sector experience, ranging from international roles within the Parliament of Canada to serving on the boards of numerous publicly listed resource companies. From 1988 to 1997, he was the Member of Parliament for Halifax, Nova Scotia, during which time he was appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada as Parliamentary Secretary of International Trade. From 1997-2002, Mr. MacDonald was President and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries, a large lumber manufacturing, grading and marketing group, where he developed new markets in China, Korea, India and Japan. In recent years Mr. MacDonald has served as President of NRStor Remote Communities and Mines, a Canadian company focused on partnering with off-grid Indigenous communities and mines to develop renewable energy and energy storage projects.
https://zinc8energy.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Aaron William Perry is a consultant, executive advisor, and author with deep expertise in the renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and finance industries. He is the founder of the Y on Earth Community - a global non-profit that provides media resources and curated community and corporate events to mobilize community health and wellbeing in the context of global stewardship, regeneration, and sustainability. He is currently completing and epic novel and screenplay all about these momentous times that we're living in.
Find his work at yonearth.org and earthwaterpress.com.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Executive, advocate, team builder, and optimist, Rick Parnell has leveraged his unique skillsetto help the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR) pursue concrete and scalable climate restoration solutions. Rick came to F4CR after 16 years with the United Nations Foundation, where he designed the Foundation’s partnership model and put together a team of over 300 committed individuals from across the U.S. and around the world. Under his leadership, the Foundation raised more than $2.2 billion to help the UN solve a range of global challenges, including the deterioration of our climate.
https://foundationforclimaterestoration.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Rob Niven is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CarbonCure Technologies, the global leader in carbon dioxide (CO₂) utilization technologies for the concrete industry. Rob has the simple goal of making concrete sustainability both profitable and easy for industry. Under his direction, CarbonCure and its partners are achieving their mission to reduce 500 megatonnes of CO₂ emissions annually.
Rob has received countless international awards recognizing his leadership in sustainability, innovation and technology development including the Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, the 2016 Ernest C. Manning Innovation Award, the Cleantech Group’s Top 100 Global Cleantech Companies and the BloombergNEF New Energy Pioneers Award.
https://www.carboncure.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Glenn Branch is the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education and a coeditor of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools. He is the author of numerous articles on climate education and evolution education in such publications as Scientific American, The American Biology Teacher, and Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics.
https://ncse.ngo/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Trammell S. Crow is the President of the Crow Family Foundation which operates and manages the Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art as well as the Trammell Crow European Sculpture Garden. Mr. Crow is the son of Trammell Crow, founder of the Trammell Crow Company, and his wife, Margaret.
After graduating from Yale University, Mr. Crow began his career as a warehouse leasing in Denver and then transferred to Houston to develop residential subdivisions and subsequently, to lease retail space. He returned to Dallas to join the development team of the Anatole Hotel, and later worked at the Dallas Market Center when it expanded by more than 2 million square feet. By 1985, he developed the Dallas Communications Complex, the Studios at Las Colinas, INFOMART and the Dallas/Fort Worth Teleport. From 1986 to 1993, Mr. Crow was the Chief Executive Officer of Trammell Crow International.
Trammell S. Crow is a member of the Board of Directors of the Crow Collection of Asian Art and is actively involved in Thanksgiving Square, a multi-denominational center for the promotion of gratitude and religious tolerance.
Mr. Crow is also a founder of Texas Business for Clean Air, an organization of prominent business leaders throughout Texas who are committed to matters that affect air quality in the state.
As the founder of EarthX (formerly known as Earth Day Texas), Mr. Crow has created the largest annual exposition and forum showcasing the latest initiatives, discoveries, research, innovations, policies and corporate practices serving to re-shape a more sustainable future.
With a focus on inspiring environmental leadership across sectors and party lines, Crow serves on the board of directors for ConservAmerica and is a co-founder of Texas Business for Clean Air and Texans for Clean Water. He is also a long-term supporter of the Texas Conservation Alliance, the Nature Conservancy of Texas, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Log Cabin Republicans and the League of Conservation Voters. His philanthropy benefits various nonprofit organizations that are active in family planning, education, the environment, community initiatives and political causes.
https://earthx.org/earthxtv/
https://earthx.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jeremy McKane is an Artist with the passion for the environment. His focus has been directed on Ocean issues for several years. He is an active Explorers Club Member and the CEO of OCN.ai, an autonomous network of marine robots that automate enforcement at sea.
http://www.ocn.ai/
https://www.ultramarineocean.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Troy Carter is a co-founder at RIZOME, and is bringing the audacious scale and vision of startup methodology to the planet’s ecological and climate crisis. He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in economics, was an early employee at Airbnb and E la Carte, then founded and scaled Troy Cider and exited after a successful acquisition in 2015. He has focused on carbon finance and renewable energy and agriculture projects for the last six years. He is now supporting RIZOME to grow into a globally significant climate-positive building materials and carbon sequestration company.
https://www.rizomeco.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dave Mozersky is the President and co-founder of Energy Peace Partners. Dave has been involved in peace building and conflict prevention work since 2001, with a specific interest in mediation and peace processes. He is the Founding Director of the Program on Conflict, Climate Change and Green Development at UC Berkeley’s RAEL, and has worked with the International Crisis Group, the African Union, and Humanity United, among others.
https://www.energypeacepartners.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Michelle Greene, President of the Long-Term Stock Exchange.
Michelle brings legal, policy, and operational expertise to her role at the Long-Term Stock Exchange. Her experience includes serving in senior roles at the New York Stock Exchange and the US Department of the Treasury, as a consultant with McKinsey & Co., Inc. and as a securities lawyer. She teaches at Columbia University and has served on numerous non-profit boards and as a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls. Michelle is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
https://ltse.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Pat Crowley is the founder and CEO of Chapul Farms, building and scaling modular insect farms. His diverse career path has had a singular focus of ensuring the food and water availability to future generations, with previous positions as a climate modeler, hydrologist, and agronomist for state and federal agencies. He founded Chapul (the first edible cricket protein company in the US) in 2012 as a way to create a pull-through demand for the growth of the insect agriculture industry. This path led him to an appearance on ABC's Shark Tank, securing an investment from Mark Cuban, into a brand that reached national distribution as the first of its kind. Addressing today's growth needs of the industry, Chapul Farms' mission is to increase biodiversity within agriculture, leveraging insects as a gateway to beneficial microbial ecosystems that are essential to regenerative farming, and most terrestrial ecosystems on the planet.
Pat has an M.S. in Watershed Hydrology from the University of Arizona and a B.A. in Psychology from Claremont McKenna College.
www.chapulfarms.com
www.chapul.com
TEDx
Kevin Wilhelm is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, an instructor at the University of Washington and Harvard, and author of several bestselling books in sustainability including his latest book, ‘How to Talk to the Other Side: Finding Common Ground in the Time of Coronavirus, Recession, and Climate Change. He is one of the world’s pre-eminent business consultants and teachers in the field of sustainability. He is renowned as a catalyst for impact in sustainability, bringing together divergent perspectives in business, environmental, and social justice communities to move positive change forward.
He is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, a consulting firm focused on demonstrating the bottom-line business benefits of sustainability and has led over 160 organizations, including Alaska Airlines, Nordstrom, REI, and Expedia through successful implementation. He has built a reputation as being the “trusted advisor” and “business guy” on the environment and social issues for the past 20 years. Most recently, he helped MLS Cup Champions the Seattle Sounders go carbon neutral.
He has since contributed to sustainability efforts in more than 40 industries ranging from Fortune 500 companies down to local government organizations, social justice organizations and clean energy start-ups to offset over 10,000 times the carbon emissions of his own firm.
https://sustainablebizconsulting.com/
https://amzn.to/2YXkAGJ
https://nexuspmg.com/
ZWS is an environmental consultancy specializing in Zero Waste and Circular Economy concepts. ZWS works with leaders in the business, government, and nonprofit sectors who are serious about reducing waste to drive increased profits, deeper customer loyalty, employee empowerment and a green marketing edge. With 17 years’ experience in Zero Waste policy development, business implementation, and education training, ZWS has adjusted entire corporate and municipal waste protocols for optimization and has empowered thousands of employees through engaging training sessions, ensuring program success
https://0waste.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jon is the Vice President of Insights and Head of Environmental Impact at Kickstarter, the world's largest platform for crowdfunding creative work. He leads data science, analytics, user research and strategy in addition to the company's environmental commitments. He is also the creator of This Place Will Be Water, a climate change mobilization campaign focused on Sea Level Rise with thousands of participants across 30 countries, and recently launched This Place Will Burn, mapping the increase in major wildfires fueled by climate change in the next 40 years. Previously he worked on environmental justice issues as an advisor to the Palau Mission to the U.N. and at the NRDC.
https://www.thisplacewillbewater.org/
https://www.thisplacewillburn.org/
https://www.kickstarter.com/
https://thecreativeindependent.com/?ref=global-footer
https://nexuspmg.com/
David Slutzky Founder and CEO, Fermata Energy Prof. Slutzky is a recognized thought leader in the field of vehicle-to-grid technology. Slutzky founded Fermata Energy with the specific intention of developing and commercializing vehicle-to-grid technology in order to make electric vehicles more cost effective and the electric power grid more stable, as well as to provide large-scale energy storage to make the transition to renewable energy happen more quickly.
He has earned the reputation of being a policy wonk and serial entrepreneur committed to preservation of sensitive ecological systems, protecting the long-term integrity of our biosphere, and working to solve the challenges of global warming. In addition to more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, David served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House and EPA during the Clinton Administration. At the White House, he coordinated the International Task Force of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, where he focused his efforts on the environmental and labor implications of international trade agreements such as the Multilateral Agreement on Investments.
Prior to Fermata Energy, David co-founded Skeo Solutions, an environmental policy consulting firm and worked as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House and U.S. EPA. He is also on the faculty of the University of Virginia as a Research Associate Professor in the Science, Technology and Society Program at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science. Slutzky earned his BA and pursued graduate studies in Political Philosophy at the University of Chicago, and received his law degree from the Program on Energy and the Environment at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
David is also known for founding ERC, where he developed the process tool commonly known as the Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment, and for co-founding ERIIS, the nation’s first environmental data.
https://www.fermataenergy.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sam joined Lyft in 2018 as the Director of Sustainability, where he oversees Lyft’s sustainability and climate impact efforts. Lyft was one of the first companies to join former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “We Are Still In” movement to pledge its commitment to the Paris Climate Accord. Most recently in June 2020, Lyft made an industry-leading commitment to reach 100% electric vehicles on the Lyft platform by 2030.
Prior to Lyft, Sam spent 10 years at Google as Senior Lead for Energy & Infrastructure, where he co-led Google's achievement of 100% renewable energy in 2017, making Google the largest non-utility purchaser of renewable energy on the planet to-date with over 3 GW of wind & solar energy under contract.
Before Google, Sam earned a BA in Physics from Williams College and an MS in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley, where his research focused on wind energy and plug-in vehicles, respectively.
https://www.lyft.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dr. Matthew Dawson (PI): Dr. Dawson received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, graduating at the top of his class from both institutions. He has spent more than a decade of his career in research and project management roles at the likes of ExxonMobil, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and MIT Investment Management Company. He has filed more than sixty (60) patent applications in the energy industry alone and overseen the development of numerous technologies which have gone on to be widely deployed throughout the industry. Several of the technologies he developed have been utilized by most major oil & gas operator in the United States. One such technology he developed was spun out into a start-up company by Dr. Dawson, which went on to receive the 2018 E&P Special Meritorious Award for Engineering Innovation. Dr. Dawson has overseen several successful technology companies as a CEO, CTO, and Director. He's also served as a venture capital Investment Manager. Over the years, he's shown an uncanny ability to rapidly transform a vision into high-impact products and drive widespread adoption.
https://utility.global/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mr. Vani is a Project Management Professional with experience in the EPC, EPCM & PMC industry working on large capital projects ranging in value from $0.5B to $11B in the Power and Mining & Metals industries. He has experience in managing lump sum and cost reimbursable contracts in North America and Saudi Arabia. Prior to starting Nexus he was a Risk Manager & Project Controls Manager for a Fortune 500 firm and subject matter expert in project planning (Primavera), schedule (Primavera Risk) risk analysis and cost risk (@Risk) analysis. Mr. Vani is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP certificate from the Project Management Institute) and holds a B.S in Electrical Engineering from the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Marilyn leads the climate and clean energy finance portfolio at the Hewlett Foundation. She has worked across four continents in renewable and nuclear energy, startups, and venture capital and investment. Author of Sustainability at work: careers that make a difference, Marilyn is editor-at-large at GreenBiz.
She previously led the energy practice at Village Capital, modeled and forecasted energy solutions to climate change as a Senior Research Fellow at Project Drawdown, and managed innovation projects at AREVA (now Orano). She holds a Master’s Degree with distinction in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering, magna cum laude, from Princeton University.
https://www.amazon.com/Sustainability-at-Work-Marilyn-Waite/dp/1138200484
https://marilynwaite.com/sustainability-at-work/
https://hewlett.org/people/marilyn-waite/
Corporate attorney turned fashion tech and sustainability entrepreneur, Stephanie is the Co-Founder of Queen of Raw, a marketplace to buy and sell unused textiles, keeping them out of landfills and turning pollution into profit. Prior to starting Queen of Raw, Stephanie worked as a lawyer in the fashion, media/entertainment, start-up, and technology industries. An advocate for women in business and sustainability, her companies have been featured in NPR, Good Morning America, The New York Times, Vogue, WWD, ELLE, Cheddar, WCBS, United Nations, Fortune, Entrepreneur, WIRED, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Fast Company.
Stephanie is a NASA/NIKE/IKEA/DELL LAUNCH.org Innovator, a Grand Prize WeWork Creator Awards Winner presented by Ashton Kutcher, a Cartier Women's Initiative Laureate, an MIT - Solve Global Challenge Winner, a thredUP Circular Fashion Fund Recipient, and an LVMH Innovation Award Finalist. She is a Member of Pledge 1% and New York Circular City Initiative and Founding Member of Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network, along with Aveda, Kering, and Stella McCartney.
https://www.queenofraw.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Unlike all other c-level positions, the word “Executive” does not tell us what a CEO is responsible for. It is the odd man out. A more appropriate title is Chief Vision Officer (CVO). My job is to define, embrace and protect our company’s vision and Just Cause of bettering our planet. This is accomplished by taking accountability for deciding when short-term finite costs are worth it to advance our infinite vision. I am responsible for ensuring our employees are fulfilled, and that their well-being is put far ahead of the bottom line. I want everyone to know WHO we are and what we stand for well before they know what we do.
I want to help build better people in order to build a better world.
Sanjay Shrestha joined Plug Power as Chief Strategy Officer in 2019. Prior to joining Plug Power, Mr. Shrestha served as the CIO of a global solar IPP and President Sky Capital Americas since 2015. Under his leadership, Sky Capital America built and acquired over 100MW of operating solar assets and secured pipeline over 100MW. He also sourced various types of financing solutions to support this growth including project debt, construction equity and long-term equity. He brings almost two decades of experience in the broader clean tech sector to our team. Before global solar IPP, he led the renewables investment banking effort at FBR Capital markets. During 2014, and under his leadership, the firm was ranked among the top renewable energy underwriters in the U.S.
Prior to joining FBR, Mr. Shrestha spent seven years as the global head of renewables research coverage at Lazard Capital Markets. During his tenure at Lazard Capital Markets, he was a member of the Institutional Investor All America Research team and was also ranked as one of the top five stock pickers on a global basis. Prior to Lazard Capital Markets, Mr. Shrestha spent seven years at First Albany Capital, where he built the firm’s renewables and industrial research practice. Starmine/Forbes Magazine ranked him the number 1 stock picker and the number 1 earnings estimator during his tenure at First Albany Capital. Mr. Shrestha serves as an independent director on the board of directors of Fusemachines, an AI company.
Brenden Millstein is CEO & Co-founder of Carbon Lighthouse, where he is responsible for corporate growth, engineering, and long-term planning. Under Brenden’s leadership, Carbon Lighthouse became profitable and began reducing emissions within 6 months of operations. Brenden previously worked for NYSERDA, the State agency charged with addressing New York’s largest energy and environmental issues. Working with a small team comprised of leading energy experts, Brenden co-administered a budget of $87 million, executing energy efficiency and demand response projects at 250+ manufacturing plants and high-rise office buildings in New York City. Brenden’s clients included Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, CBRE, and many other banks and property management companies. Additionally, he also worked as a research fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, investigating both Li-ion batteries and advanced building materials.
Brenden obtained an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and an MS in Renewable Energy Engineering, also from Stanford. He holds a B.A. in Physics, cum laude, from Harvard University.
https://www.carbonlighthouse.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Chief Financial Officer & Principal at Nexus PMG. Responsible for financial strategy, governance & compliance. Dedicated to delivering world-class services for our clients in the lending & investing communities and owner/developer teams.
Chartered Global Management Accountant with a successful track record of applying industry-leading standards to create operational and management efficiencies that optimize strategic decision making.
Previous roles include Business Services Manager for Fluor, overseeing Accounting and Finance project teams in the Energy & Chemicals and Mining & Metals industries. Led Project Business Services teams in Europe and the Middle East on megaprojects and programs valued up to $11 billion.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Elizabeth Sawin is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Climate Interactive and an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, equity, and economic vitality, and she is the originator of the term ‘multisolving’ to describe such win-win-win solutions. Beth writes and speaks about multisolving, climate change, and leadership based on systems thinking to local, national, and international audiences. Her work has been published in Non-Profit Quarterly, The Sandford Social Innovation Review, U. S. News, The Daily Climate, System Dynamics Review, and more. She has trained and mentored global sustainability leaders in the Donella Meadows Fellows Program and provided systems thinking training to both Ashoka and Dalai Lama Fellows.
A biologist with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Beth trained in system dynamics and sustainability with Donella Meadows and worked at Sustainability Institute, the research institute founded by Meadows, for 13 years.
https://www.climateinteractive.org/
https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/climate-ambassadors/
http://www.cobbhill.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Bruno Sarda is a leader in driving a sustainable future, with more than a decade of sustainability leadership experience. As the President of CDP North America, he works to grow the organization and increase environmental disclosure and action among companies and local governments, as well as manage the North American team and operations. Previously he served as Chief Sustainability Officer for NRG, a leading integrated power company, and has also worked at Dell and Charles Schwab.
Bruno is a faculty member and Senior Sustainability Scholar at Arizona State University.
https://www.cdp.net/en
https://nexuspmg.com/
Over the next few weeks in celebration of our 7 year anniversary, we’ll be releasing content, both audio and written that gives an insight into who we are as a company.
We’re launching with a book club session we recorded earlier this year during which our founders and a few employees engaged in a discussion about Artificial Intelligence and it’s implications on society.
https://nexuspmg.com/
Franz Hochstrasser is CEO and Co-founder of Raise Green, and is also CEO and Co-founder of New Haven Community Solar which were both founded in 2018. He has been working at the intersection of policy, climate change, environmental and social issues for more than a decade. Prior to graduating from Yale School of the Environment with a focus on sustainable finance, clean energy and business in 2018, Franz served eight years in the Obama Administration.
Franz served as Senior Advisor to the Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State, working on the team that successfully negotiated the Paris Agreement. Prior to that, he was Deputy Associate Director at the White House Council of Environmental Quality working on energy, environment and climate policy and public engagement; and a Confidential Assistant and Legislative Analyst at the U.S. Department of Agriculture working on conservation, energy, food security, science policy and open data. He also worked on both of Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
Franz holds a Masters of Environmental Management from Yale University; Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
https://www.raisegreen.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mo is the President & CEO of BayoTech. Mo brings new technologies to market, whether leading investor-backed companies or running growth and transformative initiatives in global corporations. His Fortune 500 experience includes executive leadership roles at GE, Siemens, AES and Lockheed Martin. In addition, he has led 4 early stage technology companies including BayoTech.
MBA from the University of Southern California and a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in combustion from the University of California Irvine.
https://www.bayotech.us/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sabrina is CEO of SEED and, with a background in architecture, law and urban planning, she has almost 25 years of experience working with groups in 40 states as a community organizer and organizational development specialist. In 2000 she founded a non-profit that addressed sustainability and food security in low-income populations, while challenging ordinances and public housing policies that restricted home gardening and urban farming. She organized “SEED Farming, Food Access & Entrepreneurship” workshops to support urban farming and community food systems in South Los Angeles and Cuba, before founding SEED in 2019.
Sabrina has been a professor at both California State University at Northridge and the University of Southern California focusing on city growth and food security. Her super powers are perfect pie crusts and ice cream wizardry.
ABOUT SEED
SEED is a registered benefit corporation offering the SEED“farm in a box” automatic irrigation and soil health kit. The solar-powered, Bluetooth enabled kit offers IKEA-like functionality and a comprehensive app so users can monitor and manage their plants from anywhere.
SEED is a sustainable option for consumers who want to raise their own produce, while impacting climate change, reducing food insecurity and promoting entrepreneurship in developing communities around the world. Under a one-for one sales mandate, for each kit sold one is provided to a low-income farmer.
Currently 1 in every 9 people is food insecure worldwide, and by 2050, we must feed 9 billion people and cut greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production. Reducing the influences of climate change on food security calls for investment in innovation toward a more resilient, sustainable “climate-smart food system”in all communities.
https://seedbox.systems/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Juliana Garaizar is an experienced global executive and general manager with demonstrated success working with entrepreneurs in angel investment, venture capital and private equity across multiple industry sectors including medtech, cleantech, fintech, consumer and impact.
Most recently she served as the Director of the Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, and prior to that as the Managing Director of the Houston Angel Network. The Houston Angel Network is the most active angel network in the United States, and has invested in Greentown Labs companies AMS and Dynamo Micropower. Prior to this, Juliana managed the Antipolis Innovation Campus, a small business innovation and incubation center in the French Riviera. In this role she also served as the Managing Director of the Sophia Business Angels, investing in cleantech startups such as SunPartner, Solar Indice, Nheolis, Blue Group and Certinergy. A native of Spain, Juliana started her career in Singapore: first as an International Trade Consultant for the Trade Commission of Spain and then at Citigroup. Juliana earned her MBA at the London Business School and Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, with a concentration in entrepreneurship. She has also received recognition as a Kauffman Fellow, a highly selective two-year program for innovative venture capital leaders.
Juliana has served on many boards and advisory boards in the areas of innovation, investment and civic engagement. She is currently a board member of the Angel Capital Association and is an advisory board member of the Israeli fund Sanara Ventures, the Houston Diversity Fund and the University of Houston Cougar Venture Fund. She has also served as a member of the Mayor of Houston's task forces on Innovation and on Women and Diversity.
As a globetrotter who has visited 60 countries, Juliana is passionate about experiencing different cultures and speaks five different languages. During her travels, she has been able to experience the impact of climate change firsthand. After her last trip to Patagonia and living through Hurricane Harvey, she felt she needed to step up her commitment to fight it. During her last eight years living in Houston, she has been able to see a shift in the city’s understanding of the impacts of climate change and the need for an energy transition. That is why she believes it is the perfect moment for Greentown Labs’ expansion to Houston.
https://greentownlabs.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Maurits van de Ven, Co-Founder of Plantible Foods. Maurits founded and exited two software-driven trading companies in The Netherlands and after acquiring his masters in finance at ESADE in Barcelona he worked as an investment banker focused on the US CPG industry at a NY based boutique bank.
https://www.plantiblefoods.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Johannes D. Escudero is the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Coalition For Renewable Natural Gas (RNG Coalition).
Mr. Escudero founded the RNG Coalition in July, 2011 to provide the renewable natural gas industry with a public policy platform and an advocacy voice.
Today, the RNG Coalition’s membership is international and includes leading companies and organizations from each sector of the RNG industry.
RNG Coalition members produce more than 90% of the renewable natural gas in North America.
Together, the RNG Coalition advocates for the development, deployment and utilization of renewable natural gas so that present and future generations have access to clean, domestic, renewable fuel and energy supply.
Through advocacy and education, the RNG Coalition has successfully expanded and created new RNG markets at the federal, state, provincial and local government levels in the United States and Canada.
Mr. Escudero has more than fifteen years of organizational leadership and business development experience, with a diverse background in non-profit management, higher education, politics, governmental, legislative and regulatory affairs.
He has a Master's Degree with honors in Leadership from Hope International University, where he is also an Adjunct Professor.
Prior to founding the RNG Coalition, Mr. Escudero served as Legislative Director in the California State Assembly, and served ranking members of the Budget, Transportation, Utilities and Commerce, Natural Resources and Environmental Safety & Toxic Materials committees.
Mr. Escudero is an ordained Pastor, and has served as President of Escudero & Associates Inc. since 2008 - a private firm that provides energy related services to clients, including members of the RNG Coalition.
Mr. Escudero has been married to his lovely wife Tawni for fifteen years. Together, they have three children, Rori Lane (10 years), Lincoln Brave (6 years) and Jack Love (7 months).
http://www.rngcoalition.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dianna Cohen is Co-Founder and CEO of Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) and a passionate advocate against plastic pollution. PPC is a growing global alliance of more than 1,000 organizations, businesses, and notable thought leaders working toward a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on humans, animals, and the environment. A Los Angeles based visual artist, Dianna has shown her work internationally at galleries, foundations, and museums. She uses plastic in her artwork to make a visual and social impact. With plastic bags as her primary material for the past 27 years, Cohen is interested in exploring its materiality through modifications and the material’s relationship to culture, media, toxicity, and the world at large and shared this in her 2010 TED talk “Tough Truths About Plastic Pollution.” Dianna is a frequent speaker and guest and has spoken at the UN and international conferences and symposia, and has been interviewed by Al Jazeera, NBC Nightly News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, USA Today, Martha Stewart Living, and many others. She is the recipient of the Global Green Environment Award, the Snow Angel Award, and Environmentalist of the Year by SIMA, among others. Dianna studied Biology, Art, and Film at the University of California, Los Angeles and holds a BA in Fine Arts.
https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Steve Oldham is the CEO of CE and brings more than 20 years of executive experience to CE’s team, stemming from previous roles in technology, robotics and aerospace sectors. Steve has held a variety of senior executive positions across Canada and the US, covering General Management, Business Development, and Strategy. Steve has also secured financing from Government and commercial sources for a variety of complex technologies, including several large satellite programs.
https://carbonengineering.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQGGhtguHns
https://nexuspmg.com/
Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA, is an investment analyst and writer focused on clean energy stocks. He is best known for his cautious and income-oriented approach to investing, and his warnings leading up to the bursting of the 2015 Yieldco bubble. His writing has appeared in publications such as GreenTech Media, The Guardian, Renewable Energy World, Forbes.com, but his primary outlet has been AltEnergyStocks.com since 2007.
Tom is a CFA charterholder and has a PhD in mathematics from Purdue University. He wrote his thesis on a branch of chaos theory. This study of chaos theory led to his conviction that knowing the limits of our ability to predict is much more important than predictions themselves, a lesson he applies to both climate science and the financial markets.
He volunteers as the Chair of the New York Town of Marbletown's Environmental Conservation Commission (ECC), and is a long distance runner. The ECC's efforts have turned Marbletown into a locally recognized leader in the shift to renewable energy while producing a net benefit to the Town government's and residents' budgets. In 2019 he completed a 28.2 mile ultra-marathon up and down 4000 vertical feet of the hills of Tuscany to celebrate his 50th birthday.
http://www.altenergystocks.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
As Chief Marketing Officer, Mike Kaplan is responsible for all aspects of ENGIE Impact’s marketing efforts, as the company works to accelerate sustainability transformation for corporations, cities and government around the world.
Mike has nearly 20 years of experience in business-to-business marketing across the high tech and energy sectors, working with companies across many sectors and stages of growth. Previously, he led marketing for Retroficiency, which was acquired by ENGIE Impact in October 2015, where he helped create a market for energy data analytics and drive adoption for this new technology. As a strategy consultant for CSMG, Mike managed engagements for telecommunications, wireless and digital media markets clients, focused on go-to-market and product strategy, business case development, opportunity assessment and customer segmentation.
Based in Boston, Mike holds an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies from the University of Rochester.
https://www.engie.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Arno Boersma is the founding partner of Island Impact - a social enterprise that aims to bring positive impact to small island states through initiatives in sustainable development - and the former director of UNDP’s Center of Excellence for Small Island Developing States. He is an experienced knowledge strategist with a passion for turning knowledge into action, preferably knowledge related to island opportunities in energy, water, climate, tourism, waste, ocean, and biodiversity. As islands are at the front lines of climate change, their solutions can benefit the rest of the world. Arno has been an entrepreneur as well as worked for multinational firms, the World Bank and the UN. Most recently, from 2016-2019, he led the launch and growth of the UNDP's Center of Excellence for Small Island Developing States which aims to foster island-to-island collaboration and knowledge exchange. He recently moved from Aruba to Washington, DC where he subsequently launched the Network of Island Professionals.
https://www.islandimpact.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Pharr Andrews currently serves as the Senior Climate Coordinator for the City of Dallas, where her primary function is to coordinate the development and implementation of the City’s first Comprehensive and Climate Action Plan (CECAP). Previous work experience includes Environmental Outreach Manager for the City of Richardson and Air Quality Manager for the City of Austin. She has over 20 years of experience working on a variety of environmental and sustainability issues with a demonstrated record of success in project management, climate planning, state and local policy/rulemaking projects, communication of complex information, and management of climate protection, air quality, pollution prevention, water conservation, and land development programs. Her experience paired with a strong commitment to preserving our natural environment has earned her a reputation as an eco-champion.
While in Austin, she chaired the region’s Clean Air Coalition Advisory Committee, and helped develop and implement three regional air quality improvement plans. She was also a founding member of the City’s Climate Protection Team and played a vital role in the development of multiple climate plans. Prior to serving at the City of Austin she worked for the Texas commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on environmental policy issues.
https://www.dallasclimateaction.com/cecap
Dallas Climate Action Plan
https://nexuspmg.com/
Julia is a visionary leader at the center of the transformation underway in the electric power sector to a clean and modern energy future. For the past 20 years she has been advising and collaborating with utilities, solution providers and government agencies on business models, grid modernization, and clean energy policies, strategies and programs. Julia guides and oversees all of SEPA’s research, education, and collaboration activities for its 1,100 member companies, including over 725 electric utilities. Julia has led the organization through significant expansion in recent years, including rebranding from the Solar Electric Power Association to the Smart Electric Power Alliance, and merging with both the Association for Demand Response and Smart Grid (ADS) and Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). Prior to joining SEPA, Julia worked for ICF International where she supported EPA’s implementation of the ENERGY STAR program. Julia - a graduate of Cornell University - walks the talk, driving an EV and living in a PV powered energy efficient home in Northern Virginia.
https://sepapower.org/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Virginia Emery is founder and CEO of Beta Hatch, a pioneering insect farming company that is industrializing insects for agriculture. Beta Hatch is fueled by a passion to see insects reach their true potential in our food systems. The company has grown to be internationally recognized for its scientific approach to scaling insect production, and operates North America’s largest mealworm farm for animal feed production in Washington. Virginia is the country’s most innovative insect entrepreneur, recently recognized as a Visionary Grist 50 Fixer. Virginia has a PhD in entomology from the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded over 20 grants and honors, and has published on subjects ranging from chemical communication to genetics to insect behavior. Her life’s mission is to breed a bug that tastes like bacon.
http://betahatch.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Nik's passion for hiking and open water swimming led him into the waste industry, after he kept encountering trash in otherwise beautiful natural areas. Driven to take on the growing problem of waste, Nik realized a crucial piece was missing from zero waste initiatives: data. Specifically, data on the quantity, quality and type of waste being disposed of.
In 2016, he founded Zabble Inc. to create a SaaS platform with mobile and cloud technology, to help large educational institutions and corporate organizations track their zero waste programs and gain real-time insights into their waste stream.
Prior to this, Nik worked at seminal startups in the San Francisco Bay Area bringing new ideas to life in the areas of noise cancellation, clinical data analysis, patient medication adherence and indoor air quality. In addition to his role as CEO of Zabble, Nik also serves as a board member for Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA), and actively participates in zero waste advocacy.
https://zabbleinc.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Vandana is the Managing Director of Investment Strategy for Unreasonable Group, and is focused on driving investment to growth-stage entrepreneurs across the globe. In 2020, she will spearhead the formation of Unreasonable Group’s first Global Growth Fund. Her career has spanned three continents and includes substantive investment management, private equity, M&A and cross-border experience. Vandana has experience working in East Africa, London, New York and Seattle. She spent many years advising institutional investors (including governmental and corporate plans) on all aspects of their investments in domestic and international alternative investment funds, as well as structuring and negotiating some of the largest private equity funds, including impact-based investment funds. Vandana has extensive global experience and is often called on to counsel teams on investment strategy and creating complex and unique fund structures (including global impact funds). She was named as a Rising Star on Washington's 2015 Super Lawyer list. Vandana has a passion for social value and impact investing, as well as various philanthropic causes. Vandana is an active member of the Boys & Girls Club of King County and has served as a Trustee of the Nature Conservancy's Washington Chapter and on the board of the YWCA. Vandana was born in Kenya and has had the opportunity to live and work in Africa, Europe and the United States.
https://unreasonablegroup.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Passionate and driven, Holly Elmore is Founder & CEO of Elemental Impact (Ei), a U.S.-based global non-profit committed to bringing regenerative operating practices to the corporate community. Beginning her career as an auditor and CPA with Arthur Andersen, Holly worked nearly seven years in the corporate arena. Within her entrepreneurial spirit, Holly created Executive Catering & Events, a prominent corporate-catering company. Over the next fifteen years, Holly operated Executive Catering along with two successful restaurants in the Atlanta market.
Following her restaurant and catering years, Holly served as Founder & Executive Director of the Green Foodservice Alliance (GFA), an affiliate of the Georgia Restaurant Association. During her GFA tenure, Holly created and launched the Zero Waste Zones (ZWZ) program. In 2010, Holly founded Ei as the new home for the ZWZ. The National Restaurant Association acquired the ZWZ in 2012.
Holly utilizes her extensive business skills to make a difference through Ei, now in its 10th year of Regeneration in Action. Holly channels her energy and enthusiasm into Ei, spearheading initiatives that benefit the community, the environment, and the bottom-line.
As the “pen” behind the Fingertip Press, Holly is the author of the Ei website and the two Ei Online Magazines: Regeneration in Action and The IMPACT that document the organization’s journey and successes. In addition, Holly is a professional photographer and published photojournalist.
https://elementalimpact.org/2018/11/holly-elmore/
https://nexuspmg.com/
James Ellsmoor is from Shropshire, UK, and the Director of Island Innovation, a consulting agency he founded not long after graduation while studying for a Masters in Island Studies. He has a passion for sustainable development and renewable energy, particularly applications for rural and isolated communities. Last year he ran the inaugural Virtual Island Summit, which brought together 4,000 participants from Scotland to Samoa to share stories about their communities. James has always used technology to advance his mission, allowing him to live and work anywhere and manage a team spread over 4 continents. Island Innovation focuses on bringing together NGOs, the private sector, universities and government with projects covering topics such as lithium extraction, climate change and public policy.
https://www.islandinnovation.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mike Zelkind, co-founder, and CEO of 80 Acres Farms knew that food wasn’t what it used to be. He wanted to make it better by creating a new kind of farm, one capable of producing an abundance of crop varieties year-round, grown completely indoors. A farm that can produce 100 times more food than an ordinary farm. Using 100% renewable energy. Without any pesticides or excessive food miles. In 2015, 80 Acres Farms was born.
80 Acres is a founding member of the Infinite Acres partnership venture, along with Netherlands-based Priva Holding BV, a leading provider of technology solutions, services and automation systems to horticultural and other industries, and Ocado Group, one of the world’s largest dedicated online grocery retailers, operating its own grocery and general merchandise retail businesses. That partnership is now building large-scale, fully automated indoor farms in the United States, Asia and Europe.
Over Mike's 30-year career, he held Senior Executive roles within leading Domestic and International companies, including Fortune 50 Food & Beverage, Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods Companies, as well as major Consulting and Private Equity Firms.
Mike has played competitive Chess since the age of 12, competing in several of the most prestigious International Chess Tournaments around the world and achieving a title of FIDE Master at the age of 19. He ranked #1 in his Master of Business Administration class of a top 20 Executive MBA program. In addition, he earned the top Leadership Award: John Robson Scholar and was selected for a very prestigious Community Leadership Program by the Wexner Foundation. He is fluent in Russian and has basic Spanish communication skills.
https://www.80acresfarms.com/
https://infinite-acres.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dana Gunders serves as ReFED’s Executive Director. Dana is a national expert and one of the first to bring to light just how much food is wasted across the country. For almost a decade, she was a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She then launched Next Course, LLC to strategically advise on the topic. Some of her career highlights include authoring the landmark Wasted report and Waste Free Kitchen Handbook, launching the Save the Food campaign, testifying in Congress, consulting to Google, appearing on John Oliver, and perhaps most importantly, being a founding Board Member of ReFED.
https://www.refed.com/?sort=economic-value-per-ton
https://savethefood.com/
Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook: A Guide to Eating Well and Saving Money By Wasting Less Food (Zero Waste Home, Zero Waste Book, Sustainable Living Book)
https://nexuspmg.com/
Emma Rose Cohen, 34, is the CEO and founder of Final, the company that created FinalStraw—the world’s first reusable, collapsible straw that raised nearly $2 million on Kickstarter. Prior to launching Final, Emma earned a Master’s Degree from Harvard in Environmental Management and Sustainability and spent four years working in waste minimization at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the last decade, Emma’s passion for sustainability motivated her to help create a nonprofit called Save the Mermaids, to educate children about the harmful effects of single-use plastics. Emma has also spoken about the harmful effects plastic straws have on the environment on the TEDx stage and in numerous podcasts.
Emma’s love for both the ocean and the mountains has resulted in a semi-nomadic lifestyle—she calls Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Barbara, California, and Whistler, British Columbia home. Emma continues to lead Final’s entirely remote team as they develop an entire line of Foreverables™—items designed to replace single-use plastic and last forever. Final launched its second product, FinalWipe, on Kickstarter in March 2020 and has plans to release several additional products, including FinalFork and FinalSpork, later in the year.
https://final.co/
https://tim.blog/2012/12/18/hacking-kickstarter-how-to-raise-100000-in-10-days-includes-successful-templates-e-mails-etc/
Hacking Kickstarter: How to Raise $100,000 in 10 Days (Includes Successful Templates, E-mails, etc.)
https://nexuspmg.com/
With 13 years of communications and public policy experience, Lara is the Chief of Staff of the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department and the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Houston. In addition to leading the Mayor’s Sustainability Office, Lara is the public face of ARA in the media as well as before City Council, industry stakeholders, and customers.
Prior to joining the City of Houston, Lara was a member of Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ Houston office, providing strategic counsel in sustainability and social responsibility issues for a broad range of clients across the energy sector. Lara worked in Washington, DC and served as Communications Director for the Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Vice Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Vice Chairman of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Caucus, as well as for congressional campaigns in Colorado, West Virginia, and Texas. She also produced a web-based reality show for CNN and served as a Government & Marketing Consultant for SXSW Interactive in Austin.
Lara attended the University of Texas in Austin where she graduated magna cum laude with degrees in History, Ancient History & Classical Civilizations, and Government. In 2013, she earned an MBA in Energy Finance and Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, where she co-founded the UT Energy Savings Fund.
http://www.greenhoustontx.gov/aboutus.html
http://greenhoustontx.gov/climateactionplan/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jo has responsibility for the development and execution of strategic direction and programs at VertueLab. With the organization since 2010, she translated her previous decade of experience leading sustainable design at ZGF Architects into the creation of a collaborative research program focused on the sustainable built environment, and then into expanding the set of services offered to cleantech startups. Jo’s current focus as deputy director is on VertueLab’s organizational excellence, partnering with VertueLab’s executive director in essential internal firm leadership activities. In addition, Jo leads the organization’s efforts for impact measurement and management, ensuring that VertueLab programs and supported companies are designed and managed to achieve ambitious triple bottom line impact targets.
https://vertuelab.org/
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use Poem, To Be of Use
https://nexuspmg.com/
Dan Miller is the Founder and CEO of Steward,an online platform for investing in sustainable farms.Unlike traditional funding methods, Steward’s crowdfarmingä model creates a healthy yield for both farmers andinvestors: farms are able to purchase land and equipment, and investors earn projected returns while making a positive impact. From 2010 to 2015, Miller was Co-Founder, President and Director of Fundrise, the first and largest US real estate crowdfunding platform, which has raised more than $1 billion to date. He remains involved with Western Development Corporation, his family’s real estate organization, which has developed more than 20 million square feet in its 50-year history.He graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in 2009, and an M.B.A in 2010.
https://gosteward.com/
https://anchor.fm/nexuspmg
Walter L. McLeod has more than 25 years of executive experience in business development, strategy and government relations in the energy and mobility sectors. He has been actively engaged in clean technology deployment and finance for over a decade.
Mr. McLeod is the Founder and Managing Director of Eco Capitol Companies, where he has served as a senior advisor to energy companies, startups, investors, trade associations and think tanks. He was a junior partner candidate with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Green Tech Partners Investment Team. Walter has been an active thought leader in shaping clean energy and mobility policy in the United States for many years. He was appointed to serve on the original “Utility 2.0” project steering committee commissioned by the United Nations Foundation. Walter was also appointed to the “Value of Solar” stakeholder committee commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly. He has successfully developed or permitted a portfolio of utility scale solar projects with a capacity exceeding 500 megawatts (MW) and valued at more than $750M.
Mr. McLeod is also the Founder of the Global Energy and Innovation Institute, where he created the “Electric Vehicle Roundtable” consortium which produced the 2017 landmark document, “Guiding Principles for Electrified Mobility.” Industry participants included Xcel Energy, Dominion Energy, Deutsche Bank, Daimler, Tesla, Volkswagen, EVgo, ChargePoint, Lyft and Uber – representing a collective market cap exceeding $344B. Walter was also appointed to the Virginia Automated 20xx Strategic Plan autonomous mobility committee by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).
Walter has served on several boards and advisory committees, including the George Mason University Alumni Association, American Council on Renewable Energy, Chemical Angels Network, MIT Energy Prize and SURGE Ventures Accelerator, to name a few.
Mr. McLeod earned an M.S. in chemistry from the College of Science at George Mason University, a Bachelor of Art in chemistry from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and completed the Executive Education Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
http://www.vsfsolar.com/
https://carbon.substack.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Mr. Best is the founding CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics. He has a demonstrated track record of success in a corporate setting, from management to intrapreneurship. His skills in launching special projects, project management, and supply chain management will be essential for success of this early-stage venture. He graduated from Texas Tech University in 2007 with a triple major in International Business, Marketing, and Management with a minor in Spanish, while also learning Chinese. After joining Baker Hughes in 2009, he has steadily progressed to the level of Senior Manager, where he has gained expertise in quality assurance (Six Sigma Black Belt), regulatory compliance, technology development management, project and personnel management, supply chain management, internal/external communications, and business process architecture.
http://plasmonics.tech/team
https://nexuspmg.com/
Julia Craighill provides sustainability strategy development and execution plans that enable clients to improve financial and environmental performance. She is a driven, award-winning sustainability expert committed to helping organizations build value through green strategies. With more than three decades of experience in architecture, construction, and sustainability, she provides pragmatic guidance to building owners, managers, and occupiers for their workplace and building operations.
Julia also offers specialized services for the real estate industry. As one of the first certified BREEAM USA In-Use Assessors in the United States, Julia leverages her considerable knowledge of the system for clients seeking certification.
A frequent speaker and author on issues of sustainability and resiliency, Julia is known for her ability to inspire organizations to make the leap from good intentions to long-term, profitable performance.
https://www.ensightconsult.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Amy is the Co-Founder of Good Coworking in Dallas, TX, the first coworking space in the world focused on inclusive sustainability, powered by solar.
As an evangelist for the triple bottom line, Amy champions entrepreneurs who are building profitable businesses that allow people and the planet to thrive. Her flagship space in Dallas is pursuing LEED and WELL building certification, as well as JUST. She plans to use these certifications to educate the entrepreneurial community on how to be successful in a global, purpose-focused economy.
Prior to her migration to Texas, she led the incubation and leadership development of 80 USGBC chapters for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and their green rebuilding support to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
When she isn’t at work, you can find Amy volunteering to find homes for rescue dogs, or traveling the globe.
https://goodcoworking.co/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Joan Michelson is an award-winning, marketing communications leader, journalist, trainer, speaker and coach who brings 20+ years of experience in the media and leading ground-breaking communications and marketing in Fortune 50 companies. She is host of the acclaimed podcast Green Connections Radio, which was chosen by USA Today as one of the top six podcasts for business travelers, and she writes on social innovation and careers in Forbes.
In addition to Forbes, her work as appeared in HuffPost, TheAtlantic.com, Greenbiz.com, The Washington Post, The New Economy magazine, CBS “60 Minutes,” ABC News, NBC, WTOP-FM and in various other outlets across the globe.
http://greenconnectionsradio.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Kenny Green is a CPA who assists organizations in the integration of ESG principles and sustainability reporting. In addition, he is the founder of Green Passion Projects, an organization that consults with professional athletes and entrepreneurs to create effective business strategies.
Kenny’s background includes working with NBA star and Heisman trophy winner Charlie Ward on a community fundraiser, consulting with Grammywinning songwriter, Steven Battey, on a social impact music video featuring Superbowl Champ DeMarcus Ware and Snoop Dogg and partnering with the Jackie Robinson Park of Fame on a holiday extravaganza for undeserved families.
Kenny earned a BA in Economics from Wesleyan University and has held several corporate leadership roles, including leading the accounting and reporting function for a multinational organization. Kenny resides in Stamford, CT with his wife Makeda Mays Green (a television executive) and their three children. Education
MS, Accounting, University of Hartford BS, Economics, Wesleyan University
Credentials
FSA, Certification in Financial Sustainability Accounting, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board CPA, Certified Public Accountant, State of Connecticut CRMA, Certification in Risk Management Assurance, Institute of Internal Auditors CIA, Certified Internal Auditor, Institute of Internal Auditors
https://nexuspmg.com/
Louisa Ulrich-Verderber is an artist, engineer, inventor, and founder of Undula Tech, a company dedicated to making renewable energy more accessible to those who need it most by taking inspiration from nature. She is currently a Senior Engineering and Management major at Clarkson University and has been a welding artist since age 12. Her dual passions for art and science have to lead her to the field of biomimicry and drive her to ask new questions and find answers in odd places. You can find out more about Undula Tech at undulatech.com, and more about Louisa, her story, and other projects at louisauv.com.
https://nexuspmg.com/
A true visionary, Chris’ passion is driven by an obsession with problem solving, and deep seated frustration with the every-day waste and inefficiency that characterizes modern business and consumer lifestyles. Having spent his career listening to magical solutions that might solve problems “later,” you could say that Chris is a visionary with no time for vision, instead choosing to focus his life and his career on the unlimited number of problems that can be solved right now.
His passion is undergirded by decades experience manufacturing paint, building technology and running data analytics firms. It’s this unique knowledge set, ranging from the chemical to the regulatory to the technical, that allows Chris to see opportunities and imagine solutions invisible to many in the world of waste and recycling.
When not obsessing over work, you’ll find Chris swimming or fishing in, near or on water.
https://www.smartersorting.com/company/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Sanya Detweiler is Associate Director of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Islands Energy Program, which provides technical assistance to island nations to advance their transition to renewable energy. The Islands Energy Program has worked in fifteen islands in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. Sanya has been spearheading the team’s solar microgrid projects in Puerto Rico since the devastating 2017 hurricane season.
Sanya previously worked in solar for the nationwide residential solar company, Sunrun, and as a volunteer team leader for GRID Alternatives. Prior to that, she worked on clean cookstove projects, primarily in Central and South America and Southeast Asia. Sanya has a B.A. in Architecture from the University of California Berkeley and a M.S. in Sustainable Energy System Management from Hanze University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. She completed her Master thesis on battery storage and electric vehicles with Mercedes-Benz Energy.
https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-climate-initiative
https://nexuspmg.com/
Meghna Tare is UT Arlington's first Chief Sustainability Officer, Meghna works collaboratively to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments at UT Arlington. She leads institutional sustainability efforts in support of the UT Arlington 2020 Strategic Plan- Bold Solutions | Global Impact that is enabling a sustainable megacity that centers on four themes: health and the human condition, sustainable urban communities, global environmental impact and data-driven discovery.
She also works to address opportunities to promote sustainability in several areas, energy efficiency, resource conservation, waste management, transportation, education, outreach, community engagement, supporting and encouraging student initiatives, and implementing an interdisciplinary and sustainability-focused curriculum.
https://sustainability.uta.edu/rce/
http://www.meghnatare.com/
https://nexuspmg.com/
Jake Rozmaryn has spent the past decade advancing cleantech industries through marketing innovation. He has helped launch dozens of cleantech and smart mobility startups, is a trusted advisor to CEOs and VCs, and was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2018. As Antenna's Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Jake leads strategic growth, service expansion and client success initiatives for the agency's clean energy, sustainability, mobility and emerging tech practices. Jake previously founded Eco Branding (acquired by Antenna in 2017), an integrated public relations, marketing, creative and event production agency that specializes in clean energy, smart cities and e-mobility, as well as the Midwest Solar Expo, a leading regional solar conference designed to help grow solar business in the Midwest. He participates on numerous advisory boards, education committees, and mentor committees for a variety of clean energy non-profits, associations, conferences and accelerator programs and contributes articles on cleantech, entrepreneurship and marketing to a variety of business, technology and trade publications. Jake studied Government and Politics with a focus in Environmental Policy at the University of Maryland and resides in New York City.
https://www.antennagroup.com
http://ufl.nyc/ourprograms/cleanstart
Jessica I. Marschall, Co-President and CEO/CFO, has a Masters in Accounting from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and an undergrad from the University of Virginia. She has been a practicing CPA for 18 years and also runs a small accounting and tax practice. Her background includes public accounting consultancy and internal auditing. Jessica currently works as an adjunct professor in tax and accounting, volunteers in local community groups, and sits on the Board of two not-for-profit organizations. Her greatest accomplishment is being a mother to five children and a wife of 20 years. Jessica ensures proper research of IRS codifications and relevant case law as well as conferencing with other personal property appraisers and industry leaders to ensure the mission of waste diversion shared by nonprofits, government entities, deconstruction contractors, and individual and corporate donors can be realized with utmost attention to detail from a tax standpoint.
https://www.thegreenmissioninc.com/
Nicole Grossberg co-founded Zero Waste NYC Workshop Series in August, 2019 to take action against climate change by educating people on how to live a low waste lifestyle. Nicole believes that by reducing consumption and diverting trash from landfills, humans can ultimately lower their impact on the planet.
With her workshop series she hopes to bring together the zero waste community in New York City and provide as many tools as possible to make zero waste an approachable way of life. Prior to her work in sustainability Nicole obtained a Masters degree and spent seven years in social media and event advertising.
https://www.zerowastenyc.info/
Duncan Campbell is the VP of Project Development at Scale Microgrid Solutions, where he focuses on deploying hybrid microgrid systems for commercial and industrial customers throughout North America. Additionally, Duncan co-founded the NYC DERs Meetup, a monthly education and networking forum for professionals in the distributed energy space.
Prior to joining Scale, Duncan was a Business Development Associate at ENER-G Rudox where he was responsible for leading the development of several high-profile distributed energy projects prior to the company's acquisition by Centrica. Duncan also has experience in the energy industry with Veolia Energy, Canterbury Road Partners, and UGI Utilities. Duncan holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Energy Systems from Temple University. In 2016, he earned a professional certificate in Energy and Innovation from Stanford University, and a professional certificate in Business and Financial Modeling from the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School).
https://www.meetup.com/NYC-DERs/
https://scalemicrogridsolutions.com/
VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER
Dr. Jenkins leads the team responsible for Enviva’s environmental stewardship, from guiding the development and implementation of policies that ensure the sustainability and traceability of the wood supply chain, to interacting with policymakers and other stakeholders on regulatory matters. With a technical background in carbon cycling and ecosystem science, she brings more than 20 years of experience working in government, academia, and the private sector at the interface between forests and climate. She holds a Ph.D. in ecosystem ecology from the University of New Hampshire, an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland’s RH Smith School of Business, a Master of Forest Science from Yale University, and a B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.
http://www.envivabiomass.com/
https://www.mnn.com/money/sustainable-business-practices/sponsorstory/meet-dr-jennifer-jenkins-nobel-prize-winning-scientist-behind-enviva
Katie Wallace is the founder of Hux Sustainables and Chief Marketing Officer at eCarra, an all electric car service. She is an international speaker, eco-entrepreneur, and consultant focused on building a more resilient world. She also does social media and content consulting, working with partners to raise awareness around sustainability, personal discovery, and mental health. Beyond that, she is an avid adventurer and host of an online series and podcast, Sustainable League, discussing what it really takes to build a more resilient world.
https://www.huxsustainables.com/about
Matt Myers is head of EarthxCapital. Matt is a climate trimtab and serial impact platform creator with a wealth of experience designing and driving strategic change within organizations and ecosystems to achieve large-scale, positive impacts on society and the environment. Matt is Founder and Director of the eCapital Summit, a platform convening private capital, cutting-edge environmental technology companies, ecosystem partners and government to form partnerships having substantial, positive impacts on people and the planet. Matt engages the federal government throughout the year and is Founder and Director of the Environmental Capital Task Force. Matt also advised the Inslee for America campaign on cleantech investment policy as well as several members of Congress on the IMPACT for Energy Act. Additionally, Matt founded EarthxHack, the world’s largest environmental innovation competition. Previously, Matt was a product manager overseeing the development of digital wealth management and e-commerce platforms for China Merchants Bank. Matt holds a Masters in Public Administration in International Development from Tsinghua University and is fluent in Mandarin.
https://earthx.org/conference/e-capital-summit/
https://earthx.org/
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
Amy is an Ontario native currently living in Victoria, BC. She received her Master’s Degree in Art History from Queen’s University before working as South Pond Farm’s Wedding & Event Coordinator where she was featured on the series Taste of the Country on Netflix. Growing up in lake country instilled a deep appreciation for the water at an early age and she was able to combine her passions of art and ocean conversation by founding Goldilocks.
https://goldilockswraps.com/
Charles Hernick is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions Forum in Washington, DC. Charles leads CRES Forum’s policy work and executes strategies to advance clean energy solutions and innovative approaches to reducing carbon emissions. Charles is an energy expert who understands emerging clean technologies, market barriers, and policies and regulations. For over a decade he has worked at the crossroads of economic development, energy, and natural resource management across the U.S. and on the ground in over a dozen countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He is also a climate change expert who has integrated climate change considerations into U.S. government programs and policies and has authored climate mitigation and adaptation best practice guidelines for over a dozen development sectors. Charles is a proud appointed member of the Maryland Clean Energy Center Advisory Council.
https://www.citizensfor.com/
Trey Bowles is Cofounder and Executive Chairman of the Dallas Entrepreneur (DEC) Center where he recently stepped out of his role as CEO. At The DEC lead strategy, vision, and drove the overall planning and development efforts for the DEC. Bowles cofounded and launched the Dallas Innovation Alliance, a public partnership to develop a Smart Cities initiative for the City of Dallas. Bowles is cofounder and Chairman of the Mayor’s Star Council which is created with City of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings to engage culturally diverse and civically minded group of young professions to make impact on the city. Trey launched an entrepreneurship department at SMU in the Meadows School of Arts where he still serves as an adjunct professor and most recently Bowles helped relaunch the next stage of the Startup America Partnership as the Startup Champions Network. SCN is national network of professional ecosystem builders working together to support entrepreneurs in their local regions. Most recently Bowles was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) as a special government employee by Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. Bowles, a serial entrepreneur, having built numerous organizations in both the for-profit and nonprofit space, lives in Dallas, TX with his bride and three kids.
https://thedec.co/
https://innocitypartners.com/
Thomas Ortman is the Chief Technology Officer for Voltabox of Texas, Inc., a subsidiary of Germany-based Voltabox AG, a publicly traded, multi-national corporation manufacturing electro-mobility solutions with highly engineered battery energy storage systems (BESS). These systems are applied in a broad cross-section of industrial sectors from municipal buses, mining, forklifts and agriculture to locomotives and e-bikes. Voltabox also provides BESS to stationary applications. Mr. Ortman served as CEO of Voltabox of Texas, Inc. from July 2018-July 2019. He also serves as Vice President of Voltabox of North America, Inc.,
Prior to Voltabox, Mr. Ortman was Founder, President and CEO of Concurrent Design, Inc., which was acquired by Voltabox in March 2018. Founded in 1994, Concurrent Design was an engineering consulting firm with core skills in industrial product development, manufacturing automation and test equipment. With a focus on the electronics, semiconductor and clean technology market segments, Voltabox is a natural segue. Mr. Ortman is a mechanical engineer and an expert in product design and development.
Thomas Ortman is also active in the following; Founding Member and Board Member, CleanTX; Member, Austin Regional Manufacturers Association (ARMA); Mentor, University of Texas IC2 Austin Technology Incubator Texas Venture Mentor Service (mentoring battery start-ups; Member, Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL). Prior roles include; Chairman, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Texas Chapter; Founder, Solar Energy Entrepreneur Network (SEEN), Advisor – Physical Sciences for Central Texas Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization (RCIC) of the Texas (State) Emerging Technology Fund (TETF); Member, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce Clean Energy Council (GACC CEC).
Lauren Clarke is the CEO and founder of Turn Compost. Turn is a DFW-based social enterprise with a vision to change how our urban environment is utilized. Turn works with consumers, businesses, and non-profits in ways which support sustainable development within our communities. Lauren's experience in Culinary school and the Texas A&M master gardener program opened her eyes to the whole issue of food waste and how horrible it is in our environment.
https://www.turncompost.com/
https://www.facebook.com/turncompost
https://www.instagram.com/turncompost/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/turndallas/
Brett Hogarth has held the position of Director of Business Development, Biomass Advisory Group for nine years. Over that time, he has lead new product development and marketing efforts, managed client relations, and structured work plans for over 250 biomass feedstock supply chain consulting projects across North America. Brett has been integral in identifying and executing on opportunities to leverage Ecostrat’s data and analytics to provide new and innovative solutions to meet the needs of stakeholders across the bio-energy industry. Brett holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto
https://ecostrat.com/
Tanya Peacock is a Public Policy and Planning Manager at Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), the largest gas distribution utility in the United States based in Los Angeles, CA. Tanya has served the gas company in this role for 5 years. Previously she was the Environmental and Policy Manager at SoCalGas for 2 years and the Regulatory and Rate Strategy manager for nearly 4 years. Tanya graduated from Mills College with a bachelor’s degree in English and went on to earn her master’s degree in regional planning from Cornell University. Tanya serves as a board member for a number of organizations including the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, MoveLA and the California Hydrogen Business Council. Her expertise lies in her deep understanding of policy analysis, regulatory affairs, legislative analysis, and renewable energy policy.
https://www.socalgas.com/
Landon started coding in junior high because he wanted to make video games, but over time I realized what I really wanted to do was make others happy. He saw technology as a tool to accomplish that mission, and came to the University of Southern California excited to build software. There Landon studied in a mixture of design, computer science, and business in the Iovine Young Academy. That's he met his cofounders Mimi and Ben. They launched Wren right after he and Ben graduated, on June 12, 2019, and it's been growing ever since. These days at Wren Landon still codes, but also spends a lot of time working with project partners and thinking about growth.
https://projectwren.com/
Julia Kumari Drapkin is the CEO and founder of ISeeChange. Dedicated to connecting communities to each other and their changing environment, Drapkin created ISeeChange after over a decade reporting natural disasters and climate change science across the globe and in her own backyard on the Gulf Coast. Drapkin currently serves on the board of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and is a consultant for the think tank Resources for the Future and NASA. Prior to journalism, Julia did research anthropology and archaeology for over 7 years in Latin America, where she geeked out on Mayan farmer’s almanacs.
https://www.iseechange.org/about/team
Sam is CEO and co-founder of Vert Asset Management. He also chairs the Investment Research Group. Sam leads the development of new products to help make sustainable investing easier for investors. He has been a featured speaker on sustainable investing at financial advisor conferences in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia.
Prior to launching Vert, Sam spent almost 20 years working at Dimensional Fund Advisors. He started Dimensional’s European Financial Advisor Services business and led the development and launch of Dimensional’s Global Sustainability Core Fund.
Sam has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an MBA in Finance from the University of California, Davis. Sam lives in Mill Valley, CA with his wife and three children.
http://www.vertasset.com/
Aidan is the CEO and a co-founder of Hazel Technologies, a post-harvest crop protection company making biochemical solutions to extend produce shelf life. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Northwestern University, where his doctoral work focused techniques to design and synthesize highly efficient catalysts for transformations of renewables.
He was a member of the Institute for Atom-Efficient Catalytic Transformations and the Institute for Catalytic Energy Processes. His interest in catalysis and energy led him to accept a role as the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN) chemistry fellow for 2014 – 2015. He developed an interest in applying his chemistry knowledge to agriscience, co-founding Hazel Technologies before completing his Ph.D. Aidan is one of the inventors of the Hazel® technology platform and a co-author on 20+ patents and filings. Under Aidan’s leadership, Hazel Technologies won the Clean Energy Challenge in 2016 and the VentureWell Sustainable Practice Impact Award in 2019.
Aidan and Hazel Technologies were recently named to ChicagoInno’s “50 on Fire” list. Aidan has raised more than $17.8 million in private equity for Hazel and helped Hazel obtain nearly $1 million in grant funding from ISEN, VentureWell, and the USDA. Most recently, the company completed its Series B finance round with lead investors Pangaea Ventures and S2G Ventures, featuring additional investments from Asahi Kasei Ventures and The Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust. Other investors in Hazel include Rhapsody Venture Partners, Serra Ventures, and Valley Oak Investments.
Hazel Technologies works with more than 100 grower/packer partners in more than 12 countries to date. In addition to his company duties, Aidan serves as an Advisory Board member at the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship at Northwestern, and as a member of the Board of Advisors for Lilac Solutions.
https://www.hazeltechnologies.com/
Blake Bassett is currently the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Step Tire. Step Tire is a trying to Give Hope Traction by reprocessing old car tires into soles for shoes. The mission of the company is not only to Give Hope Traction but also to “Teach a Man to Fish” by building self-contained manufacturing facilities that can be placed anywhere in the world to allow locals to learn how to make the soles and sell shoes. Prior to co-founding Step Tire, Blake was a small business lender and investor in small companies. He earned his BA from Texas Christian University. Blake has been married to his wife Meg for 18 years and they have three daughters and attend HPUMC.
https://steptire.com/
Dr. William M. Conlon, P.E., is the founder, and President of Pintail Power, and the inventor of the Liquid Air Combined Cycle™ (LACC) and Liquid Salt Combined Cycle™ (LSCC) technologies. Dr. Conlon’s track record of successfully managing innovation from concept through commercialization, includes Cheng Cycle Steam Injected Gas Turbines, and the Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector Solar Steam Generator. Since 2013, he has pioneered hybrid energy storage systems for utility-scale applications to address the CAISO Duck Curve and similar renewable integration problems around the world.
After receiving a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering and Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he joined Pacific Gas & Electric Company to manage development of the Operator Training Simulator for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. He then joined International Power Technology where he was responsible for I&C functions and developed the control systems for the first Cheng Cycle cogeneration power plants, which are still in operation at several California locations three decades later. He also led new product development, had a key role in operational improvement and supported international business, licensing and technology transfer.
Dr. Conlon led the technical turn-around of Ausra Inc., taking its CLFR technology to price-performance leadership in the solar thermal market. He was instrumental in the sale of Ausra to AREVA and the subsequent award of more than $1 billion of new business around the world. While Senior Vice President of Engineering at AREVA, he was responsible for Engineering, Commissioning and Operations teams on three continents.
Dr. Conlon is the holder of over 20 patents world-wide as inventor or co-inventor of technologies related to steam injected gas turbines, solar power, water treatment, and both cryogenic and high temperature thermal storage. He is a registered Professional Engineer in California and a member of ASME, IEEE, AAAS, and Sigma Xi. He also serves on the ASME PTC-53 committee for Performance Testing of Energy Storage Systems.
http://www.pintailpower.com/
Decarbonizing with Energy Storage Combined Cycles
Tracy Wallace is a justice warrior—environmental, social, economic—who believes access and equity are the cures to poverty. With tenacity and passion, Tracy works to connect those with the greatest need for employment to employers in the rapidly growing solar industry.
https://greencareersdallas.org/about/
Michael Beitler, Founder/CEO: 30yrs experience at IBM and Texas Instruments semiconductor engineering
Korina has over 20 years of experience leading teams on humanitarian missions to deliver humanitarian aid and facilitate sustainable projects in villages, relief camps, and orphanages around the world. She has lived abroad and loves to travel internationally. She considers herself to be a global citizen and speaks Spanish, Portuguese and (used to speak) French.
Korina has served as a public speaker in various capacities, including as an advocate for education. She spent the last several years as an Executive Director for an international trade network and a community service and advocacy non-profit organization in Dallas, Texas. She now serves as a consultant to nonprofits and social impact organizations with Greater Society Consulting.
Korina recently launched a website, called “The Conscious Citizen Effect”, designed to help us all learn to make more conscious consumer choices and everyday habits that are kinder our planet, animals and our local and global communities.
http://theconsciouscitizeneffect.com/
Roshan Vani is the COO of Nexus PMG, an engineering firm that specializes in built-to-spec solutions for large scale infrastructure projects
Mr. Vani is a Project Management Professional with experience in the EPC, EPCM & PMC industry working on large capital projects ranging in value from $0.5B to $11B in the Power and Mining & Metals industries. He has experience in managing lump sum and cost reimbursable contracts in North America and Saudi Arabia. Prior to starting Nexus he was a Risk Manager & Project Controls Manager for a Fortune 500 firm and subject matter expert in project planning (Primavera), schedule (Primavera Risk) risk analysis and cost risk (@Risk) analysis. Mr. Vani is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP certificate from the Project Management Institute) and holds a B.S in Electrical Engineering from the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.
www.NexusPMG.com
Hear the advice our previous guests have shared and then decide on the actions you want to take.
Dr. Luis Aguirre-Torres is President and CEO at GreenMomentum Inc., a market intelligence and innovation company focused on the Latin American cleantech industry. He is also President of Cleantech Challenge Mexico, Latin America’s top green business accelerator program.
He is considered an expert in clean energy, climate change and climate financing. In 2012 and 2013 he was recognized by the US President Barack Obama as Champion of Change and High Impact Entrepreneur for his work promoting the development of the cleantech industry in Mexico.
In 2017-2018 he was co-Chairman of the Board at LAC-CORE and since 2015 he has been Chair of the Energy Subcommittee of the US-Mexico Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council. Since 2014 he leads the Energy Sustainability Fund’s Specialized Services Office managing the Fund’s relationship with the Mexican Energy Innovation Centers. Early this year, he joined the Technical Council of the National Council of Science and Technology’s Added Business and Knowledge Value Subprogram.
He holds a first degree in Computer Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, an M.Sc. in Computer Science and a doctorate degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from University College London, University of London.
Elena Savostianova has over 15 years of professional experience in the energy and infrastructure sectors. Prior to Ember, Elena served as a Principal with Global Infrastructure Partners CAPS team, focusing on renewable energy opportunities. Before GIP, Elena spent nearly a decade as part of Credit Suisse’s Power and Renewables group where she was responsible for coverage of energy corporates with a focus on renewable energy and infrastructure, as well as financial sponsors active in the energy and infrastructure space. Her responsibilities included deal sourcing and execution of the complete capital stack, from equity transactions on the corporate side to senior secured debt underwritings at the asset level. Elena joined Credit Suisse in 2005. Prior to that Elena was a member of Deloitte’s Management Consulting division and the JPMorgan Chase Oil & Gas Investment Banking team.
Elena holds an M.B.A. from Yale University and a B.A. in Philosophy and Economics from Hamilton College.
https://ember-infra.com/
Allen Tsai is the Founder and CEO of Pani, a smart-home company inspired by his volunteer experience building water wells in rural Nepal. With a professional background in consumer electronics and IoT, Allen took inspiration from a lifetime of water conservation lessons to create Pani to advance the convergence of technology with water sustainability and efficiency. He’s spent nearly 20 years in the consumer electronics industry, having shipped millions of units of connected products through global brands such as Sony, Microsoft XBox, Panasonic, and Sonos. A multi-exit founder, Pani is Allen’s 6th startup, with Allen also having held leadership roles at large companies such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. When he’s not thinking about how to leverage technology to usher in the era of “decentralized water,” he spends his time with his wife and three kids, playing instruments, riding his motorcycle, and singing in the shower.
www.getpani.com
Scott Deatherage is a founding partner in the Austin law firm of Smith and Brown, LLP. Over the last 30 years, Scott has focused on environmental issues, energy, and climate change. For most of his career, he worked with large law firms in Dallas, but two years ago he formed his own firm and also began pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities.
He earned his B.A. in Letters from The University of Oklahoma in 1984 with highest honors, with minors in Botany and French, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1987 cum laude, where he served as the Articles Editor for the Harvard Environmental Law Review.
Scott was one of the founders of the American Bar Association’s Environmental Disclosure Committee. He has published a book entitled Carbon Trading Law and Practice, originally published by Oxford University Press. He has taught Climate Change Law at the University of Texas Law School.
Over the last 30 years of his career, Scott has focused on environmental issues, energy, and climate change. As a partner in nationally-known large law firms, he has advised clients in transactions, development, litigation, and government regulatory matters. He has also worked with companies in emerging technologies such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy storage. Scott has worked on over $5 billion of energy projects. His work with solar project developers has involved over 55 separate projects. Over the last few years, Scott has represented companies in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency mining, and smart contracts.
He has served and currently serves on several company advisory boards, including, Principal Solar, Crescendo Power, Alternative Resource Group, and AR3 Global. These companies are engaged in solar development, funding of solar and other renewable energy and energy storage projects, and blockchain applications to energy and environmental matters.
Dave is an advisor across Regulated Industries, Government, Tourism, Manufacturing, Human and Health Services. Dave develops and implement business strategies, policy changes, sustainability practises and generative growth with enabling technologies, efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
Dave supports business modernization with emerging technologies to enable sustainability, socioeconomic outcomes and generative growth., and is known for delivering talks that combine culture, human behaviours, socio-economics, psychology, and technology with current events, personal anecdote, and historical precedent—effortlessly transliterating the complex issues of technology out of the abstract and into operations.
Carlos St. James is a board member of the Latin American and Caribbean Council on Renewable Energy (LAC-CORE) in Washington, which promotes development of the industry, as well as a board member of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance (TREIA), based in Austin, Texas. With considerable experience in project finance, technical and non-technical project themes, sustainability issues and energy policy, he is a leading advisor to investors, developers and the public sector.
He is the publisher of the Clean Energy Review and he holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Peter Kelly-Detwiler has 30 years of experience in the electric energy arena. He writes for Forbes.com and other publications on topics related to disruptive innovation and its impact on the electricity infrastructure. He provides strategic advice to clients and investors, helping them to navigate this transitional period.
Mr. Kelly-Detwiler has spent much of his career in various areas of competitive power markets. As Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy, he oversaw creation of VirtuWatt – a market leading platform to facilitate real-time awareness of electricity pricing and consumption and bidding of assets into competitive markets. He is currently writing a book on the transformation of electric power markets, to be published by Prometheus Books in the Spring of 2021.
CB Bhattacharya is the H.J. Zoffer Chair in Sustainability and Ethics at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. He is a world renowned expert in business strategy innovation aimed at increasing both business and social value. His research and teaching focuses specifically on how companies can use underleveraged “intangible assets” such as corporate identity, reputation, corporate social responsibility and sustainability to strengthen stakeholder relationships and drive firm market value.
Prof. Bhattacharya has published over 100 articles and has over 28,000 citations per Google Scholar. His latest book entitled Small Actions Big Difference: Leveraging Corporate Sustainability to Drive Business and Societal Value was published by Routledge in 2019. He is co-author of the book Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Social Value and co-editor of the book Global Challenges in Responsible Business, both published by Cambridge University Press. He has served on the Editorial Review Boards and served as Editor of special issues of many leading international publications. Prof. Bhattacharya is the founder of the Center for Sustainable Business as well as the ESMT Sustainable Business Roundtable, a forum with more than 25 multinational members, aimed at discussing opportunities and challenges in mainstreaming sustainability practices within organizations. In 2007 he started the Stakeholder Marketing Consortium with support from the Aspen Institute.
Prof. Bhattacharya is part of a select group of faculty that has been named twice to Business Week’s Outstanding Faculty list. He has been recognized by both Thomson Reuters and Google Scholar as one of the top cited scholars in his field. He has won several best paper awards, teaching awards and research prizes. He was also a finalist for the Aspen Institute’s Faculty Pioneer Award in 2007. In addition, he received the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995, the highest teaching award at Emory University.
Prof. Bhattacharya has conducted research and consulted for many organizations such as Allianz, AT&T, Bosch, Eli Lilly, E.ON, General Mills, Green Mountain Coffee, High Museum of Art, Hitachi Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company, Prudential Bank, Timberland and Unilever. As an expert in corporate responsibility and sustainability, he is often interviewed and quoted in publications such as Business Week, BBC, Forbes, Financial Times, Newsweek, The New York Times and The Economist and on TV stations such as Times Now, CBS and PBS. He frequently delivers keynote speeches or brings in his insights as a panelist at company, industry, and academic conferences and conventions.
Book - Small Actions, Big Difference by Dr. CB
Architect David Hertz is the founder and president of David Hertz FAIA Architects, inc. and S.E.A., the Studio of Environmental Architecture, which he established as Syndesis in 1984 and skysource.org in 2016
David graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture Degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC) in 1983. In 2006 David was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from Sci-Arc. In 2008 David was elected to the prestigious American Institute of Architects College of Fellows as one of it’s youngest member in it’s over 155 year history.
David Hertz’ award winning work has been widely published and exhibited internationally some highlights include exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA),The Smithsonian Museums of Natural History and the National Building Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Museum as well as inclusion the Venice and Istanbul Architectural biennale’s, having won the American Architecture Award in 2009 and 2012 respectively. In 2018 David lead his team Skysource to become the Grand Prize winner in the Water Abundance XPRIZE out of a field of 98 teams from 27 countries to make 2,000 liters of water from air in 24 hours using 100% renewable energy at a cost of less than 2 cents/ liter. In 2019 Skysource’s WeDew was awarded the General Excellence award for Developing World Technology in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards which drew over 2,000 applicants.
https://www.skysource.org/
Aaron Ratner is a Managing Director at Ultra Capital. He as over 20 years of international investment, advisory and development experience focusing on technology, energy, waste and agriculture.
Ultra Capital specializes in supporting developers, corporations and public entities to successfully deploy projects across waste, agriculture, water and renewable energy.
www.ultracapital.com
Builder | Learner | Disruptor | Leader | Visionary | Giver | Father | Hacker
Currently Rock is the Co-founder and CEO of eCarra.com, a zero-emissions mobility platform that aims to reduce harmful emissions and accelerate the awareness of electric vehicles by pioneering electric car ride awareness, eCarra brings the growing tech-centric population and automakers together in real time.
After a successful 13 year career in the financial services industry Erik made his first company acquisition in 2006, a NC-based solar equipment distribution business. Soon after the acquisition Erik started a solar construction and development company, Argand Energy Solutions. Argand grew into one of the larger commercial installation and project development companies in the Carolinas. In 2014 the company completed a successful sale to York Capital, a large hedge fund. Branded under the name Entropy Solar Integrators, the company went on to build over 350MW of solar projects.
In late 2016 Erik started his latest venture, Leyline Renewable Energy, to finance the development of solar and biogas projects. The company is deploying capital into projects across the US.
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
For 30 years, Mike has focused on the design, staffing and strategies for winning communications programs. As Tigercomm’s founder, he counsels cleantech executives, investors and philanthropists on strategies for meeting their business objectives.
Mike is a top U.S. innovator and strategist on cleantech marketing and communications. He has presented at more than a dozen major conferences, and he writes frequently on clean economy topics at ScalingClean and Renewable Energy World.
Mike has trained more than 2,000 people on interview techniques, message development and public relations management. Before Tigercomm, he built winning communications programs for the National Environmental Trust and the Environmental Working Group, which he helped make “... dollar for dollar, demonstrably one of the most effective groups in Washington” (National Journal, 2/02). He is also a communications veteran of the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and two presidential campaigns.
https://www.tigercomm.us
https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/courses
Bill Bryson
Al Ries
Seth Godin
Simon Sinek
Frank Luntz
Alex Reed co-founded cleaning startup Truman’s following more than a decade at fan and light manufacturer Big Ass Fans, where he led an expansive marketing division that helped the company grow from $30 million in annual sales to more than $250 million.
With his innovative approaches, the company’s number of new customers increased nearly 40 percent annually. At the same time, customer loyalty became so strong that repeat business accounted for half of all orders.
Beyond marketing, Alex always pushed the company’s evolution and oversaw its expansion beyond a business-to-business strategy to business-to-consumer with the 2012 debut of Haiku, the first Big Ass Fan for homes. Within three years, the product developed into a full smart home division and achieved more than $50 million in sales.
After helping guide the company’s sale in 2017 for $500 million, Alex sought a new challenge and co-founded Truman’s with Big Ass Fans Chief Operating Officer Jon Bostock. The pair aims to upend the staid cleaning industry with the belief that cleaning should be green, simple, convenient and cost less.
https://www.trumans.com/
Sonal Patel is a national award–winning multimedia journalist who has, for more than a decade, covered a wide range of technology, business, and policy issues related to energy and the environment worldwide. She is currently a senior associate editor at POWER magazine, a 137-year-old trade publication dedicated to chronicling power generation history, currents, and advancements.
https://www.powermag.com/
spatel@powermag.com
Native Dallasite Michael Martin is a passionate and experienced leader for the widespread adoption of clean and safe solar power.
He wasn’t always this way as his first 2+ professional decades were in various business development roles in software/IT market segments. Upon becoming a solar entrepreneur in 2010, he likewise began advising start up companies in the areas of strategy, value proposition, sales and marketing, partnerships, go to market and pitching.These are his areas of knowledge and experience that he loves to put to good use with promising people and companies.
In parallel throughout his professional journey, Michael has been active, including board service and volunteering, with a wide range of non-profits such as schools, social service agencies, cancer foundations and environmental groups. Michael’s life is only complete when it includes doing good work serving his community…and when there is some fun involved!
Michael Martin has a long-standing passion for renewable energy. This is his calling to high-impact, purpose-driven work. After 20+ years doing cool and valuable B2B stuff in the information technology sector, Michael began his solar career in 2010 as founder/EVP of utility solar company Principal Solar, where he developed approximately 280 megawatts of projects valued at $500 million. Now, he directs his energy into serving early commercial solar adopters who are ready to lead with clean and safe on-site solar power in his home state of Texas. Michael has always been motivated to help companies adopt high-value solutions that enhance their positions as market and community leaders. When not doing these things, Michael is likely on his road bike at White Rock Lake or involved in some community service work…
www.mmsolaradvisory.com
Kimberly M. Britton is the Chief Executive Officer of EPIcenter, a nonprofit created by CPS Energy, OCI Solar, Itron and Lyndis+Gyr to focus on innovation in energy. EPIcenter drives thought leadership, convenes human intelligence, galvanizes alliances, and catalyzes new technologies and concepts in energy.
She has cultivated extensive relationships with energy industry leaders and incubators across the U.S., rapidly raising the visibility and reputation of EPIcenter.
EPI Center http://www.epicenterus.org/
Belt Eze http://www.belt-eze.com/
Jonathan is a founding partner of Intelis Capital and a member of its investment committee. Jonathan serves in all aspects of the firm’s operations, with particular focus on developing investment theses, creation of internal processes and systems, sourcing potential investments, providing operational and strategic support to portfolio companies.
https://www.inteliscapital.com/en
Jigar Shah is the President and Co-Founder of Generate Capital, the leading investment and operating platform for sustainable infrastructure. Founded in 2014, Generate Capital is the only “one-stop-shop” for pioneers leading the Resource Revolution. Prior to Generate, as the Founder and CEO of SunEdison (NASDAQ: SUNE), Shah pioneered “no money down solar”, which unlocked a multi-billion-dollar solar market and became the largest solar services company worldwide before its acquisition by MEMC. Shah’s decades of experience in renewable energy consistently show that business model innovation and entrepreneurship are two of the keys to proving that sustainability pays.
www.generatecapital.com
The Carbon War Room
Book - Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy
Dr. Arun Gupta is the founder and CEO of Skyven Technologies, a company decarbonizing the industrial sector with clean, emissions-free solutions for thermal energy. From building prototypes in his garage to winning the $1 million grand prize in New York State’s 76West Clean Energy Competition, Arun has pioneered both the technology and business of clean thermal energy. He holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas and earned his stripes in technology commercialization at Texas Instruments, Inc.
http://www.skyven.co/
Lynn Abramson is President of the Clean Energy Business Network – the small business voice for the clean energy economy. CEBN enhances opportunities for clean energy providers through policy support, business development, and market and technology education.
CEBN’s 3,000+ members span all 50 U.S. states and more than 350 Congressional districts. These business leaders work across a diverse suite of technologies and services in energy efficiency, renewable energy, natural gas, and other advanced energy and transportation sectors. Lynn leads the CEBN’s efforts to mobilize business voices in support of policy change, leverage case studies and narratives to illustrate the benefits of clean energy to the public and policymakers, and promote industry collaboration and networking.
Lynn previously managed the CEBN at its former home in The Pew Charitable Trusts from July 2013 until its transition to become an independent initiative of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy in May 2017. Before that, she worked in the U.S. Senate as a Senior Legislative Assistant on energy, natural resources, and transportation policy. She earned a B.A. in Biology from Boston University and a Ph.D. in Marine and Atmospheric Sciences from Stony Brook University, where her research on carbon cycle processes spurred her interest in advancing low-carbon energy solutions.
www.CEBN.org
A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle
Ben Hubbard is the CEO of Nexus PMG, an engineering firm that specializes in built-to-spec solutions for large scale infrastructure projects
Mr. Hubbard is a program management consultant experienced in business strategy, strategic development and construction management. He has a proven track record of leading domestic and international high-profile construction projects in fast-paced environments. His experience spans across multiple industries including mining & metals, operations & maintenance, power, forestry including wood pellet plants. Ben has the powerful ability to translate strategic organizational goals into clear operational plans leading to measurable results.
www.NexusPMG.com