Dan Adler, Vice President, Policy, Energy Foundation
As Vice President, Policy, Dan Adler leads the Energy Foundation’s Policy team to design and advance new policy frameworks that build markets for clean energy. He and his team focus on multiple program areas, including transportation, buildings, utility-scale generation, distributed energy resources, energy efficiency, and cross-cutting issues such as finance, new industry business models, and wholesale market reforms.
Prior to joining Energy Foundation, he was managing director of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) and president of CalCEF Ventures, a nonprofit, evergreen investment fund created to advance the clean energy economy using tools from venture capital and project finance. Prior to CalCEF, Dan helped design and implement California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard at the California Public Utilities Commission and was senior staff for climate change policy.
MayKate Bullen, Associate Director - Sustainability & Communications, New Forests
MaryKate Bullen leads sustainability and communications for New Forests, a forestry investment manager focused on investing to create productive and sustainable landscapes with more than USD 3.7 billion in assets under management. MaryKate is responsible for strategic planning and implementation of responsible investment and impact initiatives, as well as oversight of the company’s Social and Environmental Management System. She also leads corporate communications and media relations across New Forests globally. MaryKate joined New Forests in 2008, originally in the company’s advisory services team and subsequently developed and managed New Forests’ research program. She has worked in each of New Forests’ regional offices in Sydney, Singapore, and San Francisco. MaryKate has a B.A. in Anthropological Sciences (Honors) and a M.A. in Latin American Studies from Stanford University.
Marisa de Belloy, Executive Director, Overlook International Foundation
Marisa is Executive Director of the Overlook International Foundation where she helps fund climate change mitigation technologies and strategies globally with a current focus on the US and Southeast Asia. Marisa also serves as CEO of Cool Effect, a carbon credit platform. Marisa’s background includes investment banking, strategy consulting and human rights work. She was previously the CEO of Cool Effect and COO of Made in a Free World, a SaaS solution for human trafficking. Before that, she created and ran a highly successful media & technology practice at investment banking firm Michel Dyens & Co. based in Paris and co-founded and ran Fotango, an online photo sharing site funded by leading European VCs that was later sold to Canon Inc. She has worked at Goldman Sachs and the LEK Partnership and taught M&A finance at a French university. Marisa speaks fluent French and English and has spent over 15 years working in Europe. She serves on several nonprofit boards in the Bay Area where she resides with her husband and four children. Marisa received her MBA from Stanford University and her BA from Yale.
Emmy Cattani, Board Member, Famoso Nut Company, Farm Breeze International and the Tejon Ranch Conservancy
Emmy Cattani is a fourth generation member of her family's agricultural business, based in Kern County, California. Her family business operations include farming, cattle ranching, real estate and investing in agriculturally-based businesses. Prior to returning to her family business in 2009, Ms. Cattani worked as a consumer products private equity investor, as a management consultant and in strategy for a tech start-up. Ms. Cattani serves as a Director on the Boards of the Famoso Nut Company, Farm Breeze International and the Tejon Ranch Conservancy and is a member of The Nature Conservancy’s California Leadership Council and the San Joaquin Valley Advisory Board for Sustainable Conservation. She previously served on the Board of the Sequoia Riverlands Trust, the Central California Advisory Council for the Bureau of Land Management and as an advisor to the Public Policy Institute of California on their study, “Water and the Future of the San Joaquin Valley”. Ms. Cattani received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and her Bachelors of Arts from Harvard University.
Aimée Christensen, Director, Christensen Family Office
Aimée Christensen is Founder & Executive Director of the Sun Valley Institute, a Center for Resilience, and CEO of Christensen Global Strategies, developing solutions for a resilient world. She has twenty-five years’ experience in policy, law, investment, philanthropy and business including with Google, the World Bank, Baker & McKenzie, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
At CGS, she advises corporations, investors, governments, philanthropists and organizations worldwide, including the Clinton Global Initiative, Duke Energy, FEMSA, Global Ocean Commission, Microsoft, Ogilvy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Swiss Re, United Nations and Virgin. In 2012 she served as Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary General's High-level Group on Sustainable Energy For All. She advised Virgin Unite in shaping three of Sir Richard Branson’s major initiatives: The Elders, The Carbon War Room, and The B Team. As “Climate Maven” at Google, she guided the company’s early climate change initiatives including a commitment to carbon neutrality, launching Google.org’s first climate project, RechargeIT, to accelerate the electrification of transportation, and successfully lobbying for AB32 in California (the Global Warming Solutions Act). While in law school she wrote and gained adoption of the first university endowment investment policy on climate change (Stanford University, 1999), At the Department of Energy, she drafted and negotiated the first bilateral and regional climate change agreements (U.S. – Costa Rica, Summit of the Americas, Argentina, Bolivia, Central America, Chile, et al., 1994-1998).
Tim Dunn, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, Terra Alpha Investments
Tim co-founded Terra Alpha Investments LLC. He designed and oversees the firm’s investment processes, funds, and operations. Tim has over 30 years of experience in investment management. He spent the majority of his career at one of the largest active investment management firms in the world, Capital Group Companies. At Capital, Tim was one of the lead portfolio managers for many of the firm’s largest and most successful funds including Growth Fund of America, Capital World Growth and Income Fund, and EuroPacific Growth Fund. In total, Tim had direct responsibility for over $26 billion in client assets. During his 19 years at Capital, Tim lived and worked in Los Angeles, London, and Washington, DC. Throughout his career he has travelled extensively around the globe to build his expertise via on the ground research and meetings with company management teams and policy leaders.
Kate Gordon, Director, CA Governor's Office of Planning and Research
Kate Gordon is a nationally recognized expert on the intersection of climate change, energy, and economic development. Gordon was appointed Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research by Governor Gavin Newsom on January 7, 2019. Prior to being appointed Director, Gordon was a Senior Advisor at the Paulson Institute, where she oversaw the “Risky Business Project,” focused on quantifying the economic impacts of climate change to the U.S. economy, and also provided strategic support to the Institute’s U.S.- China CEO Council for Sustainable Urbanization. She was also a nonresident Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and an advisor to Duke University’s Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment.
Earlier in her career Gordon served as Vice President for Climate and Energy at the Center for the Next Generation, Vice President of Energy and Environment at the Washington D.C.-based Center for American Progress, and Co-Executive Director at the national Apollo Alliance (now part of the Blue Green Alliance).
Gordon earned a law degree and a master’s degree in city planning from the University of California-Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.
Kim Foley, Director of Investor Relations, Ecotrust Forest Management
Kim Foley, Director of Investor Relations, leads the capital raising and investor relations efforts and joined EFM (Ecotrust Forest Management) in 2019. She brings over 15 years of experience in developing and serving investors including roles as Director of Institutional Services at Jensen Investment Management, Consultant Relations at Capital Group and Institutional Services at Dimensional Fund Advisors. Kim started her career in Investment Operations at Dimensional Fund Advisors, has an MBA from University of Oregon and BA from Portland State University. She holds the CIMA® certification through the Investment and Wealth Institute and is a member of the Portland Women in Investment Management.
Danny Kennedy, Managing Director, California Clean Energy Fund, Confluence Board Member
Danny Kennedy leads the California Clean Energy Fund, connecting entrepreneurs everywhere to capital to build an abundant clean energy economy that benefits all. This includes overseeing the CalSEED.fund of $25m for very early stage companies driving innovation and building equity in the California economy. Additionally, CalCEF runs a network of incubators and accelerators globally called New Energy Nexus. Kennedy is also the President of CalCharge, a public-private partnership with DoE National Labs and universities in California, unions and companies, working to advance energy storage.
Kennedy co-founded Sungevity in 2007, the company that created remote solar design, and Powerhouse, a smart energy incubator and accelerator. He was the first backer of Mosaic in 2011, the $2B solar loan provider, and remains on the Board of Powerhive, a solar mini-utility in Kenya and Sunergise, a solar-as-a-service business out of Fiji and the EnergyLabAustralia. He is also a Director of the organizations VoteSolar and Power for All. Kennedy authored the book Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy – and Our Planet – from Dirty Energy in 2012. Prior to being an entrepreneur, he worked at Greenpeace and other NGOs on climate and energy issues for 20+ years.
Alycia Kellman, Chief Legal Officer, SunFunder
As SunFunder's lawyer, Alycia manages all corporate legal matters and structures the debt funds for SunFunder's solar loans. Prior to SunFunder, Alycia was the Vice President of Legal & Compliance at the Grassroots Business Fund. Alycia previously consulted for FINCA International in Amman, Jordan and worked as a project finance attorney at Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. She holds a law degree from Georgetown University, a master's degree in human rights and democratization from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and a bachelor's degree in political science from Yale University. Alycia has served on the boards of Women LEAD Nepal, Friends of IDASA, and the advisory boards of the New Markets Lab and the Georgetown Law and International Development Society.
Gabriel Kra, Managing Director, Prelude Ventures, and CREO Board Member
Gabriel Kra co-founded Prelude Ventures in 2013, after almost 25 years as an investor, entrepreneur, scientist, and activist. He is responsible for overseeing the firm’s investments in advanced energy, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, advanced materials and manufacturing, and advanced computing. Gabriel serves on the Board of Directors for Renew Financial, Ripple Foods, Sense Labs, PLANT PV, Natron Energy, ClearMetal, Raxium, and Form Energy, and is active with Metalenz, Zymergen, Planet, QuantumScape, Catalog and Spark Thermionics. Gabriel also serves on the Board of Directors of Activation Energy and The CREO Syndicate, and on advisory boards for Cyclotron Road, Prime Coalition, and Carbon180.
Gregory Lopez, Climate Program Director, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation
Gregory directs LDF’s Climate Program, supporting innovative climate change solutions around the world. Previously, he served as a project manager for low-carbon, economic development projects, and as a director for a Smart & Sustainable Cities Program.
Paul McMahon, Co-founder and Managing Partner, SLM Partners
Paul McMahon is a co-founder and Managing Partner of SLM Partners, an asset management firm that uses investment capital to scale up regenerative, ecological farming and forestry systems. SLM Partners is building a team in New York and developing a new investment strategy to scale up organic row crop production in the US. It is currently acquiring and managing farmland in the US Midwest on behalf of 2 investors and plans to launch an organic farmland fund in 2020. The firm manages two other funds: the SLM Australia Livestock Fund, which has acquired more than 1 million acres of land in Australia for grass-fed cattle production; and the SLM Silva Fund, which invests in sustainable forestry in Ireland. SLM Partners has $125m in assets under management.
Previously, Paul was Vice-President at Climate Change Capital Ltd, where he led a team developing a strategy for a global farmland fund. Before that, he was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company in New York. He has published a book on the global food system (Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food), as well as a white papers on investing in ecological farming and sustainable forestry. Originally from Ireland, Paul holds a PhD from Cambridge University and a BA from University College Dublin.
Shilpa Patel, Director of Mission Investing, ClimateWorks Foundation
Shilpa Patel is Director of Mission Investing at ClimateWorks Foundation. She works with partner foundations on the design and implementation of mission investing strategies and programs focused on climate change mitigation. Shilpa has a development banking, project finance and climate policy background. She started her career at the World Bank, where she worked on private sector development across a number of sectors, regions, and economies in transition, and headed the International Finance Corporation’s work on climate strategy and metrics, including understanding the climate change impacts of its activities, as well as the impacts of climate change on private business and IFC’s operations. She has also consulted with a number of organizations on climate finance.
Dr. Jean Rogers, Founder, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and Member of the Terra Alpha Investments Advisory Board
Dr. Jean Rogers is the Founder of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), which she also led in various capacities for seven years, including as Chief Executive Officer (2011-2017) and Chair of the Standards Board (2017-2018). She is a 2018 INSEAD Society of Progress Medal Laureate, and has been named by Barron’s as one of the Top 20 Influencers of Sustainable Investing in 2018. She was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today in 2015, 2016 and 2017. She is a former Loeb Fellow at Harvard University, and holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering from Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY, and a PhD in environmental engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California.
Founded in 2011 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, SASB is dedicated to enhancing the efficiency of global capital markets by fostering high-quality disclosure of material sustainability information that meets investor needs and enhances public trust in companies. Conceived during groundbreaking research conducted by Rogers and her colleagues at Harvard University’s Initiative for Responsible Investment, the concept for SASB as “market infrastructure” evolved under Rogers’ entrepreneurial leadership from a self-funded start-up into a globally-respected, independent standard-setting organization with a staff of 35 and an annual budget of $8 million.
Ted Roosevelt, Founding Partner, Redwood Grove Capital
Mr. Roosevelt is a co-founding partner of Redwood Grove Capital a thematic, value public equity fund that seeks outperformance in the era of climate change. From 2010 to 2015, he served as a Managing Director at GoldenTree Asset Management, a hedge fund specializing in high yield, distressed and structured credit investments with $24 billion dollars in assets under management. From 2001 to 2010, Ted worked as a Senior Vice President in Lehman Brothers’ and Barclays Capital’s Distressed Research and Leverage Finance Groups. Prior to that, he was a Management Consultant at Accenture.
He is the Vice Chair of the board of directors of EcoAmerica, and serves on the President’s Council for the Woods Hole Research Center. He is also a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation executive committee. He has served on the board of directors of the New York League of Conservation Voters, and the American Bison Coalition which successfully lobbied to make the Bison the official mammal of the United States.
Ted has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Princeton University and a Master’s in Business Management and Credentials in Public Management and Social Innovation from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Alicia Seiger, Lecturer, Stanford Law School and Managing Director, Stanford Sustainable Finance Initiative and the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance
Alicia Seiger is a lecturer at Stanford Law School and Managing Director of both the Stanford Sustainable Finance Initiative and the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance. Leveraging her sector expertise and operational experience, Alicia develops climate-related solutions, research and engagement across Stanford Law, Graduate School of Business and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Her course “Climate: Politics, Finance and Infrastructure” prepares Stanford law, business and engineering graduate students to lead in the face of climate disruptions.
In 2018, Alicia was appointed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to serve on the first-ever Decarbonization Advisory Panel for the $210 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund. She also serves on the boards of Ceres and PRIME Coalition, and co-founded Stanford Professionals in Energy (SPIE). In 2014, she created Investing in a New Climate, an investor workshop series to help asset owners manage climate risk and capitalize on innovation opportunities.
Alicia has been designing and executing climate and energy strategies for businesses, foundations, investors, and NGOs since 2004. She has served on the management teams of multiple startups, including at TerraPass, a pioneer of the US carbon offset market, and Flycast Communications, one of the world’s first web advertising networks. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she also worked as a case writer for the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, and a BA in Environmental Policy and Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.
Kat Taylor, Co-Founder, Beneficial State Foundation and Co-Founder and CEO, Beneficial State Bank
Kat Taylor works in service of restoring social justice and environmental well-being to build a more equitable and inclusive world. Kat is active in a variety of social enterprises and philanthropic ventures on the West Coast focused on deep systems change. Currently, she serves as Co-Founder and CEO of Beneficial State Bank, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and certified B Corporation whose mission is to bring beneficial banking to low-income communities in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner – and to change the banking system for good.
Kat is also a Founding Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF), dedicated to inspiring a sustainable food system through ranching, training, tours, research, and school food and garden programs. TKREF owns the social enterprise LeftCoast GrassFed, humanely raising cattle and other livestock for the benefit of healthy soils. Kat serves and has served on many non-profit boards including, Ecotrust, Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, ProPublica, CuriOdyssey, CBDA, Forager, and CuriOdyssey. She graduated from Harvard College and earned a JD/MBA from Stanford University. Tom Steyer, Kat's climate/energy/justice activist husband, and she have four grown children, each pursuing their one wild and precious life, too.
Thomas Van Dyck, Managing Director - Financial Advisor, SRI Wealth Management Group, RBC Wealth Management
Thomas has been a leader in the field of socially-responsible investing for more than 30 years. In 1992, he founded As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy organization, which engages corporations on environmental, human/labor rights and corporate social responsibility initiatives. In 2014, Thomas was a featured guest on Bill Moyers and Company and discussed the Divest/Invest movement which he helped initiate with his clients. In 2013, he was named one of the Financial Times’ Top 400 Financial Advisors. He was also a featured speaker at the TedX Wall Street conference in 2012 and provided his expertise on SRI investing, which incorporates environmental, social and governance factors in institutional/individual client portfolio management to help lower risks and potentially improve returns. Thomas graduated from Duke University in 1980 with a B.A. in Political Science. He is a member of the advisory board at Center for Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua Business School. He is a Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) and holds his Series 7 and Series 66.
Bettina von Hagen, Co-Founder, CEO & Managing Director, Ecotrust Forest Management
Bettina helped launch EFM and joined the company as CEO in 2008. Bettina has spent the past 30 years working to promote economic viability, social equity, and environmental health in the Pacific Northwest with a particular focus on forestry. A former vice president of Ecotrust’s Natural Capital Fund and commercial banker, Bettina has over 30 years of experience in banking, impact investing, and fund management. She also has significant expertise in ecosystem service markets, particularly the forest carbon market, where she is involved in developing protocols for forest carbon projects at the state and federal levels. Previously, Bettina was Vice President at Ecotrust for forestry programs and for the Natural Capital Fund, a fund which invests in key businesses and initiatives in the conservation economy. Prior to joining Ecotrust in 1993, she was a vice president and commercial lender at First Interstate Bank of Oregon. Bettina has an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Sanjay Wagle, Co-Founder and Managing Director, The Lightsmith Group
Sanjay Wagle is co-founder and Managing Director of The Lightsmith Group, a private equity firm pursuing sustainable investments that address critical societal needs. Sanjay has over 20 years of experience in investing, company management, and government focused on clean energy, resources, and climate. Sanjay’s investing experience includes eight years in venture capital and growth equity. He was the first Principal in the CleanTech Group at VantagePoint Capital Partners, which invested over $1 billion in 25 companies in electric vehicles (notably, Tesla Motors), solar, storage, smart grid, green buildings, water, and sustainable agriculture. In the first three years of the Obama Administration, Sanjay served as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy, overseeing the implementation of $15 billion in programs for clean energy and climate and serving as the Associate Director for Commercialization at ARPA-E, the advanced research agency for energy. Sanjay has also served in senior executive roles with several sustainable technology companies, including Diamond Foundry (lab-grown diamonds), Soligent (solar distributor), and TerraVia (biotechnology for sustainable food oils). Sanjay holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.