Rob Aldrich

Senior Manager and Principle, Energy Efficient Solutions, Cisco Systems

Rob brings 10 years in facilities design, deployment and management experience to Cisco having designed IP-enabled power and cooling systems for more than 20 enterprise class data centers in North America and Asia Pacific. His current role at Cisco involves working with Cisco IT and product engineering teams to drive the "Green" agenda at Cisco. Rob has developed the Cisco Efficiency Assurance Program as a step by step methodology for Cisco customers to adopt more efficient IT operations.

Richard Barber

CTO and Vice President of Engineering, CarbonFlow

Richard Barber, CTO and Vice President of Engineering - Richard oversees CarbonFlow's engineering and product development teams. He has led or served as head of engineering for five successful technology startups on two continents, including during multiple exits. He joined CarbonFlow from Mindjet, where he was VP of Engineering for the global leader in visualization based collaborative software, including work on Open XML document standards. He had previously served as VP of Engineering and CTO of iKnowMed, a venture backed provider of electronic health records technology, and as VP of Engineering for Franz, Inc. Prior to moving to Silicon Valley Richard served as CTO and VP of Product Development for Scientia, a provider of scheduling software. He began his career helping launch a startup from Cambridge University in England, serving as chief architect and later CEO of Procyon, the creator one of the first cross-platform object-oriented visual development environments: Procyon Common Lisp. Acquired by Franz, Inc, the product line is the market leader (under the name Allegro CL).Richard holds Masters degrees in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science and a BS degree in Physics from Cambridge University, plus has several pending patents in collaboration software and data visualization. He has published numerous papers on artificial intelligence and object-oriented programming and authored BONES: An Expert System for Diagnosis with Fault Models.

Rob Bernard

Chief Environmental Strategist, Microsoft

Rob Bernard is the Chief Environmental Strategist for Microsoft and is responsible for defining and implementing the global strategy for the company's environmental efforts. In this role he will assess the company's environmental impact at all levels including: working with product groups to create innovations in software and hardware that can help enable customers to minimize their impact on the environment. In addition, Bernard also worked on Microsoft's project with the Clinton Foundation focused on measuring and tracking greenhouse gas emissions for the C40 cities, a tool that will be used by cities around the globe to measure and track their greenhouse gas emissions. He attended the Wharton School of Business where he earned his MBA. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Columbia University.

Jesse Berst

Managing Director, Global Smart Energy

Jesse Berst is Managing Director of Global Smart Energy one of the private-sector leaders of America’s transition to clean smart energy. Jesse is the author of the influential white paper "Electronomics: New Opportunities from the Transformation of the Electric Power Sector." GlobalSmartEnergy is a recognized authority on the smart energy revolution and the market opportunities it represents. Clients include Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Department of Energy, Global Environment Fund, the GridWise Alliance, Avista Utilities, and many others. GSE services include strategic research, white papers, mergers and acquisitions advisory and management of regional and national projects. GSE is also the publisher of SmartGridNews.com, the Internet’s top-ranked site for information about the ongoing $1 trillion remake of North America’s electric power infrastructure.

Kenneth G. Brill

Executive Director, Uptime Institute

Kenneth G. Brill is founder and executive director of the Uptime Institute, serving the owners and operators of the world's largest enterprise data centers. Many data center industry innovations over the last 25 years trace back to his original concepts of dual power, the tier system for evaluating and classifying performance, and IT/facility energy efficiency and productivity measurement. Brill’s research informs corporate leaders charged with business performance, profitability, and sustainability. With McKinsey & Co. as a knowledge partner, he launched comprehensive programs for dramatically cutting data center OpEx, CapEx, energy consumption, and carbon footprint in 18 months by benchmarking and controlling IT/facility energy consumption. Brill holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Redlands and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Erin Carlson

Director of Yahoo! for Good, Yahoo!

Erin Carlson is responsible for leading Yahoo!’s environmental strategy and corporate social responsibility programs. Erin inspires Yahoo!’s audience of over 500 million people to be more “green” in their daily lives through use of Yahoo! products. She recently guided the development of the Yahoo! Green site to encourage people to take eco-friendly actions and has driven the creation of Yahoo! Earth Day sites since 2005. Erin also rallied grassroots efforts by launching a Green Team of hundreds of employees around the world. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Erin worked at Nike Inc. in Apparel Sustainability and at Business for Social Responsibility as Environment Program Manager. She holds a BA in Human Biology/Environmental Management from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

Navin Chaddha

Managing Director, Mayfield Fund

Navin Chaddha is a proven serial entrepreneur, corporate executive and venture investor. Navin was named on the Forbes Midas List as a top 10 dealmaker in 2008 and as a top 100 dealmaker in 2007. He invests in the Internet infrastructure, Software, Enterprise infrastructure, Communications and Cleantech sectors in the U.S. and leads Mayfield’s investments in India. His current Mayfield investments include Consim Info, Gigya, Mimosa Systems, Seedfund, Tejas Networks, WiChorus and WideOrbit. Navin was founder and CTO of VXtreme, a streaming media software company that was acquired by Microsoft and became Windows Media. Navin holds an MS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University (received the Stanford and IBM Graduate Fellowships) and a B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi.

John Clark

Electric Vehicle Management, GridPoint

John Clark is responsible for the development of electric vehicle management solutions as well as strategic relationships with auto manufacturers for GridPoint, the pioneer of an innovative software platform to address today’s energy challenges while aligning the interests of electric utilities, consumers and the environment. Previously, he was President and Chief Executive Officer for V2Green, a smart grid technology company that controls the flow of electricity between the power grid and plug-in electric vehicles. It was acquired by GridPoint in 2008. Mr. Clark is an experienced entrepreneur and executive, having held senior roles in operations & deployment, business development, and sales & marketing. He holds a degree in computer science and business administration magna cum laude from Western Washington University.

Michael Copeland

Senior Writer, Fortune

Michael V. Copeland joined Fortune Magazine in September 2007. Prior, he had been a senior writer at Business 2.0 since April 2003 and covered the venture capital community, new technology, and startups. Along with Andrew Tilin, his story "The New Instant Companies" was recognized by the World Leadership Forum as the best business story in a magazine in the 2006 Business Journalist of the Year competition. Copeland was most recently a senior writer for Red Herring and authored features on venture capital, emerging technology, and management issues. Copeland was most recently a senior writer for Red Herring and authored features on venture capital, emerging technology, and management issues. Along with Lee Bruno, Om Malik, and Chris Locke, he was recognized by the American Society of Business Publication Editors in the Single News Article category for a Sept. 1, 2001, piece titled "Enron's Burnout." Before that, Copeland served as a senior editor at the Venture Capital Journal. and worked on the national desk at the Washington Post. He has been a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, Orange County Register, and Philadelphia Inquirer, and he has freelanced for several San Francisco Bay Area and national publications. Copeland has also developed environmental stories for television and radio.

Ron Dembo

CEO and Founder, Zerofootprint

Dr. Ron Dembo is the Founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, an organization dedicated to a mass reduction in global environmental impact. Zerofootprint provides software and services to individuals, governments, universities, and corporations that measures and manages carbon footprint and engages employees and citizens worldwide in combating climate change. Zerofootprint came in first place and won Gold in the Climate Change category at the Canadian Environment Awards in 2008.

Eric Dresselhuys

Vice President and Co-Founder, Silver Spring Networks

Eric has been with Silver Spring Networks since it was founded in 2002. Eric has more than ten years of experience in advanced metering and communications sales and marketing. He has held various roles in customer development, new product development and product introductions. Eric has presented a number of technical and commercial papers related to advanced metering and smart grid technologies and was a founder of OpenAMI. He currently serves on the board of directors of the DRSG Coalition (Demand Response and Smart Grid) and has served on the Automatic Meter Reading Association’s (AMRA) Marketing and Development Committee. Eric previously spent 9 years at Procter & Gamble in various sales and marketing roles. He holds a B.S. in economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Last summer Eric installed solar-powered lights around his home.

Dr. Albert Esser

VP of Data Center Infrastructure Group, Dell

Dr. Albert A. Esser serves as vice president of Power and Infrastructure Solutions at Dell responsible for the Infrastructure Product line, working with product leaders to maximize Efficiency, Productivity and Performance of Dell’s enterprise-class IT solutions. Prior to joining Dell, Dr. Esser held positions at Anzode, Daimler-Benz, Eaton Corporation, Emerson Network Power and Emerson Electric, General Electric and Hilti. Dr. Esser received his Diplom-Ing. (MS) and Dr.-Ing (PhD) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Aachen, Germany. He currently holds 12 US patents and has published a book on wireless transmission of electric power and signals for robots as well as numerous whitepapers and research on various topics related to power and cooling and data center technology.

Adrian Farley

Chief Deputy Director for Policy and Program Management, State of California

On May 20, 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Adrian Farley as Chief Deputy Director for Policy and Program Management for the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Prior to joining the Office of the Chief Information Officer, Farley served as the Interim Deputy Director for Procurement at the Department of General Services and the state's Chief Procurement Officer. While at DGS, Farley lead significant efforts to modernize the State's IT procurement process and deploy technology to transform back-office functions and consolidate multiple legacy systems. From 2003 to 2007, Farley served as Deputy Cabinet Secretary to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger where he was responsible for management oversight of eight Cabinet agencies and issues pertaining to infrastructure development, information technology, emergency management, homeland security, fiscal and tax policy, performance management and state operations.

Katie Fehrenbacher

Editor, Earth2Tech

Katie Fehrenbacher has been covering cutting-edge technology and startups in Silicon Valley for the past 7 years. She headed up the launch of Earth2Tech in July 2007. Prior to joining GigaOM, Fehrenbacher was a reporter at Red Herring, where she wrote about broadband. She was also one of the original editors at Engadget. Fehrenbacher began her career as a reporter in the Silicon Valley bureau of the largest Japanese daily newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Jonathan Gay

Founder, Greenbox Technology

Jonathan Gay is a founder of Greenbox Technology. He leads the product vision at Greenbox and believes that by measuring our resource usage and helping people choose to make their homes more efficient and comfortable, we can reduce energy usage. Prior to Greenbox, Jonathan founded FutureWave Software where he built FutureSplash Animator which eventually became Adobe Flash. After Macromedia acquired FutureWave, Jonathan led Flash’s development into the leading multimedia platform for the Internet and ultimately became CTO at Macromedia. Jonathan’s career started building games and graphics tools for early Macintosh computers at Silicon Beach and Software.

Saul Griffith

President and Chief Scientist, Makani Power, Founder, Wattzon.com

Dr. Saul Griffith has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating machines at MIT. He is the co-founder of numerous companies including Optiopia, Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons and Makani Power. Saul has been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Collegiate Inventor's award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize. In 2007, Saul was named a MacArthur Fellow. Saul holds multiple patents and patents-pending in textiles, optics, nanotechnology, and energy production. Saul co-authors a children's comic book-style series called HowToons, inspiring children of all ages with a curiosity for science and invention. Saul is a technical advisor and regular contributor to Make and Popular Mechanics magazines.

Paul Holland

General Partner, Foundation Capital

While heading the CleanTech practice at Foundation Capital, Paul's primary focus is on helping early-stage start-ups go from zero to $100M in revenue. He helped take public two venture-funded software start-ups, Kana Communications (KANA), and Pure Software (RATL). Paul currently serves on the board of directors for Bella Pictures, CalStar Cement, Conformia, Coverity, Edge Dynamics (acquired by iMany), Ketera, Serious Materials, and TuVox; previously for Talking Blocks (acquired by Hewlett-Packard)and RouteScience (acquired by Avaya). Prior to joining Foundation Capital, Paul was SVP of worldwide sales at Kana Communications, a leading supplier of Enterprise Relationship Management solutions. Paul received an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley; an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia; and a BS from James Madison University.

Jeremy Jaech

CEO, Verdiem Corporation

As CEO of Verdiem, Jeremy Jaech brings with him a brand of insight, leadership and market-creation strategy that has provided the impetus behind some of today’s most recognizable software applications, such as Microsoft Visio and Adobe Pagemaker. Most recently, Jaech served as co-founder and CEO of Trumba. Prior to Trumba, Jeremy co-founded Visio, where he served as President, CEO and Chairman of the Board from 1990 until its acquisition by Microsoft in 2000. Jeremy began his entrepreneurial path with the founding of the Aldus Corporation in 1984, taking the technical lead to develop the original PageMaker software. Following PageMaker’s success, Jeremy was appointed Aldus’ Vice President of Engineering and oversaw development of all Aldus products before it was acquired by Adobe.

Jason Karas

Founder & President, Carbonrally.com

Jason is the founder of Carbonrally.com – a year-old website that motivates people to reduce energy use and CO2 emissions through competitive game play. Recognized as a TIME Magazine best website of 2008, Carbonrally has attracted individuals and teams from universities, high schools, corporations, and other communities across the country. Prior to Carbonrally, Jason created a radical product development approach for European mobile carrier Orange. Through his program at Orange, Jason cut development times in half and shepherded 7 innovative products from concept through customer deployment. Jason received a Masters in Environmental Economics and an MBA from Duke University in 1997. Through Carbonrally, he is realizing his longtime goal to connect these two disciplines in a new venture. He lives in Boston with his family.

Paul Kedrosky

Senior Fellow, Kauffman Foundation

Paul Kedrosky advises the Kauffman Foundation as a senior fellow. In this capacity, he uses his experience as a technology entrepreneur, venture capitalist and academic to explore new programming opportunities for Kauffman in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation, and capital markets. Most recently, Kedrosky has been the executive director of the William J. von Liebig Center in San Diego, California. Using an innovative seed capital program, the Center catalyzes the commercialization of technologies from the internationally ranked University of California, San Diego. Kedrosky is a venture capitalist, media personality, and entrepreneur. He is a sought-after speaker; an analyst for CNBC television; a columnist for TheStreet/RealMoney; the editor of one of the best known business blogs on the Internet; and he is frequently quoted in major publications around the world. He has published more than 300 articles in academic and non-academic publications. Kedrosky obtained his undergraduate degree in engineering from Carleton University, his MBA from Queen's University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario.

Jonathan Koomey

Project Scientist and Professor, Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l Laboratory & Stanford Univ,

Jonathan Koomey is a Project Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Dr. Koomey is one of the leading international experts on electricity used by computers, office equipment, and data centers, and is the author or co-author of eight books and more than one hundred and fifty articles and reports on energy and environmental economics, technology, forecasting, and policy. He has also published extensively on critical thinking skills. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California at Berkeley, and an A.B. in History of Science from Harvard University. In 1993 he won the Fred Burgraff Award for Excellence in Transportation Research from the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board. He was named an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow in 2004 and an AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellow in January 2005. He has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, Science, Science News, American Scientist, Dow Jones News Wires, and the Christian Science Monitor, and has appeared on Nova/Frontline, BBC radio, CNBC, All Things Considered, Marketplace, On the Media, Tech Nation, and the California Report, among others. His latest solo book is Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving , now out in its second edition (April 2008). For more biographical details and a complete publications list, go to http://www.koomey.com.

Felix Kramer

Founder, The California Cars Initiative (Calcars.org)

Felix Kramer is an entrepreneur and environmentalist. Concentrating on innovative ideas, events and businesses in energy and technology, he builds ambitious and "first-ever" projects and companies. He pioneered in desktop publishing and wrote the first book on that business. One of the first online marketers, in '97 he started and in '01 sold eConstructors, the web development marketplace. In '02 he founded CalCars.org to put promote plug-in hybrid vehicles by technology demonstrations and advocacy. In '04 CalCars did the first Prius conversion and in '06 Kramer became the world's first non-technical PHEV consumer owner. The resulting broad campaign has contributed to many carmakers' decisions to build plug-in cars. A Board Advisor to several plug-in related companies, Kramer lives in Silicon Valley.

Raffi Krikorian

Co-Founder, Wattzon.com

Raffi Krikorian is one of the people behind WattzOn.com, a tool to help people quantify, track, compare, and understand the energy needed to support their lifestyle. Its stated goal is to help people find ways to reduce their roles in climate change. Krikorian is an engineer who has a passion for making technical details accessible to all: he has authored a book on hacking the TiVo, co-created the “Internet Zero” for device level inter-networking, and lectured at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (one of the US's top D-schols). Krikorian is the senior partner at Synthesis Studios, a software design and strategy consultancy, and holds a SB/MEng in EE/CS from MIT, and a SM from the Physics and Media group of the MIT Media Lab.

Scott Lang

CEO, Silver Spring Networks

Scott Lang, President and CEO, brings over 25 years of global leadership and innovation achievement to Silver Spring Networks. Scott is responsible for the vision, strategy and growth initiatives for Silver Spring Networks. Prior to Silver Spring Networks, Scott was an executive at Perot Systems, starting with the company at its founding and developing it to become a leading systems integrator with annual revenues over $2 billion with more than 20,000 employees globally. Earlier, Scott served in various systems engineering and managerial positions at Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS). He holds an Executive M.B.A. from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Mississippi, with a minor in Computer Science.

Rich Lechner

VP Energy and Environment, IBM

Rich Lechner was named vice president, Energy & Environment in September 2008. In this role, he leads IBM’s efforts in helping clients address the issues and opportunities around energy, the environment, and sustainability. He is responsible for defining strategy and managing the broad portfolio of capabilities and offerings that leverage IBM’s technology innovation, deep industry insight, and business process strategy. Mr. Lechner has a strong track record for driving key cross IBM initiatives that deliver value to clients of all sizes including virtualization, Project Big Green, and IBM’s New Enterprise Data Center Strategy.

Karl Lewis

Chief Strategy Officer, GridPoint

Karl Lewis is Chief Strategy Officer and responsible for new business initiatives, corporate partnerships and M&A activity for GridPoint, pioneer of an innovative software platform to address today’s energy challenges while aligning the interests of electric utilities, consumers and the environment. Previously, he served as COO. Prior to GridPoint, he held executive management roles at Cigital and Proxicom, where he helped fuel the growth of the Internet professional services firm to become a successful public company. Mr. Lewis first contributed to the emergence of the Internet space in 1995 at MCI, where he was responsible for the development and launch of marketplaceMCI, the Internet's first e-commerce shopping mall, and internetMCI. He holds a B.A. in economics from St. Mary's College of Maryland.

Richard Lowenthal

CEO, Coulomb Technologies

From 1998 – 2006 Richard Lowenthal was involved in starting several companies, including Lightera, Pipal Systems and Procket Networks. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Lowenthal was vice president and general manager of Cisco's WAN Access Products Division. From 1990 through 1995, Mr. Lowenthal was vice president of Research and Development for StrataCom, a telecommunications equipment company. Prior to StrataCom, Mr. Lowenthal was co-founder and vice president of Engineering for Stardent Computers, and vice president of Engineering for Convergent Technologies. Mr. Lowenthal is also a former Mayor of Cupertino, California and is currently Chair of the Board of the YMCA's of Santa Clara Valley. He has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Alexis Madrigal

Staff Writer, Wired.com

Alexis Madrigal is a newsman following energy, science, and green tech at Wired.com. His work appears in Dwell, Earth2Tech, Sierra Magazine, and the Sustainable Industries Journal and he’s spoken at SXSW, E3, and Webvisions. Trained as an analyst, he’s interested in defining how technology is changing human beings’ brains, consumption patterns, and environments. He\'s working on a book about the history of green technology in America. He lives in San Francisco, and he loves Twitter.

Om Malik

Founder, The GigaOM Network

Om Malik has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist covering technology and business news. He was a Writer at Red Herring during its glory days, then went on to be part of the founding team of Forbes.com as a Senior Editor. Most recently, he was a Senior Writer for Business 2.0, covering telecom and broadband stories. His contributions have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and MIT Technology Review. Additionally, Malik is the author of “Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist.” He is also the recipient of many industry awards, including Excellence in Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001 and the Gold Award from American Society of Business Publication Editors in 2001.

Kevin Marks

Developer Advocate, Google, Open Social

Kevin Marks is a Developer Advocate for OpenSocial at Google, bringing external developers and Google engineers together to make a better web. Over the last 20 years he's alternated between giant companies and founding startups - BBC, The UK MultiMedia Corporation, Apple QuickTime, Technorati and now Google. The common thread has been working out how people, computers and media can complement each other, and solving the engineering and social problems where they meet. He is one of the driving forces behind microformats.org and advisor to the Open Rights Group. He wants you to remember that URLs are people too, and his URL is http://epeus.blogspot.com

Bob Metcalfe

Founder, 3Com, Partner, Polaris Ventures

Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe joined Polaris Venture Partners in January 2001 and is a general partner in the Waltham office. While an engineer-scientist (1965-1979), Bob helped pioneer the Internet. In 1973, at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, he invented Ethernet, the local-area networking (LAN) standard – Internet plumbing – on which he shares four patents. Now, 35 years later, 350 million new Ethernet ports are installed each year, not counting WiFi. While an entrepreneur-executive (1979-1990), Bob founded 3Com Corporation, the billion-dollar networking company where at various times he was Chairman, CEO, division general manager, and vice president of engineering, sales, and marketing. While a publisher-pundit (1990-2000), Bob was CEO of IDG's InfoWorld Publishing Company (1992-1995). For eight years, he opined about the Internet in an InfoWorld column read weekly by half a million information technologists. He pontificated at conferences, on radio and television, hosted his own weekly webcast, and produced events including ACM97, ACM1, Agenda, Pop!Tech, and Vortex. Bob graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969 with bachelor degrees in electrical engineering and in industrial management. He received a master degree in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1970. In 1973, he received his Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, where his dissertation was Packet Communication.

Eric Miller

Chief Solutions Officer, Trilliant

Eric Miller is Chief Solutions Officer for Trilliant Incorporated. Eric's career in the energy industry spans more than twenty-five years, combining entrepreneurial, strategic, marketing, and product leadership in the areas of enterprise software, energy efficiency, customer data collection, renewable energy development, and wholesale power marketing. Eric joined Trilliant in late 2008 from Mohr Davidow Ventures, where he focused on investment opportunities in Smart Grid and energy efficiency. Prior to his position with MDV, Eric was Vice President of Software for Itron and Vice President of Strategy for Silicon Energy. He holds a MS in Resource Systems from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and a BA in Physics from Colorado College.

Rich Miller

President, Data Center Knowledge

Rich Miller is the founder and editor of Data Center Knowledge, a leading source of daily news and analysis about the data center industry. At DCK, Rich has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities. Rich has been closely tracking the data center sector since 2000. He has been a professional journalist and analyst for 25 years, working at daily newspapers before shifting to online publishing.

Gavin Newsom

Mayor, San Francisco

Gavin Newsom, 41, is the youngest San Francisco mayor in over a century. His strong commitment to environmental issues has led to San Francisco joining the Kyoto Protocol and Gavin is a strong proponent of Electric Vehicle technology. His official biography can be found here.

Dara O'Rourke

CEO, GoodGuide

Dara O’Rourke is the co-founder and CEO of GoodGuide.com, a revolutionary new platform for informing consumers about the environmental, social, and health impacts of products and companies. Dr. O’Rourke is also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research focuses on systems for monitoring the impacts of global production. Dara’s research has been featured in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Business Week, Newsweek, etc. Dara has served as a consultant to international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and a wide range of NGOs. He was previously a professor at MIT.

Christina Page

Director, Climate and Energy Strategy, Yahoo!

Christina Page joined Yahoo! in July of 2007 and is the director of Climate and Energy Strategy to overseeing the company’s data center design efficiency, clean tech and climate initiatives. Christina provides technical support to Yahoo!’s all-volunteer Green Team, an employee group that harnesses the collective energy of Yahoos around the world to reduce Yahoo!’s carbon footprint and improve overall environmental practices. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Christina was a senior consultant on the Energy and Resources Team at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a Colorado-based “think-and-do tank” founded by energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins. She has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from Brown University and a Masters in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Rolf Schreiber

RechargeIT Engineer, Google

Rolf Schreiber is an engineer with RechargeIT, a climate and energy initiative within Google's philanthropic arm, google.org. He was the technical lead for the RechargeIT Driving Experiment, a two month study comparing and contrasting Google's Toyota Prius and Ford Escape plug-in hybrid conversions with conventionally powered vehicles. He joined Google in April 2005 when Google acquired San Diego-based Urchin Software Corporation (now Google Analytics), where he was Director of Engineering Services. Though he has a long professional career in computer systems and network management starting as an undergrad at UC San Diego, he's had a lifelong passion for automobiles and is thrilled to have a dream job at Google working on plug-in vehicle technologies.

Will Semmes

Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of General Services, State of California

Will Semmes, Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of General Services, manages the strategy and operations of the State's real estate & asset management services (3,000 employees, $600 million operating budget) including facility construction, leasing, and management, the State Architect, Public School Construction, Fleet Management, and the State Printer. Will is the former Director of the California Conservation Corps, a state agency that trains young men and women to become productive citizens through hard work in environmental conservation. Before joining California state government, he was the co-founder of Acumins, Inc, an innovative nutritional product manufacturer. Will is a graduate of Tulane University and served as a platoon commander in the US Marine Corps.

Sunil Sharan

Director, Smart Grid Initiative, GE Energy T&D

Sunil spent eight years building clean energy businesses for Echelon and Terranova. As Echelon’s Energy Industry Manager, he grew his business unit to $100M by leading the development of new products, market channels and strong market-based value propositions. Sunil previously worked closely with global regulators and policy makers which played a critical role in passing the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Sunil holds a Master of Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, a Master of Science, Physics / Bachelor of Engineering, Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India and attended the John Monnet Program in Business & Economics, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France.

Gavin Starks

CEO, AMEE

Gavin is the founding Director of AMEE (http://www.amee.com). Gavin has blended novel business, technology, science and media concepts for more than a decade; and delivered tangible results. Leading projects with organisations as diverse as the UK Government, Google, BBC, Rolls Royce, LogicaCMG, Shell and Christian Aid, he has broad and deep knowledge of how data can change the world. He holds a BSc in Astronomy: working in Radio Astrophysics at the Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory; and a Master’s in Computer-Music (in 1993 he created and lectured new IEEE courses in Electronics and Music at Glasgow University, also developing internet-based research tools).

Erik Straser

Partner, MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures

With a decade of experience in venture capital, Erik has been a catalyst for Cleantech in Silicon Valley and abroad. He leads MDV's Cleantech investment team and applies his expertise in areas of solar, biofuels, energy storage, industrial biotech and clean coal. Prior to MDV Erik worked at Interval Research Corp., a technology incubator funded by Paul Allen, and at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member. He also consulted to several seed and early stage venture capital firms. While pursuing a PhD in engineering at Stanford, Erik led an interdisciplinary project between the electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering departments to develop a next-generation monitoring system for critical facilities. He holds a U.S. patent from his research work.

Andrew Tang

Senior Director, Smart Energy Web, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Andrew Tang is senior director, Smart Energy Web, for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Tang oversees Clean Air Transportation (including electric vehicles), Demand Response, and the Energy Information Network underpinning the Smart Energy Web. From 2005-2007, Tang was the Director of European WiMAX Solutions Development for Intel Corporation where he managed a team working with wireless carriers and ISPs to implement next-generation wireless data networks. Prior to Intel, Tang spent 15 years as an investment banker with Montgomery Securities, NationsBanc, JP Morgan and Greenbridge Partners. Over that time, Tang helped raised over $10 billion in growth capital and advised on over $2 billion of mergers and acquisitions in the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. Tang has a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Wesleyan University.

Martin Tobias

Founder and CEO, Kashless, Inc.

Martin Tobias is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a recognized leader in technology and renewable/green/cleantech who sees the powerful intersection of those worlds driving significant innovation over the next decade. In September 2008, Martin started Kashless, Inc. directly in the middle of sustainability and technology. Kashless leverages the internet, mobile technology, social networks and local partnerships to make finding stuff to reuse and recycling of your own stuff safe and easy. Previously Martin was the Chairman and CEO of biodiesel producer Imperium Renewables, a Venture Partner at Ignition partners, founder and CEO of Loudeye Technologies, and a Manager at Microsoft. You can find everything about Martin at his Blog http://deepgreencrystals.com

Bill Vogel

CEO and Founder, Trilliant Inc.

Bill Vogel has more than twenty-five years of sales, marketing, and business development experience in Automated Meter Reading (AMR), application services, and communications. His hand built teams have secured and managed more than $1 billion in systems and services transactions. Prior to founding Trilliant, Mr. Vogel was Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for Nertec. His background includes Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for CellNet Data Systems. He holds a BS in Economics from California Polytechnic State University.

Steve Westly

Managing Partner, The Westly Group

Prior to founding The Westly Group, he served as the Controller and Chief Fiscal Officer of the state of California. As Controller, he served on 63 other boards and commissions, including CalPERS and CalSTRS, the nation's two largest public pension funds. During his four-year term, Mr. Westly spearheaded innovative tax programs that helped close the State's budget deficit and also led an effort to commit more than $1 billion to clean technology investments. Before running for office, Mr. Westly helped guide the online auction company eBay through its period of most rapid growth, serving as the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Business Development, M&A and International. Mr. Westly holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where he served on the faculty for five years.

Alex Wissner-Gross

Co-Founder & CTO, CO2Stats

Dr. Alexander D. Wissner-Gross is an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University and the Founder and CTO of CO2Stats, the world's largest environmental certification service for websites. He has authored 14 publications, received 82 national and international distinctions, and been issued 7 full and pending patents. His research has been covered in Technology Review, BusinessWeek, USA Today, Scientific American, and The New York Times. In 2003, Alex became the last person in MIT history to receive a triple major, with bachelors in Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics, while graduating first in his class from the MIT School of Engineering. In 2007, Alex received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard for breakthrough work on programmable surfaces, which dramatically increased the computational versatility of a range of materials.

Jason Wolf

VP of Business Development, Better Place

Jason Wolf heads Business Development for Better Place California. In this role, he forms strategic partnerships in an effort to create infrastructure for the mass adoption of electric vehicles. Wolf brings more than 11 years of management experience in the IT industry, having held various positions in strategic planning, product rollouts, sales and services. In his last role, Wolf served as president of Sterna Technologies USA, the pioneer of Business Positioning Systems. Prior to joining Sterna, he held a number of positions during a 10-year career at SAP AG, including senior vice president of Strategic Initiatives and senior vice president of New Product Introductions. Wolf holds a B.A. in Economics and Psychology from the University of Tel-Aviv, and an MBA from San Jose State University.

Mark Zanoli

Managing Director, JP Morgan

Mark is a Managing Director and Head of J.P. Morgan’s Cleantech Investment Banking practice. Mark's 15 years of investment banking experience includes M&A, raising public equity through IPOs and secondary offerings, raising private equity for public and private companies, raising high-yield debt, loan and bank syndications, convertible equity financings and a variety of derivative financings. As Head of the cleantech investment banking practice, Mark’s clients include Uni-Solar, LDK, Ascent Solar, among others. Within the technology sector, Mark’s clients include Cisco, Intel, Texas Instruments, Seagate, Symantec, HP, Dell, Apple, and Oracle, among others. Mark is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Steve Burt

CEO, EQ2

Steve is an experienced business executive with a highly successful background in business. He has held positions in Dun & Bradstreet and British Petroleum, worked on change management projects with both Bain & Co and McKinsey, and provided strategic management on a multi-billion pound diverse business conglomerate. He has a unique skill set developed through working with private and public organizations, involving boards, shareholders, politicians, unions and NGO’s. He has managed large complex contracts and advised on health, safety, environmental costs and risks across industry. He introduced and launched retail stores in over 200 heath club locations in the UK, USA and Europe as well as co-authored the operating standards for those establishments, becoming the first person to implement ISO 9001 in the industry. He has been retained by technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, print, publishing, oil, mining, brewing, retail and property organizations to advise on sustainability strategy and planning. One of the largest projects he recently led involved measuring, reporting and advising on the environmental impacts and reduction targets for the second largest global airline provisions company, which service some 250 airlines. He designed and led the global implementation plan, advised on communications and was the key CSR advisor for a £1.8 billion contract. Steve has first hand experience in contract services, financial information systems, risk management and environmental and sustainability strategies. He is systematic, structured and a lateral thinker.

Lori Duvall

Corporate Sustainability Manager, Sun Microsystems

As Corporate Sustainability Manager at Sun, Lori Duvall drives initiatives both outside and inside the company focused on enhancing Sun's reputation as a leader in environmentally responsible business. Some of her current projects include assessing Sun's carbon footprint and implementing programs to reduce it; continually evolving Sun's internal operations to be more sustainable and eco-friendly; and promoting transparency around Sun's environmental impacts and improvement programs. Lori led the development of OpenEco.org, a global on-line community that provides free, easy-to-use tools that help participants assess, track, and compare energy performance, share proven best practices to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and encourage sustainable innovation. She is currently the OpenEco.org community manager. Lori has a degree in Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology from the University of Colorado. Before joining the technology industry in 1998, she spent nine years as an environmental consultant, specializing in air quality. Her roles in high tech have included product and strategic program management, as well as marketing programs management.

Gil Friend

President and Chief Executive Officer, Natural Logic

A systems ecologist and business consultant with more than 35 years in business, communications and environmental innovation, Mr. Friend combines broad experience in systems ecology, business strategy and management, economic development, public policy, and marketing. He has founded and managed companies in the fields of sustainable development and social marketing, and has developed management strategies and business, operating and marketing plans for large and small companies in a wide range of industries. He was a founding board member of internet pioneer Institute for Global Communications, and played key or founding roles in such seminal environmental enterprises as EcoNet, GreenLine, the California Office of Appropriate Technology, and Buckminster Fuller’s “World Game.” He was co-founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, one of the nation’s leading urban ecology and economic development think-tanks. Mr. Friend has written extensively and lectures widely on sustainability issues. He holds an MS in Systems Ecology from Antioch University, a black belt in Aikido, and is a seasoned presenter of “The Natural Step” environmental management system