A special panel discussion for startup founders and investors.
Climate Tech and Renewable Energy
Hosted by Foley & Lardner, and 4thly. Listen below.
Climate is a threat to the planet, and an area of great opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors to be part of the solution. Last year saw over $70 billion in venture capital invested in Climate Tech ventures, and renewable energy funding tripled over the previous year. There are huge opportunities for founders and investors in this sector, as climate resilience becomes a growing imperative worldwide. Join us as a panel of experts discusses all this and more. Register now.
Panelists:
Kathleen Egan
Kathleen Egan is Co-Founder and CEO of ecomedes, a vertical SaaS solution for cost-effective, sustainable commercial building products and projects. She’s also leads the board of The 5 Gyres Institute, focused on empowering action against the global health crisis of plastic pollution through science, education, and advocacy. An active angel investor in the climate sector, she holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS IE from Lehigh University.
Kristin Wegner Guilfoyle
Kristin Wegner Guilfoyle has over 15 years experience at the intersection of the environment, technology, society, and equity and justice. She’s worked across technology, national labs, and nonprofits, leading teams to solve complex challenges related to climate change, clean water, health, and policy. She currently works at the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and is the CleanTech co-chair for the Keiretsu Angel investment group.
Louis Lehot
Louis Lehot is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley offices, where he is a member of the Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A and Transactions Practices as well as the Technology, Health Care, Life Sciences and Energy Industry Teams. Louis focuses his practice on advising entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors and financial advisors at all stages of growth, from garage to global. Louis especially enjoys being able to help his clients achieve hyper-growth, go public and to successfully obtain optimal liquidity events. Learn more.
Gopal Erinjippurath
Gopal is CTO of Sust Global, a platform providing AI-powered climate modeling for science-backed climate risk reporting, analysis and adaptation. Previously he ran analytics engineering for Planet, the largest earth observation satellite network. Gopal holds an MS from USC and completed the Ignite Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Jeffery R. Atkin
Jeff is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, where he is the co-chair of the Energy team and a member of the firm’s management committee. Jeff is one of the early pioneers in renewable energy and infrastructure, with over 20 years of experience in the space. Jeff is highly regarding for his deep industry connections and work with developers, sponsors, lenders, investors, equipment suppliers, and utilities. Jeff’s experience spans various technologies in relation to solar, wind, biomass/biofuels/waste-to-energy, geothermal, EV mobility, hydrogen, carbon capture, microgrids, and energy transition.
Charlie Crocker
Following the acquisition of Zonehaven, where he was Co-Founder and CEO, he is now responsible for scaling the worlds leading protective platform that includes evacuation management, multi-channel geo-targeted alerting, and LRAD® long-range voice broadcast systems. He is a data geek and entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience building teams to bring data out of the shadows and drive business value. Prior to Zonehaven, he built Autodesk’s first big data platform team to support migration to subscription and the cloud. He also led product management for Autodesk’s flagship AutoCAD product line.
Bret Waters, Moderator
Bret Waters has been in Silicon Valley his entire life as an entrepreneur, executive, and investor. Today he teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford University, runs the 4thly Startup Accelerator, and coaches startup CEO’s at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. He spent six years on the board of the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. Previously he was Founder & CEO of three venture-funded Silicon Valley software companies. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.