Expert Office Hours

I’m the founder of Future Led, a leadership development consultancy for climate startups. I’m also a founding member of Climate Change Coaches (the world’s first climate coaching organisation); and a longstanding coach with Climate-KIC (the EU’s main climate innovation body). I co-led the 9-month incubator for early-stage ideas at Scotland’s hub for social innovation.

I am a public speaker and expert in nuclear technology and policy, with a particular focus on issues related to fuel management. I earned my doctorate from UC Berkeley. Prior to that, I worked in the Nuclear Energy sector to facilitate collaboration between Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian manufacturers of equipment for nuclear power plants.

My intro to the food system was as a teenager, when I spent a year working on farms across Latin America. As an undergrad, I founded two small companies, and then spent several years at a software startup in San Francisco, before quitting to found and lead product for a regenerative coffee company (killed by Covid). I spent the last several years at Apeel as a senior product manager, building biotech, hardware/AI, and software products to reduce food waste across the value chain.

I have marketing experience in solar energy systems, EV charging and powertrains, UPS, VPPs, batteries and other DERs, energy monitoring and PV design software, and energy control hardware. I have built up marketing and communications departments of leading solar energy companies, and grown with them from late-stage start up, through IPOs and multiple acquisitions to become multi-billion dollar companies.

I am a Clean Transportation Expert with seven years of experience in Fleet Electrification across rideshare products, fleet operations, and the public sector. Recently I served as a program manager at Lyft leading the Electrification of the rental fleet. Previously, I worked at Arup helping cities, organization, and startups around the world plan for clean transportation transition.

I’m currently an advisor to fusion investment fund Strong Atomics in addition to my day job. Previously, I gained extensive experience in electrification and clean tech at Zola Electric, Google Energy, and X, Google’s “moonshot factory.”

I have spent my career at the intersection of AI and climate change. I have a lot of experience building machine learning products for various domains in climate adaptation and energy, including renewable power, EV charging, land-use-land-use, change related carbon emissions and built environment. I have experience applying breakthrough research in AI to address climate challenge, and building end to end capabilities for developing scalable machine learning systems.

I have worked for 20 years designing and implementing strategies to reach and engage diverse stakeholders and communities across various verticals in climate and energy – solar, sustainable agriculture, urban planning, environmental justice, public health, public utilities, local campaigns, national philanthropy and more. With a wide breadth of experience across sectors, I’m able to offer meaningful insights and coaching to those transitioning sectors.

Prior to this role, I was a fellow at both ARPA-E and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and served in the U.S. Army.

I am the go-to recruiter for many non-profit climate organisations and am told that I am helping to build the APAC movement through my recruitment. I have a solid track record of sourcing challenging roles for all job functions. I am also a certified career coach and though not a climate expert, I am sought out for my social impact career transition and job search consulting and coaching, including for those targeting climate jobs in the non-profit sector.

After graduating in physics, I jumped into the local startup scene with a small Private Cloud company then later went on to work in startups in the Game Development industry and now contributes to a regenerative-focused AgTech startup.

While researching the barriers and supporting ecosystem of regenerative agriculture over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to connect and learn from many farmers, startups, non-profits, and investors in the space.

My experience has varied widely over the years. I’ve worked in sustainable shopping at Amazon (where I helped launch The Climate Pledge), behavioral science at NREL, policy analysis at RAND Corporation, and wind tunnel management at the University of Washington Aeronautical Laboratory.

Thirteen years of energy program evaluation for utilities (including low-income, small business and community programs) + EJ and disadvantaged communities maps, criteria, and equity metrics – to ensure our climate $ reach the right people. I’ve managed large research projects for utilities and state agencies, and state stakeholder processes around energy and climate justice. I was the Technical Consultant for New York’s draft definition of disadvantaged communities, am involved in climate and energy equity in Maine, and Justice40 implementation research nationwide.

I’m working to accelerate decarbonization by investing my career in climate tech and empowering others to do the same. I’ve had the privilege to help dozens of mission-driven founders successfully launch and grow climate tech startups, including leading marketing for teams that raised over $17.6 million in combined funding. I’ve also helped hundreds of people start careers in sustainability with digital content.

I co-founded the Carbon Removal Center, a UK-based nonprofit organisation that advances sustainable carbon removal and have advised and worked with early-stage CDR startups (e.g. 44.01). I have a BSc and MSc in Engineering and an MBA from Berkeley Haas in Energy & Cleantech.

I also have experience in political tech and formerly worked in campaigns and on Capitol Hill. I was an early employee at Arcadia, based in DC.

Since 2016, I’ve become knowledgeable of the science, language, solutions, and approaches needed to address our climate emergency. As a climate designer, brand strategist, and educator, I’m able to take what I’ve learned and apply it to design. Over the past six years running The Determined and Climate Designers, I’ve led teams on a variety of projects amplifying the work of climate-focused initiatives.

I have extensive clean energy experience in both the private and public sectors, including time at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Clean Energy Leadership Institute.

I am a program manager for research, education and extension Climate-smart Agriculture, Justice40, Nutrition Security and Equity US goals, with a special focus on cross-government coordination and AI for Climate-Smart Ag and Forestry.  I previously served as National Science Foundation Program Officer for multiple science areas and workforce development, with a focus on under-served states.

I am passionate about helping people take climate action in their personal lives, an avid biker, and a sustainable home renovation aficionado.