Meet Our 2023 Speakers
Keynote Addresses
Jochen Wermuth ‘92 - Climate Impact Investor, Wermuth Asset Management
Jochen Wermuth is a climate impact investor who oversees investments of his family wealth across all asset classes with a positive impact on climate, third-party funds via the Green Growth Funds, and Germany’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, KENFO, as part of its supervisory boards’ investment strategy advisory committee.
Jochen Wermuth studied mathematics and economics at Brown University and finished all but his thesis toward his D.Phil. in economics at Balliol College, Oxford. He is fluent in German, English, French, and Russian. He likes to run, swim, cycle, dance, sing, and listen to music.
Understanding and shaping a sustainable future is his mission for both moral and financial reasons. He has thus been actively involved in trying to understand and shape the global “Green Industrial Revolution,” which he sees as the intersection of several dramatic transitions - re-enforcing each other in the move towards a circular economy - in energy, transport, fintech, agroforestry, and AI.
He has helped to build www.divestinvest.org with commitments of over €30 trillion of asset owners to divest from fossil fuels and into climate solutions. He has been a member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the family office network TONIIC’s 100%ers, and the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Growth Company Advisory board and has been Chair of Young President Organization (YPO) Gold Berlin.
Jochen supports Greenpeace, Transparency International, German Zero, #Berlin2030 climate-neutral plebiscite, AllRise (which charged Bolsonaro in the court of crimes against humanity in Den Haag), Germany’s State Opera as well as its Liberal and Green Parties.
Hunter Lovins - President of Natural Capitalism Solutions
L. Hunter Lovins is the President of Natural Capitalism Solutions. NCS helps companies, communities and countries implement more regenerative practices profitably.
A professor of sustainable business management at Bard MBA, and Fordham University, Hunter teaches entrepreneurship and coaches social enterprises around the world. A Managing Partner of NOW Partners, she is also the Chief Impact Officer of Change Finance, an impact investing firm. A board member of Aquion and several non-profits, she has worked in energy, agriculture, climate policy, sustainable development and resilience for 45 years.
A consultant to industries including International Finance Corporation, Unilever, Walmart, the United Nations and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as sustainability champions Interface, Patagonia and Clif Bar, Hunter has briefed heads of state, leaders of the numerous local governments, the Pentagon, and officials in about 30 countries, as well as the UN, and the US Congress.
Hunter has written 16 books, including the recently released A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life. which won a Nautilus Award. She has won dozens of awards, including the European Sustainability Pioneer award, and the Right Livelihood Award. Time Magazine recognized her as a Millennium Hero for the Planet, and Newsweek called her the Green Business Icon.
Panel Sessions
High Impact Sectors
Built environment & infrastructure
Ashley Katz - New York City Economic Development Corporation
Miles Draycott - Risk Management, Financing Sustainable Infrastructure, Derivatives Trading
Carter Craft - Senior Economic Officer at Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York
Sustainable Food & Agriculture
Alisha Real - VP of ESG and Social Impact, UNFI
Jason Evans - Founding Dean of the College of Food Innovation and Technology, Johnson & Wales University
Kim Anderson - Creator/Co-founder, Plant City
Energy Generation & Storage
Ben Wolkon - Partner, MUUS Climate Partners
Gabe Malek - Chief of Staff, Fervo Energy
Jeff Weiss - Senior Venture Partner, Clean Energy Ventures
Emerging Risks and Opportunities
Climate Resilience & Insurance
Guido Moret - Director, PwC
Joe Pursley - Head of Insurance, Nuveen
Matt Martinez - Partner, Deloitte
Rajith Sebastian - Head of ESG & Sustainable Investing, New York State Insurance Fund
Water
Ricardo Bayon - Founder and Partner of Encourage Capital
Marc Robert - COO and Partner Water Asset Management and Chair at Water Aid America
Kathleen Dominique - Advisor of Global Commission on the Economics of Water, Team Leader at The OECD Environment Directorate, Faculty Member at the Paris School of International Affairs
International Perspectives
Alice Lépissier - Postdoctoral Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Franklin Amoo - Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Baylis Emerging Markets
Phoenix Kalen - Global Head of Emerging Markets Research, Societe Generale
Investing and Policy
ESG Data & Regulation
Laura Weeks - Relationship Manager, East Coast, Principles for Responsible Investment
Matt Moscardi - Founder, Free Float Media, Former Executive Director MSCI Inc - developed the ESG Ratings model for financials
Jeff D. Colgan is the Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs at Brown University. His research focuses on international order and security, especially as related to energy and the environment.
He is also Director of the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University.
His new book, Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order, draws lessons from oil history about how states and other actors create and maintain international governance arrangements (Oxford University Press, Oct 2021). The book then applies those lessons to other problems like climate change, peacekeeping, finance, and nuclear politics.
His previous book, Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He has published work in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, World Politics, International Security and elsewhere. He also occasionally blogs at the Monkey Cage and Foreign Affairs. On Twitter, he is @JeffDColgan
Professor Colgan previously taught at the School of International Service of American University 2010-2014, and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 2012-13. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, and was a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley, where he earned a Master’s in Public Policy. Dr. Colgan has worked with the World Bank, McKinsey & Company, and The Brattle Group.
Susie Boshoff - Sustainability Director, ESG Reporting, PepsiCo
Frameworks for Sustainable Investing
Aaron Yoon - Assistant Professor, Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
Alison Kruse - Vice President ESG Capital Markets, Bank of America
Peter Levine - Managing Director, Brown University Investment Office
Activist Governance & Proxy Voting
Cary Krosinsky - Professor of Sustainable Finance, Co-Founder of Sustainable Finance Institute
Kate Monahan - Director of Shareholder Advocacy, Trillium Asset Management
Marcela Pinilla - Director of Sustainable Investing, Zevin Asset Management