Persefoni Podcast Network

Today’s guest, and her company, operate the largest mobile sensor network on Earth, and they use that network to track air pollution and greenhouse gasses. Davida Herzl is CEO and founder of Aclima. Her company uses devices, as well as software, to turn emissions measurements into analytics so that companies, governments, and communities can become more eco-friendly. On the show, Davida and I talked about the health impacts of pollution, climate justice, and the early days of our startups!

It’s hard to track our individual carbon footprints. Most people have no idea what emissions are associated with a bag of groceries or last night’s takeout. This type of information is hard to come by, which makes it even more challenging to make environmentally friendly decisions. Sustainability Data Service company, Cogo is trying to change that by empowering individuals and businesses to measure, reduce, and offset the impact they have on the climate. Today’s guest is Ben Gleisner, founder and CEO of Cogo. On the show, we dove into the individual side of sustainability, behavioral science, and the climate tech behind Cogo. ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.

Today’s guest, Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, is the CEO of LanzaTech. Her company has been working on carbon recycling technology for over 15 years. Now, LanzaTech has scaled up its technology from a startup and is almost ready to go public.

In recent years, climate-minded companies all over the world have made commitments to reach net zero emissions. That means cutting emissions as close to zero as possible and then funding carbon capture and carbon removal to make up for the rest. Brennan Spellacy is the founder of a software company called Patch. Patch helps businesses reach net zero by connecting them with carbon removal developers. In this episode, we get into Brennan’s journey as an entrepreneur, his version of a book recommendation, and the idea of ‘undoing’ pollution by funding carbon removal and carbon capture projects.

Startups are looking at the climate challenge from all angles. For today’s episode, we’re talking to one that’s helping facilitate the move to clean energy through intelligent software. Peter Knowles is the president of Financial Machines. In our conversation, he told me about how his startup evolved from a consultancy to software based advisory, which is a feat in itself. On the show, Peter and I also dove deep into energy storage, renewable energy and the challenges of fundraising for a startup.

A lot of lucky people have their personal passions, and their professional paths collide. And that could not be more true for Mark Kroese, a 22-year veteran at Microsoft and their General Manager of Sustainability Solutions. Mark started his career at Microsoft in the 90s as a product manager for Word and Excel. Then his love for mountain climbing and visits to the rainforest led him to focus on sustainability. In this episode, Mark shared his thoughts on sustainability reporting and building databases for that information. We talked about how much water data centers use and the environmental impact of our thousands of saved messages and emails. A big takeaway from chatting with Mark: I need to clean out my inbox to save the planet!

We have a whole zoo in today’s episode about biodiversity! I shared a fantastic conversation with Dr. Vian Sharif, Head of Sustainability at FNZ and Founder of NatureAlpha. Both FNZ and NatureAlpha are platforms for investors. FNZ is a digital wealth management platform while Vian’s newer venture NatureAlpha focuses on demonstrating the impacts of investments on biodiversity & natural capital. In today’s episode, Vian and I talked about integrating conservation work with investments — and also about pangolins.

We have a little bit of everything in this week’s episode. We’re diving deep with Nathaniel Bullard Chief Content Officer of BloombergNEF, Bloomberg's primary research service on energy, transportation, commodities, and technology. Nathaniel is a little bit different from the founder guests we’ve traditionally had on the show. He’s played the analyst slash writer role for a majority of his vast career and today writes a weekly column under the Bloomberg Green banner where he covers energy, transport, technology, climate, and finance. In this episode, we talked about what we’re seeing in climate from a market-oriented lens. This episode is so rich that we go from discussing deep decarbonization and where that’s going, to tinkering with Web3 and crypto and how that all connects.

For our first episode this season, we have invited two newly minted, homegrown podcasters from Persefoni: Tim Mohin and Caitlin Kinney! Tim Mohin is a lifelong environmentalist and one of the OGs of sustainability. Tim started his career at the US Environmental Protection Agency and moved on to various roles in corporate responsibility and sustainability at big tech firms like Apple and Intel. He also worked as the CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the world's most widely adopted sustainability reporting standard. Tim’s co-host Caitlin is a Gen Z climate activist who is on a mission to make sustainability accessible to the everyday person. In this episode, we’ll hear from Tim and Caitlin on why sustainability has to be decoded and what we’re missing in these conversations. Plus: What I’m tracking in climate tech and what I really think about Elon Musk.

For our season finale, we are talking about the sustainability revolution. How are businesses transitioning to address the greatest climate and environmental challenges of our time? And why is collaboration so critical? To explore these themes, I have the pleasure of chatting with Bridget Fawcett, the Global Co-Head of the Sustainability & Corporate Transitions team at Citi. Bridget is also the Global Head of Strategy for Citi's Banking, Capital Markets, and Advisory business. On the show, Bridget and I discuss wildlife conservation, the value of partnerships, and what they’re doing at Citi to enable more resilient and sustainable business models.

This week, we are talking to Yoann Hispa, LandGate Co-Founder and CEO. LandGate is ​​a leading provider of information, data solutions, and an online marketplace for US commercial land resources: solar, wind, carbon, oil & gas, minerals, and water. It’s kinda like the Zillow for land resources. In this episode, Yoann takes us through the expansive solutions they’ve developed in a 4 trillion plus market, including how they help landowners, real estate agents, and investors alike to understand the energy and environmental value of land resources. He also shares with us his journey as an entrepreneur, including a recent milestone of closing their Series B round.

Pursuing climate solutions also requires a deeper understanding of the oil and gas industry. This week, we are hearing from Toby Rice, President, and CEO of EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the United States. This episode covers a ton of important topics including the role that oil and gas play in the energy transition. Toby and I talk about natural gas, energy independence, and security, as well as what’s happening in Ukraine and the global energy crisis. In our conversation, Toby also tells me about the biggest green initiative they are working on, and what they’re doing at EQT to produce cleaner energy.

This week, we are talking about the evolution of impact investing with Steve Ellis, Co-Managing Partner of The Rise Fund. The Rise Fund was founded by leading global investment firm TPG, in partnership with Bono and Jeff Skoll. Prior to joining TPG as Managing Partner in 2015, Steve was the CEO of Asurion, the world's leading provider of tech protection services, and also served as the Global Managing Partner of Bain & Company. In this episode, we talk to Steve about their mission and leadership team at The Rise Fund, what climate tech solutions they are tracking, and how they are driving large-scale positive impact through their portfolio companies.

This week’s episode tackles systems change — and the partnership needed between policymakers, businesses, finance and civil society, to make economic systems sustainable. To dive into these themes, we invited SYSTEMIQ Capital’s Irena Spazzapan and Georgina Fleming. Irena is a partner, while Georgina is a junior partner at SYSTEMIQ Capital, a London-based VC that backs early-stage climate entrepreneurs to accelerate their growth and impact. In this episode, we talk to Irena and Georgina about SYSTEMIQ Capital’s multi-specialist approach, what they’re looking for as investors, and their firm’s investment in ZeroAvia, a company that is producing the world's first practical zero emission aviation powertrain.

This week’s guest has the true street cred in identifying dominant companies early, before markets take hold. Dan Ahn is the co-founder and managing partner of Clearvision Ventures, a leading, evergreen venture capital fund, which he founded to help world-changing entrepreneurs. In this episode, we talk to Dan about investing in ChargePoint and what it was like to have a front row seat during the cleantech bubble. Dan also shares what he looks for in founders, and what he saw into the future of EVs (electric vehicles) that most investors on Sandhill Road failed to see.

“I will never do this again,” said every other entrepreneur who found themselves back to building a startup from the ground up. Two-time founder Josh Green is this week’s guest. He is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of the leading ESG data management platform, Novata, and Co-founder and CEO of Panjiva, a supply-chain data start-up acquired by S&P Global in 2018. In this episode, we chat about purpose and how Josh determined his as a founder, why Novata decided to focus on private markets, and the problems the company is solving for.

From drilling engineer to strategic advisor and executive at numerous international companies, Ashley Zumwalt-Forbes is far from done at 31 years old. Ashley is the CEO of Black Mountain Carbon Lock, a private carbon negative company, and Executive Director at REEcycle, which recycles rare earth elements from electronic waste. In this episode, Ashley shares her breadth of knowledge in the mining business and stance on issues related to her industry. We’ll be talking about rare earth recycling, how her industry relates to decarbonization, and the importance of looking at supply chains when we talk about environmental impact. More importantly, Ashley shares her personal experience as a woman leader in a male-dominated sector.

Fresh off their $50 million Series B raise, Max Nova’s journey of building and growing NCX is an inspiring story on its own. NCX (previously SilviaTerra) is a forest carbon marketplace that connects corporations buying carbon offsets to landowners in America. In this episode, Max talks about how he went from a Yale undergrad founder in his dorm room to working with Fortune 500 companies that made big climate commitments. We talk about what carbon offsets and credits mean — and the challenges and opportunities of bringing landowners into the forest carbon market.

From TechCrunch to Robert Downey Jr.’s Footprint Coalition, Jonathan Shieber says he’s in some sort of purgatory where he’s no longer a reporter, but not a VC either. He’s just “advocating for cool climate s#!*.” This week, you’ll hear from one of the most knowledgeable people tracking climate tech and climate investment I know, and he’s been at it for almost two decades. In this episode, Jonathan and I discuss how storytelling informs their investments at Footprint, plus all the remarkable stuff they’re doing to help us get to a climate positive future, and the ‘Simple Minds’ conference coming to a city near you!

Bain & Co.’s Dan Kuzmic and Torsten Lichtenau are tenured ‘Bainies’ who are leading efforts to help clients decarbonize their business. This week, I talk to Dan and Torsten about everything from strategic changes within Bain, particularly towards deploying capital for climate solutions, to “woke” capitalism, and plant-based mac and cheese with packaging you can eat?! We also touch on which exciting products and services in climate tech they’re tracking.