2021 Finals Judges

Brandon Blaesser is an Associate at the Ecosystem Integrity Fund. His responsibilities include sector research, pipeline development and tracking, investment due diligence, and portfolio company support. Before EIF, Brandon was an Associate at Kearney, a global management consulting firm. At Kearney, Brandon worked with a range of clients to address growth, supply chain, and cost optimization problems. Notable projects included an EPA consent decree and pre-merger strategy for a multi-billion-dollar telecom transaction. In addition, Brandon researched and co-wrote the firm’s annual Reshoring Index, which tracks manufacturing production trends between low-cost Asian producers and domestic, American production. This effort included developing supply-chain strategies for U.S. manufacturing clients. Prior to joining Kearney, Brandon was an Analyst at NewWorld Capital Group, where he worked on investments in growth-oriented companies in residential solar, energy efficiency, power electronics, and water infrastructure. In his role, Brandon focused on research, investment due diligence, and fundraising. He subsequently worked at The Alberleen Group, an investment and financial advisory firm with expertise in impact investing. Brandon sits on the Yale Club’s house committee and consults in a volunteer capacity for The Nature Conservancy’s Chief Strategy Office. He received a BA in Economics and a BA in Environmental Studies from Yale University. He also holds a LEED AP BD+C accreditation. At Yale, Brandon wrote his senior economics thesis on the disproportionate allocation of residential solar subsidies in Connecticut.

Alba is a young environmental professional & game changer in the clean energy space. Alba is Co-Founder, Head of Growth & Chief Climate Officer (CCO) at Seeds, an environmental FinTech mobile app that allows users to invest in community energy projects & cleantech scale-ups through crowdfunding with as little as their spare change. Forns has previous experience in the sustainability field as an Energy Consultant, engineering projects related with sustainable mobility, circular economy & energy efficiency. She carried out a study on the implementation & regulation of the Low Emission Zone in Barcelona (LEZ), led circular economy workshops for companies in the fashion & fragrance sector & coordinated events such as INSPIRA 2020, a project aimed at encouraging scientific & technologic vocations amongst girls & raising youngsters’ awareness about gender equality. Her background is in Industrial Technology Engineering with a Double MSc in Renewable Energy at two leading technical universities in Europe. Alba speaks five languages, Catalan, Spanish, English, French & Italian - German is a work in progress. She entered the sustainability space out of passion. In her free time she loves to spend time in the nature & practice outdoor sports. She likes to organize & participate in Volunteering events such as beach/bay clean ups.

Jane Ge is both a seasoned climate tech investor and a policy researcher. Jane is the founder of Vectors Angel, an angel community that focuses exclusively on mission-driven investing with a primary focus on sustainability/climate. She was previously with Goldwind Capital (Corporate venture at Goldwind), Tsing Capital (China Environmental Fund), and served as Innovation and Program Manager at UC Berkeley CITRIS and its deep tech accelerator CITRIS Foundry. She is an affiliate researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab on clean energy and climate policy research.

Daniel Goldman is a co-founder and managing director at Clean Energy Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage climate tech companies commercializing disruptive advanced energy technologies that can grow to scale and address global climate disruption. Mr. Goldman has over 25 years of energy industry experience and has been investing at the project and venture stages for most of his career with over $4 billion of transactions completed. He serves on portfolio company boards, the board of Cornell’s Atkinson Center, the board of Browning the Green Space, and is Chair of the board of the Northeast Clean Energy Council. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BS from Cornell University. Dan lives in Newton, MA and is a competitive age-group road cyclist and world-qualifying triathlete.

Nneka Kibuule is a Senior Vice President for Aligned Climate Capital LLC. In this role she focuses on investing in growth equity companies in energy, sustainable land use, clean transportation, resilient and efficient infrastructure. Previously, Nneka was the Director of Energy Innovation at Elemental Excelerator and worked at Pacific Gas & Electric and NextEra Energy Resources in several finance and strategy roles. She has experience in capital investments, stakeholder engagement, customer strategy and experience, innovation, and organizational design. Nneka holds an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, a Masters in Energy Finance from Tulane, and a BS in Finance from Hampton University. She is the founder of GreenTech Noir a collective for elevating Black people working in ClimateTech.

Daniela is a partner at Social Capital, a venture capital fund based out of Silicon Valley, specialized in investing in both climate change and Latin America. Prior to joining Social Capital, Daniela was a consultant at McKinsey & Company for over 6 years, where she was part of the Sustainability practice and worked extensively around global decarbonization –she co-authored one of McKinsey’s flagship publications on what it would take for the world to stay below 1.5C of global warming–, the circular economy, and the physical impacts of climate change. Daniela is based out of Mexico City. She is fluent in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. She holds a Master in Development Practice from UC Berkeley, and a Master in Management from EDHEC Business School.

Adam Wallen is a proven entrepreneurial talent, with noted successes in Venture, Cleantech, MedTech and Healthcare IT. He brings two decades of executive experience, earned at organizations like British Petroleum (BP) and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), and he has developed and marketed several innovative technology, product and service businesses.