The Speakers

Adam Bergman is a sustainability executive leader with over 20 years’ investment banking experience providing strategic advice and financial guidance to senior executives and boards on growth strategies, strategic alternatives and tactical initiatives. As one of the first investment bankers to focus exclusively on the CleanTech sector, starting in 2005, Adam is recognized as a leading subject matter expert and is a frequent speaker at industry events and publisher of articles on sustainability. He has extensive transaction experience working on financings and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) globally, including deals in the AgTech & FoodTech, biomaterials, energy efficiency, energy storage, Industrial IoT, mobility & transportation, renewable energy, smart grid and water technology sectors.

During his last five year, Adam built an industry leading AgTech & FoodTech practice creating a broad ecosystem to help drive adoption of technology and innovation throughout the broad food & Ag value chain. Additionally, Adam established the AgTech cohort for Wells Fargo’s innovation incubator (IN2), which was launched at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO, in 2018.

Over the past 20+ years, he has worked for leading global investment banks, including Deutsche Bank, Jefferies, JPMorgan, Rothschild, UBS and Wells Fargo, and has completed over $12 billion in domestic and international financings and over $25 billion in domestic and cross border M&A, restructuring and strategic advisory transactions.

Andre Turenne is Director of Corporate Venture Capital, National Grid Partners. Andre has more than 30 years of venture capital, business development, operating and technical experience in the technology sector. His investment experience spans a wide range of areas, including enterprise software & services, SaaS/cloud, Data Analytics/AI, IT & network infrastructure, IoT/connected, digital utility/smart grid; wireless and security.

At NGP, Andre’s investments include: AiDash, Dragos, RiskIQ, Copperleaf, Spark Cognition, Sitetracker, Aperio Systems and Aporeto (acquired by Palo Alto Networks).

Andre was previously a senior vice president of D. E. Shaw & Co., a global investment and technology development firm, and a Partner at D. E. Shaw’s venture capital unit. Prior to joining D. E. Shaw, Mr. Turenne was a managing director of NeoCarta Ventures, a venture capital investment firm. Prior to that, he served as senior manager of strategic investments at Intel Capital, the venture capital unit of Intel Corporation. He has also held roles in engineering, operations and product marketing.

Andrew J. Coleman is a Government Leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Member and Technical Services, where he leads strategy and business development opportunities. Coleman held positions as a Senior Technical Executive, Senior Program Manager, Marketing Manager, and Account Executive in the Environment Sector. Coleman’s areas of expertise are in engineering geology, manufactured gas plant research and remediation.

During a hiatus from EPRI, Coleman was appointed the Director of Energy Systems Engineering at Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. Before joining EPRI, he managed environmental projects at Public Service Electric and Gas Company in Newark, New Jersey and ENSR (now AECOM).

Coleman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in geology from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He obtained a Master of Arts degree in geology at the City College of New York and holds a Master of Philosophy degree and a Doctorate in structural geology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Coleman is a certified professional geologist in California, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Delaware.

A pragmatic climate optimist, David is responsible for developing Dell Technologies global Energy solutions and product strategy. A firm believer in the value of community led open industry standards, David was elected to the OSDU Forum Management Committee (OMC) and is also a member of the GridWise Alliance Policy Committee. He has previously served on a number of industry bodies including the European ECIM Management Committee and SPE’s “Petabytes in Asset Management.” He has delivered numerous technical papers at conferences around the world and holds a patent for his work on the remote visualization of geotechnical applications.

Dr. Daniel Blumenthal is the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Attaché and Director designate of the DOE office at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel. As DOE’s first Energy Attaché in Israel, Dan will be responsible for establishing the Department’s presence in the region, advancing DOE’s policy interests, and promoting deeper cooperation between the U.S. and Israel across a broad range of energy-, science-, and nonproliferation-related topics. Since 2009, Dan has managed the Consequence Management programs in the Office of Nuclear Incident Response at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within the DOE. The Consequence Management program addresses environmental and medical aspects of assessing the radiological consequences of real or perceived releases of radioactive material. In this capacity, Dan led the initial DOE response team to Japan, where he spent a total of 7 weeks following the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, for which he received the Secretary’s Honor Award. Since then he has supported many U.S., international, and academic efforts, including numerous reports and journal publications, related to technical, organizational, and policy lessons learned from the Fukushima accident as well as nonproliferation initiatives worldwide.

Prior to joining the Federal government he was a Senior Scientist at the Department of Energy's Remote Sensing Laboratory from 1996 to 2006 where he managed or provided scientific support to several DOE emergency response teams. Dr. Blumenthal's background is in nuclear physics and he is also a Certified Health Physicist (CHP). Most recently, Dr. Blumenthal led the initial DOE emergency response team to Japan where he spent seven weeks between March and May 2011.

Dr. Florian Baumann joined Dell Technologies in 2019 as CTO for Unstructured Data Solutions. He brings industry-recognized expertise in Automotive and Artificial Intelligence to the position, and is a regular speaker at events and conferences. A leading authority on Machine Learning and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, Florian has published more than 20 studies on human action recognition and object tracking. Florian’s academic background is in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, leading to a PhD in Machine Learning applied to Scene Understanding in 2015 from the Leibniz University of Hannover.

Dr. Friedman is the acting Chief Scientist of Israel's Ministry of Energy. He is a Stanford Physics Ph.D. graduate with recent years experience in the energy industry, the electricity market and energy efficiency. Strong emphasis on policy. Excellent communications and leadership skills. Almost 20 years of industry experience in program management, system engineering management and business development, with strong emphasis on computer vision and image processing. Worked in the energy, medical instrumentation, semiconductor metrology and biotechnology industries. In the last 15 years strong emphasis on the business and economic aspects. Experience in running a small startup, with focus on business development. Experience in setting up from scratch a new development project, as well as running it. Excellent system view and understanding of complex multi-disciplinary systems involving deep techno-economic implications. Hands-on, practically oriented with emphasis on taking the initiative and using innovation to achieve results.

Gil has over 30 years of engineering and entrepreneurship experience in high tech and clean energy fields. Enrollment based leadership that led into several bootstrapped ventures, including management buyouts. The composition of veteran engineering, business skills, and personal approach results in good atmosphere and overall calm business surrounding in companies he is involved in.

Ilan is a seasoned entrepreneur with executive track record. Before founding Chakratec, Ilan co-founded Genoa Color Technologies a display semiconductor company and successfully led the company as a CEO for 12 years. Prior to that, Ilan held several senior executive positions in the electronic printing industry. Ilan served in the prestigious 8200 IDF unit, he is the inventor of more than 20 patents families and holds a B.Sc. ME and a M.Sc. EE from Tel-Aviv University.

Jonathan is an investor at Alliance Ventures, a $1B venture arm of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. He leads the fund’s investments in Israel and his areas of interest include: electrification, autonomous vehicle technology, data-based services and cybersecurity. Prior to joining the Alliance, he led the Connected and Autonomous Vehicles program at Orange Silicon Valley, Orange’s strategic innovation hub, his projects included V2X connectivity, high-precision localization, telematics and new in-vehicle infotainment experience.

Prior to Orange, Jonathan built a startup in the 3D imaging and printing space, analyzed EMEA financial markets at Bloomberg, and consulted tech giants such as Infosys Technologies and Thales on new product offering and business process optimization. In addition, he advised startups in Israel, the Netherlands and Los Angeles in areas of energy, cleantech, mobility and entertainment on go-to-market strategy and product development. Moreover, he is a regular contributor to the Global Cleantech 100 list published by the CleanTech Forum and an alumnus of the CleanTech Open accelerator.

Jonathan holds an MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain and a BSc. in International Economics and Management from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.

Ms. Maya Vardi Shoshani manages the West Coast operations of the BIRD Foundation.

Located in the Silicon Valley, Ms. Vardi Shoshani is responsible for initiating business activities between Israeli and American companies, business development and relationship management with West Coast high-tech companies, as well as strategic growth initiatives.

After graduating from Stanford University and Duke University School of Law, Levin worked as an attorney focused on energy and environmental issues. In addition to his legal work, Levin served on the board of the Center for Sustainable Energy, and co-founded Sustain OC, helping accelerate the transition toward more sustainable power generation and transportation alternatives.

As a member of Congress, some of Levin's top priorities are combating climate change, capitalizing on the economic benefits of a sustainable energy future, and providing solutions to move hazardous nuclear waste at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Michael Kashani is the Global Head of ESG Portfolio Management within the Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) Fixed Income division. Michael is responsible for coordinating ESG integration efforts across all fixed income teams as well as serving as the lead portfolio manager for ESG Enhanced mandates. As a representative of GSAM, Michael currently co-chairs ICMA's Social Bond Principles Committee on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and was instrumental in the creation of GSAM's first ESG Enhanced funds with a dedicated focus on diversity and inclusion. Michael was previously on the GSAM municipal team as a senior research analyst covering healthcare and education and was instrumental in developing its ESG capabilities. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Michael worked as a credit analyst at American Capital Access and Standard & Poor's, working primarily within the healthcare and education sectors. Michael currently serves on the executive board for Project Forward, which seeks to incentivize volunteering and other positive actions through the use of Blockchain technology.

Mona Dajani, dual qualified as a lawyer in the U.S. and England and a licensed professional engineer, serves as a lead lawyer in complex acquisitions, dispositions, financing and project development transactions involving energy and infrastructure facilities in the United States and around the world. She is co-leader of the firm’s Energy and Infrastructure Projects Team and also leads the Renewable Energy practice.

Mona focuses her global practice on project finance, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, sustainable finance, portfolio acquisitions, tax equity, construction and/or restructuring for government and private clients involving energy and infrastructure projects. In her over 20 years of practice, she has led numerous development, financing and acquisition/disposition transactions involving solar, wind, hydrogen, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass, waste energy and other renewable energy facilities, as well as large-scale gas and LNG-fired cogeneration plants, coal gasification, transmission lines, and oil and gas pipelines. She has substantial experience with respect to syndicated loan and debt capital markets transactions, syndicated commercial bank debt, commercial paper programs, and arranging capital for new and established energy and infrastructure companies. She has represented a wide variety of commercial and public institutions, sponsors, utilities, financial institutions, underwriters, energy and clean technology companies, private equity funds, investment banks and multilateral agencies in transactions throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Moshiel is the CEO and co-founder at Addionics. Holds a PhD in imaging and modelling of battery materials from Imperial College London. Has experience in developing new methods to image structures specific to battery materials and understanding degradation in both conventional and novel battery cells. He has 21 peer reviewed publications and co-authored 3 patents. Has helped produce, assemble and analyse many cell types and different battery technologies. Moshiel has been an active board member of Israeli Business Club in London for over 3 years. Moshiel was a recipient of 10 different prestigious honors & awards. Moshiel conducted fundamental research into the design, synthesis and application of 3D metal structures that paved the way for Addionics formation. Active in the battery field for almost 10 years and prior to that was active in the semiconductor domain.

Paul has over 15 years of experience throughout the value chain of clean energy development, commercialization, and deployment. Prior to EDF, Paul held key roles on the analysis, marketing, product development, project development, business development, and corporate development teams in start-ups and large international energy companies, including QBotix, AUO/BenQ, Suntech/Gemini, and several C&I PV developer/integrators. Paul graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans with a BSE, MS, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering focused on clean energy technologies, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and electricity demand forecasting

Regarded by his peers as a renewable energy expert, Phil has made a name for himself by developing and implementing a wide range of alternative energy projects. He has held senior executive positions in large energy service companies, both utility-independent and utility-owned. Phil is a Licensed Professional Engineer and LEED AP.

Phoebe focuses on investments in hydrogen, carbon management, mobility, power, and enabling technology in for energy transition. She has over a decade experience in energy and cleantech, with eight years as venture capital investor. She was also an ex-entrepreneur and built a start-up in technology commercialization. Phoebe is a Charterholder of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), with an MBA concentrated in Energy and Finance, and a BSc in Engineering. Phoebe sits on the board of Veros Systems and Rice Alliance Energy Advisory Board, invested frontier technology startups such as ZeroAvia, South 8 Technologies, Connected Freight, and many others. She is a frequent guest lecturer in Brandeis University, UC Berkeley, MIT and Rice University. In her free time, Phoebe enjoys reading, working out and meditation.

Ms. Sarit Soccary Ben–Yochanan serves as Managing Partner of DK Innovation, Delek US’ corporate innovation arm. Ms. Soccary previously served as EVP and General Manager of Syneron Candela, a medical device company. Prior to this, she was CEO of Gefen Biomed Investments, managing a portfolio of 33 healthcare and cleantech companies. Ms. Soccary serves as a Board member at Human xtention Ltd and ValueBase underwriting. She served at the board of Mazor Surgical Technologies. She received bachelors and masters degrees in economics from Tel Aviv University.

As VP of Innovation, Customer Experience, and Market Intelligence at NRG Retail, Scott leads the Reliant-wide Innovation/Customer Experience organization which creates products that include customer-facing applications based on smart meter data analytics, home energy management devices, demand response and energy efficiency programs, commodity plans, home maintenance services, security, and other services that meet the evolving needs of today’s electricity consumer. He also leads NRG's market research and competitive intelligence teams.

Scott has been focused on consumer-facing energy product strategy since joining Reliant in 2008 and helped launch multiple products including energy emails, web portals, mobile applications, time-of-use pricing, and prepay electricity. He has also served as GM of Reliant's emerging home security and home services businesses. He spent a year at Direct Energy where he led Smart Energy product strategy and served as the company's interface with British Gas and their Smart Homes team.

Prior to joining the energy industry, Scott spent eight years in a variety of marketing and product management roles at Corning, a leader in fiber optics and telecom equipment, including P&L responsibility for two of the company's product lines. He led the development of a number of key products used in the country's first large-scale Fiber-to-the-Home deployments.

Sharon is the CEO of S&B USA and the Chairman of the Board of S&B USA Construction. In this role, he is responsible for S&B USA’s energy, concessions, and construction businesses in the US. During the last 3.5 years, Sharon also served as the VP Finance of Shikun & Binui Concessions and as the Head of US Concessions of Shikun & Binui. From his prior roles, Sharon gained extensive experience leading large and complex transactions in the Infrastructure, Transportation and Energy sectors. Sharon holds an MBA from Ryerson University, a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Psychology from the University of Toronto.

Sharon is the Executive Director of the California Israel Chamber of Commerce (CICC) where she brings her remarkable 20 years career with significant expertise in international business & marketing. Throughout her career, Sharon showed an enterprising attitude from the start. In 1997 she moved to S. Korea, where she started her long career in a traditionally male-dominated, technical fields of infrastructure and homeland security. Sharon was asked to become the first foreign CEO of the fast growing BERMAD China, and brought the company to be a leader in waterworks infrastructure in the entire South East Asia. After a successful period in China, Sharon became an independent consultant focusing on assisting companies who operate in East Asia and worked with companies in China, Thailand, Singapore and Israel. In 2005 Sharon moved to the US where she expanded her knowledge into homeland security and defense technologies. Working with the US Army, Border Control and highly secured facilities to create, enhance and implement advanced solutions to existing and future problems. During 2008-10 Sharon held VP Homeland Security and Infrastructure position in BDO-I2I, which is part of the BDO Israel Consulting Firm and focused on the Indian market.

Since August 2010, she is also an Adjunct Professor in Touro Graduate Business School, CUNY School of Professional Studies, Brooklyn College and The College of Management Academic Studies were she devotes much of her energy to share her business experience with both graduate and under-graduate students. Sharon holds a BA (International Studies), MBA (Management) and MCs (Strategies of e-commerce).

Ms. Freund Koren manages the Southern U.S. operations for the BIRD Foundation.

During her tenure at the Israeli Think tank - Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, Ms. Freund Koren specialized in the Israeli Cleantech and Agtech sectors and worked closely with the Israeli Economic Ministry in promoting promising Israeli start-ups in the U.S. market.

Her background is M.Sc. in Physical-Chemistry from the Israeli Institute for Technology (Technion).

Ms. Freund Koren, based in Austin, TX, is leading BIRD activities in the southern US region including initiating business collaborations, identifying strategic partners and opportunities for synergistic collaboration between Israeli and American companies, as well as strategic growth initiatives.

Shlomi Kofman began his appointment as Israel’s Consul General to the Pacific Northwest in August 2017.

Over the course of his 20 year diplomatic career, Kofman has served as Israel’s Deputy Consul General in New York City, Chief of Staff to Ambassadors in Washington D.C., Deputy Ambassador in Thailand and Deputy Consul General in Shanghai. His past domestic Foreign Ministry positions include: Director of North American Economic Affairs, Policy Advisor to the Deputy Foreign Minister, Diplomatic Advisor & Director of the International Department in the Parliament and Ministry of National Infrastructure, and the Head of the Northeast Asia sector. Prior to joining the Foreign Ministry, Kofman worked in the High-Tech Industry representing the Israeli company Orbot in South Korea, as well as a consultant to a leading Israeli company, ECI.

Kofman holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations & East Asian studies from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Master’s from Webster University – Shanghai University of Finance & Economics. He also holds an Associate’s engineering degree.

Mr. Yaki Noyman serves as Chief Executive Officer at Doral Group Renewable Energy Resources Ltd. In addition to being CEO of Doral Group Israel, Mr. Noyman has served as a Director for Global Energy Generation since its inception. As an electrical engineer, Yaki designed Israel’s first commercial solar facility in 2007. He was on site to electrify it for the first time. Now, under his direction, hundreds of solar facilities have been electrified and the portfolio of new projects exceeds 3 gigawatts. Prior to Doral Group, Mr. Noyman was an engineer for Israel Railways. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University and is an MBA candidate at Bar-Ilan University.

Yaniv is currently Deputy CEO of Delek Drilling, the largest natural gas producer in Israel and one of the largest corporations in Israel. As of April 2021 Yaniv has been appointed as CEO of Modiin Energy. Yaniv is an experienced executive with a demonstrated history of business development experience, complex transactions, project, corporate finance and project management working in the energy and infrastructure industry across different energy platforms including Renewable Energy power and Natural Gas and worked both internationally and domestically in both public and private companies.

Zviya Baron is a seasoned innovation professional with 25 years of hands-on innovation experience and eco-system building. She has more than 15 years of innovation consulting track record with both government agencies and multi-billion corporations on innovation strategies and policies.

Currently, she is Head of Innovation at Israel Electric Corporate (IEC), which with 3 million customers and an annual revenue of USD5 Billion, is Israel’s main electricity provider. Ms. Baron is the first person ever in this role and is responsible for setting up the innovation strategy, implementing both open-innovation and corporate innovation methodologies and heading the corporate through the major energy transition ahead of us.

Previously, Ms. Baron was the founder and Head, of HANGAR by IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries), a $4bl. company, a commercial aviation start up hub. In that role, she initiated an open-innovation model customized to the needs of a state-owned company and start-ups alike. Her major success is the forming of a commercial aviation eco-system consisted of start-up companies, technology partners, airlines, regulators and co-optitors alike.

Zvi Alon is the CEO and Chairman of Tigo Energy, Inc. In Silicon Valley, he has had a successful business career over the last 30 years as an executive, partner, and advisor to various venture capital groups in high tech, clean tech, and real estate. Internationally, he has served as chairman, chief executive, president, and founder of several companies - two of which IPO'ed into the public market: NetManage in the US and NetVision in Israel. Most of his investment activities have been focused in the US, Israel, and China with worldwide beneficiaries.

Zvi is the Founder and Chairman of the California Israel Chamber of Commerce (CICC), and the Co-Founder of the California Israel Angels (CIA). He serves as a Vice Chairman for one of the leading universities in Israel, Ben Gurion University, known for advanced research in green technology, clean energy, medical, and advanced nanotechnology.