Conference

Shai Agassi

Founder and CEO, Project Better Place

Shai Agassi is the founder and CEO of Project Better Place, a company focused on the early 21st century's biggest challenge - a scaleable and sustainable personal transportation system. In this role, Agassi works directly with governments, finance, automobile manufacturers and technology companies to install, scale, and operate a regional and global infrastructure necessary for electronic vehicles.

With a personal passion in solving large-scale social and environmental issues, Agassi believes in utilizing technology and capital markets to address the challenges of sustainability and climate change. With Better Place, he will manage the operation of international electric vehicle fleets by investing in, installing and operating countrywide charging infrastructures for electric cars, as well as working with partners to make the cars available.

Project Better Place and Renault-Nissan announced a partnership that will enable electric vehicles to be mass produced for the Israeli and Denmark market as announced earlier this year. Project Better Place is in discussions with multiple auto-makers and countries as they seek to move more markets off of oil and onto an electric recharge grid operator model.

Before founding Better Place, Agassi was formerly president of the Products and Technology Group at SAP AG and a member of the SAP AG Executive Board (2002 - 2007). In these roles, Agassi was responsible for both the global development of the SAP product line and SAP's portfolio of industry-specific solutions. While at SAP AG, Agassi spearheaded the development and release of SAP's successful platform strategy; led innovations that helped the company grow into a market leader, and set the stage for the future of business software.

As a serial entrepreneur, Agassi has developed and cultivated several technology companies. During his career, Agassi founded Quicksoft Media and QuickSoft Ltd as well as TopTier Software and TopManage, which were both acquired by SAP.

Agassi is an active member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum where he focuses on climate change and transportation issues. Agassi also pens a blog titled “The Long Tailpipe,” where he discusses enterprise software and alternative energy innovations.

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Dr. James Canton

Renowned global futurist, social scientist, keynote presenter, author, and visionary business advisor

Dr. James Canton is a renowned global futurist, social scientist, keynote presenter, author, and visionary business advisor. For over 30 years, he has been insightfully predicting the key trends that have shaped our world. He is a leading authority on future trends in innovation. He is the author of The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World in the 21st Century, Dutton 2006, and Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Innovations Will Transform Business in the 21st Century, Next Millennium Press, 2004. Dr. Canton is CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a leading think tank he founded in 1990 that advises business and government on future trends. He advises the Global Fortune 1000 on trends in innovation, financial services, health care, population, life sciences, energy, security, workforce, climate change and globalization. From a broad range of industries, clients include: IBM, BP, Intel, Philips, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, Boeing, FedEx, and Proctor & Gamble. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Research in Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management and serves on Motorola's Visionary Advisory Board. He has advised three White House Administrations, the National Science Foundation and MIT's Media Lab, Europe.

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Aimée Christensen

Founder, Christensen Global Strategies, LLC

Aimée Christensen is the founder of Christensen Global Strategies, LLC. She has worked at the intersections of environment, human rights, and development for nearly two decades, and is currently providing guidance to corporate, governmental, multilateral, philanthropic, and non-profit clients seeking to contribute to solving the global challenges of climate change and wider ecosystem degradation and resource scarcity. Her clients have included the Clinton Global Initiative, The Elders, Global Green USA, Swiss Re, the United Nations Development Program, Virgin Unite, and Wolfensohn + Co. Previously, Aimée worked with Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, where she developed early climate change strategy and initiatives and worked with Google's "Greenteam" to develop the corporate climate strategy including a commitment to carbon neutrality. She has also worked as an attorney to the World Bank's Carbon Finance Business, as Executive Director of Environment2004, as an attorney with Baker & McKenzie, at the International Centre for Trade & Sustainable Development in Geneva, and from 1994 to 1998, Aimée developed and executed Latin American energy policy at the U.S. Department of Energy. Aimée is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (and member of the Council's Independent Task Force on Climate Change), a member of the Advisory Boards of EKO Asset Management Partners and of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and a Board member of the American Council on Renewable Energy, ecoAmerica, and the National Association of Environmental Law Societies.

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Dr. Bob Epstein

Entrepreneur and Engineer

Bob is an entrepreneur and engineer with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-founder of five companies: Sybase, New resource Bank, GetActive Software, Zight, and Britton-Lee. Bob currently splits his professional time between his roles as co-founder of Environmental Entrepreneurs, Director of New Resource Bank and Trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Bob is Vice Chairman of California's Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee for AB 32. Bob's community activities are focused on the environment, public education and opera.

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Daniel Esty

Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University

Daniel C. Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He holds faculty appointments in both Yale's Environment and Law Schools. He also serves as the Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for Business & Environment at Yale. Professor Esty is the author or editor of nine books and numerous articles on environmental policy issues and the relationships between environment and corporate strategy, competitiveness, trade, globalization, governance, and development. His prizewinning recent book, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, argues that pollution control and natural resource management have become critical elements of marketplace success and explains how leading-edge companies have folded environmental thinking into their core business strategies. Professor Esty has advised companies across the world on energy, environment, and sustainability issues and serves as the Chairman of Esty Environmental Partners, a corporate environmental strategy group based in New Haven, CT. He sits on the Board of Directors of Resources for the Future and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

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Diana Farrell

Director of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey & Company

Diana Farrell is the Director of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey & Company's economics research arm. MGI's independent investigations combine McKinsey's microeconomic understanding of companies and industries with the rigor of leading macroeconomic thinking to derive perspectives and publish reports on important global economic issues. MGI's research priorities span: productivity and competitiveness, which includes studies of nearly 20 economies around the world across more than 30 industries as well as the relationship between IT and productivity; global economic integration; capital markets; the ascendance of China and India; labor markets and offshoring; health care; global energy demand; and consumer demand and demographic shifts. Ms. Farrell's work has appeared in academic journals, books, and on the op-ed pages of leading international publications, and she is a frequent speaker at major US and global conferences. She is the editor of an anthology series based on MGI research, published by Harvard Business School Press, 2007. Ms. Farrell is a member of Council on Foreign Relations, the Bretton Woods Committee, and the Pacific Council on International Policy; a trustee for the Committee for Economic Development; a Board Advisor to the Bay Area Economic Pulse; a member of the Bay Area Economic Forum's Research Council; and Senior Advisor to the American Assembly's Next Generation Project.

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Vinod Khosla

Founder, Khosla Ventures

Vinod Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy Systems and founding Chief Executive Officer of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. Sun was funded by Kleiner Perkins and in 1986, Vinod switched sides and joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). In 2004, driven by the need for flexibility and a desire to be more experimental, to fund sometimes imprudent "science experiments", and to take on both "for profit" and for "social impact" ventures, he formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures focuses on both traditional venture capital technology investments and clean technology ventures. Social ventures include affordable housing, microfinance among others.

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Ray Lane

Managing Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Ray Lane is a Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, focused on helping entrepreneurs with technological and market insight, organizational development, team building, selling and managing growth. Since joining KPCB, Ray has sponsored several investments for the firm in enterprise and consumer technology, as well as clean and alternative energy. These companies include Ausra (solar concentrator), GreatPoint Energy (coal to gas conversion), Fisker Automotive (plug-in hybrid car), Th!nk NA (electric car), Luca Technologies (biologically enhanced gas recovery from fossilized hydrocarbons), Xsigo Systems (virtual I/O switch for datacenters), SpikeSource (open source platform for integration and testing), PodShow (social media network), Virsa (compliance for large enterprises) and Elance (marketplace for services). He also serves on the board of Quest Software. Before joining KPCB, Ray was President and Chief Operating Officer of Oracle Corporation, the second-largest software company in the world and the leading enterprise software and services company. During his eight-year tenure, Oracle exhibited phenomenal revenue growth from approximately $1 billion in 1992 to over $10 billion. Ray led Oracle's business expansion beyond its core database technology into enterprise applications and professional services.

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Mindy Lubber

President, Ceres

Mindy S. Lubber is the President of Ceres, the leading U.S. coalition of investors and environmental leaders working to improve corporate environmental, social and governance practices. She also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), an alliance that coordinates U.S. investor responses to the financial risks and opportunities posed by climate change. Ms. Lubber is the recipient of the Skoll Social Entrepreneur Award and under her leadership Ceres was awarded the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award for both 2006 and 2007. She was recently voted one of "The 100 Most Influential People in Corporate Governance" by Directorship magazine, who noted Ceres' increasing influence in its field. Ms. Lubber has held leadership positions in government as the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; in the financial services sector as Founder, President and CEO of Green Century Capital Management, an investment firm managing environmentally screened mutual funds; in the private sector as the President of an environmental law and policy consulting group; and in the not-for-profit sector for more than a decade leading environmental and public interest law organizations.

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Joel Makower

Chairman and Executive Editor, Greener World Media

For nearly 20 years, Joel Makower has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. He is chairman and executive editor of Greener World Media, which produces the acclaimed resource center GreenBiz.com and its sister sites ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com and Greener Computing, as well as the annual "State of Green Business" report. Joel also is co-founder of Clean Edge, a clean-tech research and publishing firm, and a senior advisor at GreenOrder, a sustainability strategy consultancy. He writes "Two Steps Forward" a popular blog on sustainable business, clean technology, and green marketing. The Associated Press has called him "The guru of green business practices." A former nationally syndicated columnist, Joel is author of more than a dozen books, including Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World (Simon & Schuster) and The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business (Random House). His newest book, Strategies for the Green Economy, will be published in October by McGraw-Hill. Makower has helped a variety of companies develop and implement their sustainability strategies, including GE, GM, and Nike. He is an advisor to VantagePoint Venture Partner's clean-technology practice and serves in a board or advisory capacity for more than a dozen other for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

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Dr. C.K. Prahalad

Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

C.K. Prahalad, the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan specializes in corporate strategy. His books include Multinational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision (1987), co-authored with Yves Doz, Competing for the Future (1994), co-authored with Gary Hamel named the Best Selling Business Book of the Year in 1994. The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers (2004) (co-authored with Venkatram Ramaswamy), and translated into twelve languages. Business Week described the book as "provocative" and "an important book full of disruptive ideas". The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profit (2004). The book was selected as one of the best books of the year 2004 by The Economist, Fast Company and Amazon.com. A prominent world-class figure, Professor Prahalad was named number one in the Thinkers50 (the most influential thinkers in management alive today) poll conducted by Suntop media and the Times of London. He has consulted with the top management of many of the world's foremost companies. He serves on the Board of Directors of NCR Corporation, Teradata Corporation, Hindustan Unilever Limited and the World Resources Institute. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) a global organization devoted to democratizing entrepreneurship.

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William K. Reilly

Founding Partner, Aqua International Partners, LP

William K. Reilly is a Founding Partner of Aqua International Partners, LP, a private equity fund dedicated to investing in companies engaged in water and renewable energy, and a Senior Advisor to TPG Capital, LP, an international investment partnership. Mr. Reilly served as the first Payne Visiting Professor at Stanford University (1993-1994), Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1989-1993), president of the World Wildlife Fund (1985-1989), president of The Conservation Foundation (1973-1989), and director of the Rockefeller Task Force on Land Use and Urban Growth from (1972-1973). He was head of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Earth Summit at Rio in 1992. Mr. Reilly is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the World Wildlife Fund, Co-Chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy, Chair of the Advisory Board for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, Chair of the Board for the Global Water Challenge and a Director of the Packard Foundation, the American Academy in Rome and the National Geographic Society. He also serves on the Board of Directors of DuPont, ConocoPhillips and Royal Caribbean International.

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David Sandalow

Energy & Environment Scholar, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

David Sandalow is Energy & Environment Scholar and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of Freedom from Oil (McGraw-Hill 2007). Mr. Sandalow is Chair of the Energy & Climate Working Group of the Clinton Global Initiative and a senior advisor to Good Energies, Inc. He is a director of First Voice International and member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Climate Change Task Force. Mr. Sandalow has served as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment & Science; Senior Director for Environmental Affairs, National Security Council; Associate Director for the Global Environment, White House Council on Environmental Quality; and Executive Vice President, World Wildlife Fund-US. His opinion pieces and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, Science and many other periodicals. He has been a Stimson Fellow at Yale University; commencement speaker at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resource & the Environment; member of the Sustainable Development Roundtable at the OECD; member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Environmental Law; and co-chair of the ABA's Annual Conference on Environmental Law.

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Ron Sommer

Former Chairman, Board of Management, Deutsche Telekom

Dr. Sommer is the former chairman of the board of management of Deutsche Telekom. He held the position from 1995-2002. Prior to joining Deutsche Telekom, Dr. Sommer spent 15 years (1980-1995) with Japan's Sony Corp managing its German, U.S. and European operations. Dr. Sommer currently serves as Supervisory Board member of Munich Re (Germany), Chairman, Advisory Board member and Director of AFK Systema (Russia), International Advisory Board member of the Blackstone Group (USA), and a director of Motorola Inc. (USA) and Tata Consultancy Services. Dr Sommer earned a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Vienna.

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Mark Tercek

President and Chief Executive Officer, The Nature Conservancy

Mark Tercek is The Nature Conservancy’s president and chief executive officer, a position he assumed in July 2008.

He came to the Conservancy from Goldman Sachs, where he was a managing director and headed the firm’s Center for Environmental Markets and its Environmental Strategy Group. In his 24-year career at Goldman Sachs, Tercek also headed various global departments for the firm’s investment banking division.

In addition, Tercek is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations — and serves on its independent task force on climate change — as well as a member of the steering group on the Prince’s Rainforest Project, launched in 2007 by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Tercek is a frequent public speaker on topics connected to business and the environment.

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Adam Werbach

President and CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S

Adam is president and CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S. He is highly regarded as one of the world's premier experts in sustainability. At age 23, he was elected as the youngest president ever of the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest environmental organization in the United States. In 1998, he founded sustainability agency, Act Now, to engage the corporate and media world in social, environmental, cultural and economical change. After ten successful years, Act Now merged with global ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi to form Saatchi & Saatchi S, the world's largest sustainability agency. Adam has always been an advocate for change, as exemplified by his 2004 speech, "Is Environmentalism Dead?" which sent shockwaves through the environmental movement. In it, he declared that he would no longer call himself an environmentalist, as the movement was unprepared to solve the underlying social and economic issues of climate change. Soon after, Wal-Mart engaged Act Now to lead the involvement of the 1.9 million Wal-Mart associates in the Personal Sustainability Project (PSP). Adam also serves on the six-member International Board of Greenpeace.

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Andrew Winston

Founder, Winston Eco-Strategies

Andrew Winston is founder of Winston Eco-Strategies and helps leading companies use environmental thinking to drive growth, consulting with Fortune 500 companies such as Bank of America, Cisco, HP, and IKEA. He is co-author of the bestseller Green to Gold, which highlights what works - and what doesn't - when companies go "green." Andrew is a globally recognized expert on green business, and has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Forbes, The New York Times, ABC News, and CNBC. Andrew bases his work on significant on-the-ground, in-company business experience, including executive positions and P&L responsibility at global companies, start-ups, and dot-coms. Andrew was previously the Director of the Corporate Environmental Strategy Project at Yale's renowned School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

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