How Fast Can Small Grow? The Case for Solar Power
Speakers
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Founder and CEO, Christensen Global Strategies
Aimée Christensen is CEO of Christensen Global Strategies with clients including the Clinton Global Initiative, Duke Energy, Microsoft, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Swiss Re, Virgin Unite, and United Nations. Trained as an environmental and energy lawyer, she has two decades’ experience in policy, law, investment, and philanthropy including with the U.S. Department of Energy, World Bank, Baker & McKenzie and Google where she guided its earliest climate and energy strategy including a commitment to carbon neutrality. She was Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General's High-level Group on Sustainable Energy For All and co-chair of the World Climate Summit where 800 business leaders mobilized climate solutions. She negotiated the first bilateral climate change agreements (U.S. – Costa Rica 1994, et al.) and wrote the first university endowment investment policy on climate change (Stanford University, 1999). She was the 2011 Hillary Laureate and a 2010 Aspen Catto Fellow. In 2009 she relocated to Sun Valley, Idaho to be with family and manage her family’s investments including in solar energy companies, projects and funds. She graduated from Smith College and Stanford Law School.
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Co-Founder, SfunCube & Sungevity
Danny is a globally recognized businessperson, sustainability activist, and opinion leader. In 2011, PBS named him "Innovator of the Year" for moving the planet forward, and in 2013 he was described as a "Solar Maverick" by Rolling Stone. He is the author of the book Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy-and Our Planet-from Dirty Energy (2012); the co-founder of The SfunCube-the only Incubator and Accelerator with a mission of supporting the success of solar entrepreneurs; and the founder of Sungevity, the largest privately held solar service company in the USA. Before founding Sungevity, Danny was Campaigns Manager for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, and in 2001, he ran Greenpeace's California Clean Energy Campaign, which led to many of the current Californian solar initiatives. He sits on the boards of Powerhive and Sunergise, companies serving the Global South, and also the Board of the Solar Foundation, VoteSolar, and ecoAmerica, as well as the Clean Tech Council of the Sierra Club and the World Resources Institute's New Innovators Council. His life purpose is to make Sfun (that is Solar For Universal Need)!
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Managing Director, Capricorn Investment Group
Dipender Saluja is a Partner of Capricorn Investment Group, and a Managing Partner of the Technology Impact Fund, founded to demonstrate that it is possible to invest profitably while driving sustainable positive change. The firm strives for extraordinary investment results by leveraging market forces to accelerate large scale impact, and some of the past and current investments include Tesla, Planet Labs, QuantumScape, SpaceX, Innovium, and Helion Energy. Prior to Capricorn, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global market leader in electronic design, where he built and managed businesses that worked closely with electronics companies around the world. Prior to that he worked at Data General (EMC), Honeywell, ROLM (IBM), and the GF Energy Research Center. He is an electrical engineer by training, and attended UND, Univ of Minnesota and Stanford. Dipender serves on the boards of AST, Automatiks, Encell, Innovium, Joby Aviation, Navitas, QuantumScape, RayVio, Raxium, Saildrone, and Sense, and is a member of the Leadership Council of Cyclotron Road, and on the investment committee of PRIME. He is based in Palo Alto, California.
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Harish Hande is an engineer and renewable energy entrepreneur with over 23 years of grassroots experience in meeting requirements of underserved communities. He is the co-founder of SELCO Solar Light Pvt Ltd and is presently the CEO of SELCO Foundation. Today SELCO’s interventions have impacted more than 500,000 poor households across 6 Indian states, while focusing on Innovation and Ecosystem building, for which Harish was awarded the Magsaysay Award in 2011
Harish, a graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and a Masters and PhD from University of Massachusetts, US. He co-founded SELCO in 1994-95 after experiencing benefits of solar energy in rural areas of Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka. Harish is recognized as a pioneer of rural energy service across the globe. He and his company have received many national and international awards including the reputed Zayed Future Energy Prize in 2018 and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship – 2018.
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Managing Director, British Gas Business
In October 2014 Stuart was appointment Managing Director of British Gas Business, his role encompasses the overall operational responsibilities of providing business customers with end to end solutions tailored to the individual business needs.
Prior to this appointment Stuart was Chief Operations Officer (COO) of British Gas, responsible for metering, insulation, renewable heating, Health, Safety & Environment and property.
Stuart joined British Gas in 2011 as Managing Director for Central Heating Installations and became Managing Director of Smart Metering in 2012. Previously Stuart worked with strategy consulting firm the LEK Partnership and completed an MBA at Harvard Business School, before developing a career in general management with Caradon Plc and Intelligent Engineering.
Stuart is a proud Glaswegian and lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and 3 teenage children
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Co-Founder, President, Off.Grid:Electric
Co-Founder, Better World Books - founding B Corp and leading online used bookseller. Skoll Scholar, MBA @ Oxford. Co-Founder, President - Zola Electric (formerly Off Grid Electric) - leading distributed energy company in Africa.
