Tim Agnew
Company: Bold Ocean Ventures
Location: Portland, ME
22+ years in early stage venture capital, and many years of impact finance, both debt and equity. Served on multiple governmental and non-profit boards.
Newsha Ajami
Company: Berkeley Lab
Location: Berkeley, California
Newsha K. Ajami, Ph.D., is the Chief Strategy and Development Officer for Research at the Berkeley Lab. She is a hydrologist specializing in sustainable water resource management, water policy, the water-energy-food nexus, and advancing uncertainty assessment techniques impacting hydrological predictions. Her research throughout the years has been interdisciplinary and impact driven, focusing on the improvement of the science-policy-stakeholder interface by incorporating social and economic measures and relevant and effective communication.
Dr. Ajami is a gubernatorial appointee to the Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board. Before joining Berkeley, she was the director of Urban Water Policy with Stanford University’s Water in the West and NSF-ReNUWIt initiatives. Previously, she worked as a senior research associate at the Pacific Institute from 2011 to 2013, and served as a Science and Technology fellow at the California State Senate’s Natural Resources and Water Committee where she worked on various water and energy related legislation. She was also a post doctorate researcher with the Berkeley Water Center, University of California, Berkeley. She has published many highly cited peer-reviewed papers in predominant journals, coauthored two books, and contributed opinion pieces to the New York Times and the Sacramento Bee. She was the recipient of the 2005 National Science Foundation award for AMS Science and Policy Colloquium and ICSC-World Laboratory Hydrologic Science and Water Resources Fellowship from 2000 to 2003. Dr. Ajami received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California, Irvine, an M.S. in hydrology and water resources from the University of Arizona, and a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Tehran Polytechnic.
David Balsar
Company: Mekorot
A lawyer and economist with a MBA from INSEAD (France) and a MA in Philosophy.
David has experience working in different business development roles for international corporates such as FOX (Newscorp) and Endemol Shine in London.
Later he became an entrepreneur who founded two start-ups, acted as CEO including fund raising, management and execution.
Currently is the General Manager of Innovation and Ventures in Mekorot (Israel’s National Water Company). For the last 4 years, he has been managing the company’s investment strategy and execution. Screening hundreds of startups from which Mekorot has invested in 10 companies.
A former professional athlete with passion for doing good. He was an Intern in the UN DESA in NYC and a volunteer in the World Food Program (WFP) in Africa.
Robert Cobbold
Company: Beach Collective
Location: Madrid, Spain
Robert Cobbold is an entrepreneur, public speaker and philosopher who has delivered transformative educational experiences to over 40,000 people worldwide.
COO at Beach Collective.
Founding editor of Conscious Evolution, an online publication, podcast and consultancy aiming to kindle an evolutionary transition and help individuals and organisations find meaning and purpose.
Former programme Manager of The Crowd, a network for senior sustainability professionals; and Common Vision, a thinktank specialising in creative public engagement.
Former programme Manager of Green Schools Project, a nationwide environmental education program.
Worked for the celebrity-led campaign Farms Not Factories which reached over 130M people.
Set up my own business teaching bridge to young people in London called SLAM!
Worked as a private tutor for top London tutoring agencies, including stints in India, China and around the UK.
Published writer, public speaker, podcaster and facilitator.
Tom Ferguson
Company: Burnt Island Ventures
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Tom brings a decade of experience in water and startups to lead BIV. His start in water came as the lead author on the first CDP Water Disclosure Report in 2010, and he joined Imagine H2O in 2015 to build out the organization’s programming portfolio, which now encompasses 3 global programs vetting 500+ startups per year. Companies selected under Tom’s tenure have raised $600m+ and achieved 5 exits. He holds an MA from the University of Edinburgh, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Chris Fortunato
Company: CRH Ventures
Location: New York City, New York
I invest in technology-enabled and internet businesses at CRH Ventures. I have been making venture capital investments across the globe for more than 10 years and, today, I am most interested in working with entrepreneurs driving Industry 4.0 and revolutionizing the way companies manufacture, advance and distribute their products.
Steven Fox
Company: Propeller
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Partner at Propeller, an early stage climate-tech venture fund that invests in and builds ocean-climate companies that use science and technology to address the climate crisis. In partnership with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Anders Hallsby
Company: Mazarine Ventures
Location: Chicago, IL
Building bridges between technology and the marketplace, identifying opportunities and unmet needs, creating strategies for growth and leading execution. Strong technical background in combination with extensive commercial and sales experience.
Strategic thinker, business leader and people manager, willing to roll up my sleeves and do what it takes to achieve our goals. I have passion for building, creating and helping a business grow to its potential, while leveraging my skills, technical and commercial expertise.
Most of my career has been spent in water purification, working with different technologies (e.g. membranes, filtration, ion exchange, …). I have worked both in large multinational Fortune 500 companies and in small entrepreneurial start-ups, and have experience working with and developing solutions for both industrial (e.g. Food & beverage, Manufacturing, Microelectronics, Power, Chemical Process, Mining, Oil & Gas) and municipal customers.
Former board member of the Caribbean Desalination Association (CaribDA). Member of IDA, AMTA, WEF and SEDA.
Ryan Harrison
Company: Bowersox Investment Group
Location: Kennesaw, Georgia
Ryan brings over 15 years of successful experience in business development, project management, and strategic planning. Ryan is working with the team at BIG to see the vision and mission of the company realized while providing leadership and direction to the corporate team.
BIG’s Mission is to advance and revolutionize the construction, housing, and other highly pollutive industries from their antiquated states to one of efficiency and responsibility by leveraging technology and opportunity. BIG’s commitment is to provide innovative decarbonization solutions within an open source collaboration.
BIG’s Housing Goal by 2029 is to develop master-planned carbon positive communities that not only have complete zero carbon footprints for operative and embodied carbon, but have an overall net positive effect on the environment.
David Hertz
Company: Resilience Fund
Location: Malibu, California
Architect and educator specializing in Restorative Architecture. Inventor and innovator. 2022 Award winner for Climate Action from the White House Millennium Council’s National Design Award Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Founder Skysource.org and the Skysource Resilience Labs. Inventor of WEDEW, the Grand Prize Winner of Water Abundance XPRIZE and Time’s Best Invention 2020. Co-founder and General partner of The Resilience Fund for Advancing Climate Technologies and The Resilience Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit to combat the world’s greatest challenges using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a guiding framework.