Cleantech Investment Strategies' Confirmed Speakers

Steve Westly is currently founder of The Westly Group, one of the larger clean tech venture funds in the US. In 2008 he served as the California Co-Chair for the Obama for President campaign.

Prior to founding The Westly Group, Steve Westly served as the Controller and Chief Fiscal Officer of the state of California - the world's sixth largest economy. As Controller, he chaired the State Lands Commission and served on 63 other boards and commissions, including CalPERS and CalSTRS, the nation's two largest public pension funds, which together invest more than $350 billion. During his four-year term, Mr. Westly spearheaded innovative tax programs that helped close the State's budget deficit and also led an effort to commit more than $1 billion to clean technology investments.

Before running for office, Mr. Westly helped guide the online auction company eBay through its period of most rapid growth, serving as the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Business Development, M&A and International. Mr. Westly helped bring eBay to Europe and Asia and developed the marketing and acquisition strategies that paved the path for the firm's exponential growth.

Mr. Westly began his career in Washington, D.C., where he worked first on Capitol Hill and later in the Office of Conservation and Solar at the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Westly returned to California to become special assistant to the President of the California Public Utilities Commission. While there, he published two books on alternative energy and the utilities. Mr. Westly also held senior positions at Sprint Communications, Netcom, and WhoWhere?.

Mr. Westly holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where he served on the faculty for five years. Mr. Westly and his wife, Anita, run the Westly Foundation, which provides education and health care services for children and underserved communities throughout California.

Tom Amis is a partner in Alston & Bird’s Washington office where he heads the firm’s Renewable Energy Group. He has developed and financed projects in a number of industry sectors over the course of his career, with an emphasis on electric power projects. For the past six years, his practice has focused on the renewable energy sector. Mr. Amis leads an integrated renewable energy practice, incorporating expertise in project development and finance, renewable energy policy, carbon management and renewable energy technology. This synergistic approach positions the group to add significant value to renewable energy transactions.

Mr. Bloch co-founded the GKM private equity group in 2001. He leverages over 17 years of investment experience. Mr. Bloch contributes first-rate legal review to our due diligence and skillful negotiations of terms and conditions of investments. He also provides invaluable venture expertise as one of the most experienced venture investors in Southern California. Mr. Bloch was previously Managing Director of the Technology Group at Chanin Capital Partners where he specialized in corporate finance and principal investing. He led various early-stage and pre-IPO technology related investments including Software.com, now Openwave Systems. Mr. Bloch was previously a Partner in the law firm Wyman, Bautzer, Rothman, Kuchel & Silbert.

Scott Brown founded New Energy Capital in 2004 and has served as its CEO to date, overseeing all aspects of company formation, deal origination, execution and portfolio management. During the past 25 years, Scott was part of the founding management team at First Solar, has served as President and CEO of Glasstech Solar, Inc., a manufacturer of semiconductor equipment for the photovoltaic industry, and has consulted extensively with state agencies and private equity companies on renewable energy. Between 1999 and 2005, Scott served on the National Advisory Board of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. New Energy Capital invests in, owns and operates renewable energy and distributed generation projects. Since 2004, NEC has invested in ethanol, and biodiesel production facilities, on-site cogeneration, and biomass-fired power generation assets.

In his role as Chief Investment Officer, Mr. Diamond leads the fund’s investment strategy, manages due diligence, and oversees portfolio construction. Since 2006, he has served as General Partner of R&D Capital Partners, a CleanTech fund investing in clean technology through private equity funds and direct investments. Since 1999 he has been the General Partner of two medical technology venture funds, Saratoga Ventures III and IV. He has been in asset management and alternative investments since 1991, at Prudential Securities, GEM Capital Management, and West Side Advisors. He serves on the Board of American Clean Power, Inc., a commercial and residential solar integrator. He is on the Investment Committee of E+Co, which makes clean energy investments in the developing world, and he serves on the Advisory Board of Building with Books from whom he received their 2007 Global Impact Award. Since 2006 he has been active in municipal initiatives to implement local green initiatives in Westport, CT and Sag Harbor, NY. He earned a BA cum laude from Cornell University and an MBA from Columbia University.

Paul Dickerson, a recognized leader and sought-after speaker on issues of clean tech and energy efficiency, launched Haynes and Boone’s Clean Tech practice group in 2008. Paul, a partner who offices in the firm’s Houston and D.C. offices, returned to the firm to launch the group, a new concentration for the firm that builds upon the firm's broad experience in intellectual property, litigation, technology, financing and many other legal issues that companies in the nascent industry must face.

Paul served as Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) from 2006 until his return to Haynes and Boone (where he worked as an associate from 2000 to 2005). He oversaw the EERE’s $1.8 billion budget and helped move alternative and renewable energy technologies from the “vision” stage to real-world development.

Mary Dent is SVB Financial Group's general counsel and secretary, responsible for leading the company's legal department, providing strategic guidance to its management team and board, and spearheading the company’s government affairs efforts. Ms. Dent also has overall responsibility for SVB’s cleantech initiative. This initiative brings together SVB’s efforts in four areas that, collectively, are designed to promote the success of SVB’s cleantech clients and the development of a robust cleantech sector: building out a comprehensive cleantech banking practice, informing SVB’s clients about relevant business and policy developments, helping to shape policies affecting the sector to ensure they reflect the views and needs of cleantech entrepreneurs, and implementing cleaner, greener business practices within SVB.

Dennis R. Costello has more than 30 years of experience in the energy and venture capital industries. Mr. Costello was previously a partner with Advent International, an international private equity firm where he rose to be Chief Investment Officer for North America. He was personally responsible for 23 investments, 10 of which were in the energy area. Mr. Costello was also a managing director in Rock Maple Ventures an early stage technology venture fund in Boston and started in the venture capital industry as a general partner of Zero Stage Capital of Pennsylvania. Before embarking on a career in venture capital, Mr. Costello was the first Executive Director of the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute ("CATI") in Denver, Colorado. Mr. Costello began his career in alternative energy, with positions as a project manager at Midwest Research Institute and a member of the original staff of the National Solar Energy Research Institute ("SERI"), which is now the National Renewable energy Laboratory (NREL). During that period, Mr. Costello published numerous papers and articles on the economic and market issues of solar energy commercialization. He is also the author of the Dow-Jones Irwin book, New Venture Analysis: Research, Planning and Finance and served on the Board of Directors of the New England Venture Capital Association from 1997-1999. He was a founder and Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Colorado and he remains active with the national MIT Enterprise Forum. Mr. Costello holds a Master of Science degree in business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. He also holds a M.A. in economics from Ohio State University and a B.A. in economics from the State University of New York (SUNY), College at Fredonia.

Devin is a partner at Aquillian, working in the business development group to help investors source best-in-class clean-technology investments. Devin comes to Aquillian from Accessor Capital Management, an award-winning, boutique mutual fund where he worked as a relationship manager and sales professional. At Accessor, he called on RIA’s, bank trust departments, and due diligence teams at the world’s largest investment firms. Devin began his career, however, in Hollywood, where he spent nine years working as a producer on big budget TV commercials (Adidas, Toys-R-Us, Maytag), and music videos (Creed, Cyndi Lauper, Motley Crue). During this time, he nurtured a growing fascination with environmental sustainability, and became a passionate student of emerging green business opportunities. Devin graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA, where he was both an Alumni Scholar and Regents Scholar, earning a joint degree in Business and East Asian Studies. He holds his FINRA series 7 and 66 licenses, and is a CFA level III candidate. Devin is an outdoor enthusiast, and has been an avid surfer for more than 20 years. He was recently married in India, and has moved back to the Bay Area where he grew up and now lives with his wife and yellow Labrador, Scout.

Mr. Weiss is co-founder and a Managing Partner of AG. Mr. Weiss oversees AG's investment activities in the areas of emissions reduction, transmission and distribution infrastructure and power quality & reliability. Prior to the formation of AG, Mr. Weiss was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, working in the firm's mergers and acquisitions, international and high technology practice groups. He represented multiple Global 1000 clients, including utilities and energy related companies, in a wide array of private equity and corporate finance transactions. Mr. Weiss also has a significant history of involvement in government, regulatory and public policy entities that deal with the energy sector including work experience in the White House and the United States Congress. Additionally, Mr. Weiss has taught, lectured and published articles on the topics of law, business and public policy. He has lectured at Stanford University, Stanford Law School and U.C.L.A. and his articles have appeared in media outlets such as the New York Times wire service, the Journal of Commerce and the San Francisco Examiner. Mr. Weiss holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. with high honors from U.C. Berkeley.

James is a partner at Aquillian, and primarily leads the firm's research and due diligence of investment opportunities. James is committed to the integration of economic and ecological sustainability, believing that green ideas have increased potential for scale and impact when they are directed toward practical solutions of business problems. He has been a student of sustainability for the past twenty years. Before joining Aquillian, James was Conservation Finance Manager for the Pacific Forest Trust. He conducted financial analysis of forestland acquisition opportunities and led marketing of carbon offsets generated from sustainable forest management. James also managed integrated conservation and development projects as a Natural Resource Management Specialist for the World Conservation Union in Iran. He holds a Master of Forestry degree from Yale University and a BS in Environmental Policy and Management from Humboldt State University, and completed the UC Berkeley Venture Capital Executive Program. He holds FINRA series 7 and 66 licenses.

Joshua Raffaelli is an Associate and Kauffman Fellow at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Joshua's primary areas of interest are in energy and services businesses. Prior to joining Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Joshua was an Analyst at Och-Ziff Capital Management in London where he focused on merger arbitrage and emerging market investments in the logistics and oil and gas markets. Prior to OZ, Joshua was an Analyst at JPMorgan's Technology Investment Banking group in San Francisco where he focused on mergers & acquisitions and debt and equity offerings for media-related consumer products and software clients. Joshua also worked in the Debt Capital Markets group at JPMorgan in New York where he worked on acquisition related transactions in a variety of industries including energy, waste management, telecommunications, semiconductors, and health care services. Joshua is a Cum Laude graduate of Harvard University with a BA in Government, and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Dan Adler is President of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), a nonprofit, evergreen venture capital fund created to accelerate investment in California’s clean energy economy. CalCEF Fund I, employing a fund-of-funds model, is invested in 40 young companies covering the full range of clean energy technologies. In 2006 CalCEF founded the nation’s first university center on energy efficiency, the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California at Davis, and in 2008 launched the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund and an affiliated public policy and market intelligence organization, CalCEF Innovations. Prior to joining CalCEF, Mr. Adler was a senior analyst in the Division of Strategic Planning at the California Public Utilities Commission, where he was responsible for the design and implementation of California's Renewables Portfolio Standard and was senior staff for climate change policy. In addition to energy issues, Mr. Adler has professional experience in international trade policy and socially responsible investment. He has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Mr. Ferreri honed his analytical and valuation skills at McClurg Capital Corporation, where in 2006 he developed the McClurg Energy Innovation Portfolio, predecessor to the Blossom portfolio he manages today. Before joining McClurg in 2005, he was a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley/Dean Witter (1995-2005) and a municipal bond representative for Alex. Brown & Sons (1994-5). He is a member of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2).

Mr. Betz is a Managing Director with GKM Newport. In this role, he is responsible for due diligence on and management of the firm’s fund and co-investment opportunities. Mr. Betz has held operating and advising roles within both the healthcare and technology industries. Prior to joining GKM Newport, Mr. Betz performed due diligence at a growth stage venture capital firm. He also worked in a variety of roles ranging from technical to product development to marketing at InstaMed, a healthcare software firm. As a management consultant at Stockamp & Associates, Mr. Betz advised some of the country’s most prestigious healthcare institutions on the technologies and processes required to improve financial stability. Mr. Betz is a graduate of the University of California San Diego; he also holds an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California where he attended on a Dean’s fellowship.

Andrew Heintzman is a co-founder of Investeco. Andrew is the Chair of the Premier's Climate Change Advisory Panel for the Province of Ontario. He sits on a number of corporate boards, including Lotek Wireless, Triton Logging and Horizon Distributors. In addition, he is on the board of directors of the Tides Canada Foundation, the Steering Committee of Sustainable Prosperity and the Investement Committee for the Toronto Atmospheric Fund. Andrew was co-editor of Fueling the Future: How the Battle Over Energy is Changing Everything, Feeding the Future: From Fat to Famine, and Food and Fuel: Solutions for the Future, all published by the House of Anansi Press. Before Investeco, Andrew was a co-founder and publisher of Shift Magazine.