Join us for the kickoff event of ClimateCATALYST to explore how and why business leaders need to understand the business implications of our changing climate. Come away inspired to embrace climate as a part of your MBA and future careers.

Speakers:

Jessica Wingert, Program Lead, ClimateCAP

Patrick Flynn, Founder, Switchboard

Bios:

Jessica is Program Lead for ClimateCAP, a partnership of more than 50 business schools focused on educating MBA students about the business risks and opportunities of climate change. Jessica brings a wealth of both industry and academic expertise together in this role. She started her career in supply chain and procurement consulting, has launched and led sustainability programs at both Land O’Lakes and Labcorp, and worked previously at the Fuqua Career Management Center. In each of these roles, she has brought a keen understanding of strategy, a creative entrepreneurial spirit, a deep understanding of climate and sustainability issues, and a passion for inspiring students and stakeholders. She holds an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and an BS in Marketing from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Patrick is a climate action expert who has spent his career at the intersection of business, technology and sustainability. While always working for Planet Earth, he has held roles in engineering, investing and business transformation, including many years leading sustainability for Salesforce. Nowadays, he’s on a mission to supercharge the business world’s most influential climate leaders with Switchboard. Patrick is an advisor to various mission-aligned organizations like Generation Investment Management, TOPO Finance, Symbiosis and Tradewater. He holds an engineering degree from Stanford and a business degree from MIT.

‍ ‍

Get up to speed on climate change fundamentals in this 1-hour crash course in climate science. Explore the fundamental causes and effects of climate change and how it is, and will, affect communities, businesses, and the global economy.

Speaker: Andrew Issacs, UC Berkeley, Senior Lecturer with Continuing Status

Andrew brings an unusual combination of Earth Science expertise and business experience to his role at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where he is one of the few climate scientists teaching at a major American business school.Isaacs began his career with NASA's Planetary Science Division at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, conducting research on Earth and planetary geochemistry after completing undergraduate and graduate degrees in geochemistry from the University of Michigan. From NASA he moved to Silicon Valley, where he worked at a materials science startup before taking on management and executive positions at corporations in Silicon Valley and Tokyo.

Since joining UC Berkeley in 1999, Isaacs has taught technology innovation, climate science, and climate change strategy to over 5,000 students. Isaacs has also written 30 business case studies, many addressing climate-related business challenges, and is working on a textbook to help non-scientists teach climate change to business students. Isaacs has taught executive courses for more than 100 companies across the US, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

 Isaacs’ recent recognition includes the 2022 UC Berkeley Sustainability Teaching Award and the 2024 Best Haas Case Study award for his work on Net Zero. He lives with his family in rural Napa County, where they operate a low-carbon ranch producing wines under the Screaming Squirrel label.

Climate change is increasingly a critical business issue and will be relevant regardless of your industry, function, or career path. This session explores how climate is reshaping markets and creating major risks and opportunities for future business leaders to navigate in the years ahead.

Speaker: Meeta Kothare, Professor of Practice in the McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin

Meeta is Professor of Practice in the McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the Managing Director of the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute at UT and served as the inaugural Managing Director of its predecessor, the Social Innovation Initiative at McCombs.

Kothare has over three decades of academic, business, and social sector experience. Kothare began her career in sales and marketing before pursuing graduate studies in business. After completing her doctorate, she joined the finance faculty at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where she has taught in the MBA, Undergraduate and Executive Education programs. Her research in finance has appeared in leading academic finance journals. Her commitments to philanthropy and community service led her to launch an impact consulting firm and eventually sparked her interest in the role of finance and entrepreneurship in advancing a sustainable future.

In her current role, Kothare is involved in integrating sustainability education at the University of Texas where she teaches impact and sustainable finance, corporate sustainability, and impact entrepreneurship. She serves as the faculty director for the institute’s undergraduate and executive education programs in sustainability leadership, shaping the curriculum and expanding learning opportunities for students and professionals. She is an advisor to several impact startups and oversees student-consulting projects, leveraging her expertise to mentor the next generation of leaders. Beyond academics, she is involved in community and industry engagement, fostering partnerships that strengthen the school’s and university’s sustainability initiatives.

Kothare serves on the steering committee of the Impact and Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium, a global consortium of 500+ faculty members from over 45 countries. She is a member of Impact Austin, a pioneering women’s collective giving organization. In 2019, she was awarded the UT President’s Award for Global Learning for her interdisciplinary research on social determinants of health in underserved communities. Kothare is a frequent speaker on sustainability, impact investing, philanthropy, and purposeful leadership.

Kothare holds a Ph.D. in Finance and an M.S. in Applied Economics from the University of Rochester, and an MBA from the University of Georgia.

You know you'd like to incorporate climate into your post-MBA career, but what are your options? In this session, we'll share an overview of the climate career landscape, talk about key trends in today's job market, and discuss the ways you can prepare for recruiting and career success while you're an MBA student.

Speaker: Marcus Castain, Associate Director, Parker Career Management Center at UCLA Anderson School of Management and Founder of Launchpad.

Marcus graduated from UCLA Anderson in 1998. He returned to Anderson in 2022 as an instructor for the Parker Career Series and as a Career Advisor focused on entrepreneurship, social impact, and sustainability.  Marcus is also the founder of LAUNCHPAD, a new service to provide career education and advising to undergraduates and recent college graduates. 

Prior to joining Anderson, Marcus started his career at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  He worked as a management consultant at PwC in the Bay Area. He went on to work as a product manager in Silicon Valley for two e-learning companies before moving back to Los Angeles where he has specialized in making a social impact by working for the Broad Foundation and the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles.  He also founded and ran a startup focused on green jobs for young people.  Most recently, Marcus worked as a career strategist at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Marcus received his BA in Political Economy from UC Berkeley and his MBA from UCLA Anderson.  He is a Pahara-Aspen Fellow and Marshall Memorial Fellow. 

Want to meet other MBAs who will be going to b-school near you and start to build your climate community? Join us for this ClimateCONNECT, where you'll get to network with MBAs from around the world and talk about today's biggest climate risks and opportunities.

Climate policy--at the national, state, and international level--is one of the most important drivers in shaping market dynamics and the cost of capital in climate tech. Get up to speed on fundamental climate policy issues and their business implications in this session.

Speaker: Elizabeth Doty, Executive Director, Third Side Strategies

Elizabeth leads Third Side Strategies, a non-profit think tank and advisory firm that helps companies strengthen the governance of their public affairs, to reduce risk and enable long-term value for business and society. Previously, she led the non-partisan Corporate Political Responsibility Taskforce at the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan, which created the Erb Principles for Corporate Political Responsibility. She also serves as faculty with Ross Executive Education, and conducted research as a Lab Fellow with the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. For 30 years, her consultancy has helped leading companies align across functions and implement strategic commitments. Read more from Elizabeth: The Importance of Corporate Political Responsibility 

Transitioning to a low carbon future is critical in managing climate change. Join this session to understand how energy is produced, delivered, and used, and how those activities affect climate outcomes, innovation opportunities, and investment decisions.

Speaker: Jonathan Silverthorne, Director of the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability, and Innovation at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Jonathan Silverthorne’s experience spans work in the energy industry, leadership development field, and international policy.

Prior to Tuck, Jonathan worked on financing and deploying solar and storage projects at Amp Energy, a global developer and asset owner, where he focused on late-stage development, investor diligence, and US policy. From 2011-2017, he ran professional fellowships for rising leaders in energy, climate, and foreign policy as Director of the Millennium Leadership Program at the Atlantic Council. With a background in international affairs, he also served in the Obama Administration as a policy advisor at the US Department of Homeland Security.

 Jonathan has an MBA and master’s degree in energy studies from Yale University and a BA in History summa cum laude from Dartmouth. He speaks French, Russian and conversational Arabic; is a board director at the American Resilience Project; and enjoys tennis, hiking, and exploring the Upper Valley with his dog, Argo.

What does a post-MBA climate career look like? Join us to talk with MBA alumni about their climate jobs -- what they do, what they find rewarding (and frustrating) about their current role, and what skills they use on a regular basis.

Speakers:

John Kim, Graduate Programs Career Advisor + Part-Time Lecturer, University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business

Hugo Mkhize, Associate, Investments, Climate Investment (CI)

John Kim is the Graduate Programs Career Advisor and a Part-Time Lecturer at the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business. Previously he served as the Head of Impact and Strategy at 1Row, a boutique marketing and consulting firm focusing on purpose-driven start-ups, nonprofits, and other ventures. Before this, he spent 10 years in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and ESG (environment/social/governance) roles at The Walt Disney Company and Herman Miller (now MillerKnoll). Prior to that he worked at Lipman Hearne, a branding and marketing agency focused on the nonprofit sector, supporting higher education institutions, large foundations, and member associations. 

Earlier in his career, John served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, worked on food insecurity impacting communities in the Washington, DC area and South Africa, and evaluated programs for the United Nations World Food Programme in Malawi. He’s also the creator of the blog, Virtuous Cycle, which highlights changemakers using bikes to do good, serves as an advisor for zero-emissions last-mile delivery company, Coaster Cycles, and is a board member of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR). 

He received his master’s in public policy (MPP) from Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and his bachelor’s from Cornell University. He lives with his family in Montpelier, VT.

Hugo Mkhize is an Associate in the Investment Team at Climate Investment (CI), where he focuses on venture capital and growth equity climate technology investment opportunities. He joined CI in 2024 as a Summer Intern before joining full-time in 2025. Previously, he spent over 5 years at Morgan Stanley across Johannesburg and London, focusing on M&A and capital markets transactions in renewable energy and environmental services. Hugo holds an MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School, where he graduated with Distinction, a Master of Advanced Studies in Climate Science & Policy from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and a Bachelor of Business Science in Finance from the University of Cape Town. During his MBA, he was selected as a ClimateCAP Fellow and completed a project on Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) in Emerging Markets to reduce dependence on coal power. Hugo is a CFA Charterholder and is based in London.

The AI build out is a digital twin of the green transition. This session will explore how AI can accelerate climate solutions and decarbonization efforts, while examining the tensions surrounding AI’s energy use, data infrastructure, resource demands, and unintended consequences.

Speaker: Gernot Wagner, Faculty Director, Climate Knowledge Initiative, Columbia Business School

Gernot Wagner is a climate economist at Columbia Business School and faculty director of its Climate Knowledge Initiative. He has written six books, including Climate Shock and, most recently, Geoengineering: the Gamble. Gernot’s research, writing, and teaching focus on climate risks, technologies, and policy. He is a research fellow at CEPR, faculty fellow at CESifo, board member of CarbonPlan, Project Syndicate columnist, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times and Financial Times, among others. Gernot holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard, an M.A. in Economics from Stanford.

Which innovations are the most attractive business opportunities, and how do different types of investors evaluate climate tech? In this panel discussion, we'll introduce you to the ecosystem of climate investing.

Speakers:

Radhika Lalit, Initiative Director, Industry, Climate Imperative

Helenka (Lenka) Nolan, Lecturer in Strategy at Northeastern University

Elaine Hsieh, Partner and COO for VoLo Earth Ventures

Elaine is a Partner and COO for VoLo Earth Ventures. With over 20 years of experience advancing innovation across the energy industry, she is passionate about accelerating clean energy commercialization and deployment through investment, policy, and industry engagement. Elaine previously served as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy’s first Under Secretary for Infrastructure catalyzing the market liftoff of critical energy infrastructure technologies through Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding. Before joining the DOE, she co-founded RMI's global climate tech startup accelerator Third Derivative.

Elaine also supported the relaunch of Generate Capital in early 2020, led the VERGE climate tech conference at GreenBiz (now Trellis), and served as a global utility strategist and sustainability manager at DNV after switching careers as a green building consultant and engineer. Elaine holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and an M.S. in Engineering Management from Duke University.

Radhika is Initiative Director, Industry at Climate Imperative, where she oversees grantmaking strategy to accelerate industrial decarbonization in the US and India. Previously, she was a Principal at RMI leading global cement sector decarbonization, and served as Chief Strategy Officer at Mission Possible Partnership, advising on strategy across aviation, shipping, chemicals, cement, aluminum, and steel. At RMI, she also co-led the Global Cooling Prize, an international innovation competition to award and scale a breakthrough and climate friendly air conditioning technology. 

Lenka is a Lecturer in Strategy at Northeastern University and the university's liaison to ClimateCAP.  A strategist, educator, and advisor, she specializes in global business, strategy, and climate. She began her career developing renewable energy projects globally for Bechtel.  In addition to teaching undergraduate and MBA students, she advises climatetech startups through Greentown Labs and works to connect leaders across academia, industry, and the climate innovation ecosystem to accelerate impactful solutions.

We’ve covered a ton of different climate levers over the past three days, and now is your chance to put that to use in this interactive session using the En‑ROADS Climate Solutions Simulator.

Speaker: Katherine Markova, Partnerships Manager, Climate Interactive

As the Partnerships Manager, Katherine is responsible for stewarding relationships with Climate Interactive's strategic partners and our community of trained En‑ROADS Climate Ambassadors operating worldwide.

Katherine spent the first chapter of her career at a large consulting firm where she advised corporations and financial institutions on a range of financial topics. Supporting large multinational corporations with complex engagements allowed Katherine to gain an in-depth understanding of how the corporate sector operates.

Most recently, she consulted US corporations on a range of corporate sustainability matters, including greenhouse gas measurement, science-based target setting, and renewable energy procurement. She was highly involved with climate risk assessments and reporting using the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.

Katherine teaches corporate sustainability at UCLA Extension and climate reporting at Terra.do. In her spare time, she is a green finance activist and a budding (pun intended) gardener in her hometown of Los Angeles.

Want to meet other MBAs who with similar industry interests and start to build your climate community? Join us for this ClimateCONNECT, where you'll get to network with MBAs from around the world and talk about today's biggest climate risks and opportunities.