s3 solar software summit 2019

Avra is currently Director, Incubation at National Grid Partners, a utility venture group investing in the potential of energy with a vision to define a smarter more renewable future. She focuses on early stage startups, doing equity investments and working with them to grow. Prior to joining National Grid, Avra spent 10 years as an operator growing early stage companies. Avra was director of Growth at AltSchool, a company transforming K-8 education through personalized learning. Prior to AltSchool, Avra led business development at Stem, an AI and battery storage company. She has spent her career focused on tackling tough problems, including increasing renewable energy at One Block Off the Grid, rebuilding New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina, and developing affordable housing in New York City. Avra has a BA in Urban Studies from Stanford University and a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Tim McKeever studied Economics with a focus on the environment at UC Santa Barbara. He started in the solar industry as an in-home sales person, first with Evolve Solar and then with Sun Edison. He has been with PetersenDean since 2016 and has worked in various capacities including inside sales, managing PD’s corporate partnerships, and now managing the commercial sales team.

Emily Kirsch is the Founder and CEO of Powerhouse, an Oakland based co-working space and seed fund that houses and invests in intelligent energy entrepreneurs. Prior to founding Powerhouse, Emily worked with Van Jones, a former advisor to President Obama turned CNN political commentator, to launch the Green Jobs Corps; Oakland's first renewables focused job training program.Emily is the founding convener of the the Oakland Climate Action Coalition which drafted and secured passage of what was the most ambitious Energy and Climate Action Plan of any city in the country. In addition, Emily worked with the solar company Mosaic to secure their first customers and launch their pilot platform. Emily is a 2012 New Leaders Council Alumni, was featured in the '15 for 2015 Women Leaders in Cleantech', was a 2015 winner of the 'East Bay Innovation Award for Cleantech', and was a 'Grist 50: The 50 People You'll Be Talking About in 2016.' Emily serves on the Board of PV Complete and is on the Advisory Board of the University of San Francisco’s Masters of Science in Energy Systems Management. Emily has guest lectured at UC Berkeley and Stanford.

Paul Gibbs had the idea for building HelioScope while working in distributed electronics for PV arrays. Witnessing the painful process it takes to design, develop and finance a new solar project was eye-opening, and he saw the need for a better system. New and emergent technologies only appeared to confound these problems.

His unique background spanning physics, optimization and energy has enabled him to begin building the technology platform behind HelioScope. Paul received an MBA from Harvard Business School and has degrees in Physics and Economics from the University of Chicago.

Prior to attending business school he was a founder at Nodal Exchange, where he led new product development and designed a market allowing utilities to hedge electricity transmission costs in a structure that parallels the actual physical power flows.

Samuel Adeyemo is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Aurora Solar, a solar sales and engineering design software platform. Immediately prior to Aurora, Samuel was with Vituo Technologies, a company that designed and installed small commercial PV systems in developing countries. Previously, Samuel was a Vice President in JPMorgan's Chief Investment Office, where he was responsible for investing the bank's assets in various public debt markets. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Chicago where he was a Marshall Scholar, and holds an MBA and MSc from Stanford University.

Matt Brausch serves as a Project Development Engineer for the Renewable Energy Group within Ameresco.  Matt has been with Ameresco for three years supporting the design and construction of a variety of behind-the-meter solar projects for the C&I market.  Since 2017, Matt has assisted in expanding the energy storage development within the organization gaining an expertise in energy storage modelling through the process.  Prior to Ameresco,  Matt pursued his interests in energy and sustainability at Arizona State University. Matt graduated as a Moeur Award recipient with BSE in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Aerospace Engineering.

Juan brings nearly a decade of experience in finance and investing. He is integral to all aspects of the Fund’s operations, including leading sourcing efforts, developing investment theses, driving diligence of potential investments, and supporting and monitoring portfolio companies. Previously, Juan worked at J.P. Morgan, where his work ranged from business analysis and research to advising institutional investors on portfolio allocation and private investments.

Juan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from the University of Notre Dame, magna cum laude.

Juan currently sits on the Board of Directors for ZEDEDA, Nozomi Networks, and Aquilon and was previously on the Board of DroneDeploy.

Bryan Birsic, Cofounder and CEO of Wunder Capital brings extensive finance and capital raising expertise to Wunder, from private equity investing at Bain & Company to financing online commercial lending companies at Village Ventures. Notably, Bryan’s firm led early investments into commercial lending market leader OnDeck Capital. Along with his finance background, Bryan has built and led several companies that bring software approaches to new markets, most notably and recently SimpleReach, where Bryan was President and which has raised more than $15mm. Bryan attended Williams College, and moved with his family to Boulder from New York City several years ago.

Jono Millin is a founder of DroneDeploy, the cloud-based drone management platform, and ensures a great customer experience as the Chief Customer Officer there.

Jono completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Systems and Applied Maths at Rhodes University in South Africa before moving to the UK to obtain an MSc in Artificial Intelligence, and 2/3 of a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Edinburgh.

During his time in Edinburgh, Jono co-founded Zoom2Work and AdvertEyes before moving to San Francisco with DroneDeploy.

Ernst is a Partner at Blue Bear Capital, a VC investor for digital technologies in the energy industry. Blue Bear investment themes cover AI, IoT, cyber security, and blockchain technologies, with commercial applications that accelerate the development of wind, solar, and energy storage, while making oil and gas operations more efficient.

Ernst has participated on the Boards of Directors of over a dozen energy companies, and is currently an observer or director on the boards of Shoreline, Mission Secure, Omnidian, MineralSoft, and Element Analytics.

Before Blue Bear, Ernst spent nine years at Riverstone, the world’s leading energy specialist private equity firm with over $35 billion in assets under management across over 130 energy companies. Previously, he worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions team at Citigroup covering the oil and gas, renewable energy, and transportation sectors.

Ernst graduated with honors from Georgetown University with a degree in Science, Technology & International Affairs. He received his M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and London Business School through a joint degree program.

Jeff co-founded Energetic Insurance to expand the solar market through data-driven risk management. Previously, Jeff led the distributed energy resources team at EnerNOC. Prior to EnerNOC, Jeff was the founding TechBridge Program Manager at Fraunhofer CSE, an applied R&D organization focusing on photovoltaic modules, building energy efficiency and electric grid control systems. Jeff has an interdisciplinary engineering background, having also worked on medical devices at Boston Scientific and catalytic fuel reformation at Nuvera Fuel Cells. He holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University and a master's degree from the Technology and Policy Program at MIT.

Julia Pyper is a Senior Editor at Greentech Media covering utilities, grid issues, electric vehicles, the solar industry and energy storage. Find her on Twitter @JMPyper.

Julian is a staff writer at Greentech Media, where he reports on energy storage and other clean energy sectors. He also has experience covering clean transportation, state and federal energy policy, and climate adaptation. Previously, Julian reported for CityLab at The Atlantic and conducted grant-funded climate change reporting in Bangladesh. He graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in political science.