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Event coming soon

With the industrial sector contributing to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions and its expected growth, collaboration is essential to achieve net zero. We invite you to join us!

Nov 24, 2023

Register now
  • Speakers
Hear from climate tech investors, policymakers, corporations, incubators, and entrepreneurs developing climate tech solutions for industrial sectors.

Matt
Elliot

President, BofA Michigan Sustainability Executive Business and Global Commercial Banking

Kelly
Visconti

Acting Deputy Director DOE Office of Manufacturing & Energy Supply Chains

Megha
Lakhchaura

EV Officer Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

Ugi
Otgonbaatar

Director of Technology Grants, Partnerships Constellation

Abigail
Regitsky

Senior Manager U.S. Policy and Advocacy Breakthrough Energy

Angela
Tovar

Chief Sustainability Officer City of Chicago

Tem
Tumurbat

Managing Partner Nomadic Venture Partners

Aditi
Desai

Director of Partnerships Voltpost

Ozge
Guney-Altay

Director of Technology Grants, Partnerships Constellation

Kirk
Liu

Technology to Market Advisor at ARPA-E

Dan
Radomski

CEO
Centrepolis

Sam
Ori

Executive Director at EPIC Becker Friedman Institute

Dr. BJ
Johnson

CEO and Co-Founder ClearFlame

Jensen
Blezinger

Vice President Silicon Valley Bank

Geoff
Trukenbrod

Chief Financial Officer LanzaTech
  • Agenda

Check-in and Welcome Remarks

Check-in an d grab a coffee. We will start off with welcome remarks by the Nomadic Venture Partners team.

Metals Transition Presentation

Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Nomadic Venture Partners, Tem Tumurbat, will discuss the immense metals demand due to the clean energy transition. Innovation and capital play a critical role in bridging the supply gap while improving sustainability and safety. During the presentation, attendees will learn about the mining sector, its emissions challenges, geopolitical complexities, as well as vibrant investment and exit opportunities for climate tech innovations in mining.

Climate Tech Innovation Incubators

Learn from accelerator programs incubating innovative climate tech solutions.
Panelists include:

  • Sahil Jain, Director of Strategy at Newlab (moderator)
  • Deena M. Wright, Program Manager at Chain Reaction Innovations
  • Ryan Jeffery, Senior Managing Director at gener8tor Sustainability
  • Ozge Guney-Altay, Director of Resurgence Accelerator at Polsky Center

Startup pitches

The following companies will be pitching during this time:
  • C+up
  • Gross-Wen Technologies
  • Kazadi Enterprizes
  • Banyon Power

Coffee break

Sustainability Executive Perspective

During this fireside chat, you will hear from Darius Nassiry, Vice President of Climate Resilience and Sustainability at WSP USA. With more than 18 years of experience in climate change and sustainable finance, Darius has a track record of producing innovative climate investment research, originating and preparing bankable projects, and designing and implementing start-up programs in developed and emerging markets. Patrick Weber, Investor with Nomadic Venture Partners will be moderating the conversation.

Startup pitches

The following companies will be pitching during this time:
  • Mycocycle
  • X2f
  • Chement

Founders & Investors Perspective

Hear from climate tech investors and founders decarbonizing industrial sectors. Panelists include:
  • Dr. BJ Johnson, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ClearFlame Engine Technologies
  • Tem Tumurbat, Co-Founder and  Managing Partner, Nomadic Venture Partners
  • Juan Muldoon, Partner, Energize Capital
  • Jensen Blezinger, Vice President, Silicon Valley Bank (moderator)

Non-dilutive Funding Opportunities

Climate tech innovations have a unique opportunity access variety of non-dilutive funding opportunities. The panel will provide perspective from public to private sector. Panelists include:
  • Ugi Otgonbaatar, Director of Technology Strategy, Grants, Partnerships at Constellation
  • Kirk Liu, Technology to Market Advisor at ARPA-E
  • Chris Richardson, Executive Director at Uptake Alliance
  • Dan Radomski, Director of Centrepolis Accelerator (moderator)

Break

Startup pitches

The following companies will be pitching during this time:
  • Strayos
  • Cache Energy
  • Conovate Inc

Decarbonizing Transportation

Guest speakers include:
  • Aditi Desai, Director of Partnerships at Voltpost (moderator)
  • Brett Wetzel, Vice President of Sustainability & Innovation at U.S. Venture Inc.
  • Allen Chen, Investor at BMW iVentures
  • Megha Lakhchaura, EV Officer at the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
  • Sponsor
  • Summit Organizer
  • Premier Partner
  • Summit Organizer
  • Official supporter
  • Summit Organizer
  • Summit Organizer
  • Non-profit partner
Become a Sponsor
  • FAQ

EVENT TIPS

WE’RE EXCITED TO HAVE YOU JOIN US!
IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT US AT CONTACT@NOMADICVP.COM

Venue Six10, 610 S Michigan Ave Chicago, IL 60605

Following the event, there will be a networking event hosted right around the corner at Niu B Sushi, 888 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605.

Yes, there are plenty of options as the event will be in the heart of Chicago.

Couple of nearby options:

  • The Blackstone, Autograph Collection
  • Travelodge by Wyndham Downtown Chicago
  • The Congress Plaza Hotel & Convention Center
  • Hilton Chicago
Yes, we plan to serve light breakfast and lunch during the event. Please be sure to indicate any dietary restrictions during registration.
Chatham House Rule apply at the Industrial Climate Tech Summit. In other words, participants and attendees are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed or quoted without consent.
We recommend business casual.
If you’re arriving at O’hare, take the Blue Line or grab a cab to get to downtown Chicago. From Midway, the Orange Line runs towards downtown as well.
Check out SpotHero app for local parking options.
Yes, we will have a photographer at the event, so there is a chance you may be photographed at the event. Attendees agree to have their likeness used in any photographs of the event for future event promotion.

Founders selected to present at the summit will have 3 minutes to pitch on stage. You may provide a short slide presentation ahead of the event. We will provide high top tables for founders to go into deeper conversations with investors and others interested. Climate tech startups targeting industrial sectors are encouraged to apply to pitch by EOD Friday 9/15.

  • Gallery

Register Now

Space is limited.  Thus, we recommend registering ahead of time. On-site registrations will not be permitted due to venue capacity constraints.
Register to attend

Eric

PRESIDENT, BOFA MICHIGAN
SUSTAINABILITY EXECUTIVE
BUSINESS AND GLOBAL COMMERCIAL BANKING

Matt serves a dual role as Sustainability Executive and Michigan Market President, furthering Bank of America’s mission to improve the financial lives of their clients and better the communities they serve. As Sustainability Executive for Business Banking and Global Commercial Banking, he partners closely with the enterprise sustainable finance teams to drive strategy and enable our salesforce to support our client needs on Net Zero and other sustainability topics. As President, Matt is Bank of America’s enterprise leader in Michigan, working with company leaders to deliver the BofA enterprise to clients and communities throughout Michigan.
He is also passionate about overseeing BofA’s ESG activities, including community development lending and investing, arts and culture projects, and employee volunteerism.

Kelly Visconti

ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR
DOE OFFICE OF MANUFACTURING & ENERGY SUPPLY CHAINS

Kelly Visconti is the acting Deputy Director for Facilities and Workforce in the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains and leading a DOE-wide coordination effort on industrial technologies.
She is working with a team to implement programs to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and industrial supply chains and workforce. She has a decade of public sector experience in DOE and DoD with a focus on industry and manufacturing and spent the first 10 years as an engineer in the industrial gas sector.
She’s a chemical engineer and has her professional engineer license.

Megha Lakhchaura

EV OFFICER
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY

Megha Lakhchaura was recently appointed the State EV Officer for Illinois at the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. In this role she is working with various state agencies, public entities, and the industry to develop comprehensive EV and EV charging strategy and approach for the state. Before joining the state government, she was the Head of Policy, North America at EVBox Group for four years where she worked on transportation electrification initiatives across states and at a federal level. Prior to joining EVBox, Megha was Policy Director at Sunrun Inc. and drove the market and regulatory policy in California.
Megha was also with the California Public Utilities Commission for over seven years working on wholesale electricity market issues including power planning and procurement, Resource Adequacy, and Renewable Portfolio Standards. She has an MPP from the University of California Los Angeles.

Ugi Otgonbaatar

DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY GRANTS,
PARTNERSHIPS CONSTELLATION

Ugi Otgonbaatar is a Director, Technology Strategy, Grants & Partnerships at Constellation. Since joining the company in 2016, Ugi has been working for Constellation’s (formerly Exelon) corporate R&D Partnership program focusing on early stage energy technologies including clean hydrogen generation, energy storage, and technologies for repurposing the existing nuclear fleet.
Ugi holds B.S and Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from MIT with research experience in thermal hydraulics, computational materials science and has previously worked for the R&D groups of Electricité de France, General Electric and Tokyo Electric Power company.

Abigail Regitsky

SENIOR MANAGER
U.S. POLICY AND ADVOCACY
BREAKTHROUGH ENERGY

Abigail Regitsky works on Breakthrough Energy’s U.S. Policy and Advocacy team, where she helps implement Breakthrough Energy’s climate policy priorities, focusing on industrial decarbonization, embodied carbon in buildings and other materials, and carbon management.
Prior to joining Breakthrough Energy, Abigail worked on Capitol Hill, most recently as professional staff for the majority on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Her work focused on climate change mitigation, primarily developing policy recommendations for the industrial and manufacturing sector, buildings, and clean energy innovation. Previously, Abigail was an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow for Senator Tina Smith, where she helped develop and introduce the Senator’s Clean Energy Standard Act of 2019, among other energy and environment work.
Before working on the Hill, Abigail earned a PhD in materials science and engineering from MIT, where her research tried to better understand biomineralization for future applications in sustainable materials processing. Originally from Indonesia, she grew up in the Atlanta suburbs and received a BS from Georgia Tech.

Angela Tovar

CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER CITY OF CHICAGO

Angela Tovar has worked as a community planner, program manager and climate and environmental justice advocate for over 15 years. In 2020, Angela was appointed as the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Angela has committed to centering the City of Chicago’s climate and sustainability agenda on equity and mitigating environmental harm in Chicago’s most overburdened and underserved communities.
Angela began her career in the public sector in 2019 as a Program Manager for Cook County Department of Environment and Sustainability where she focused her efforts primarily on clean energy programming. Prior to that, Angela worked in the South Bronx for over a decade, first as the Director of Policy for Sustainable South Bronx and later as the Director of Community Development for the POINT CDC. In these roles, Angela oversaw community partnerships, advocacy and environmental justice efforts, and climate mitigation, including the development and implementation of a community-based climate resiliency plan known as The South Bronx Community Resiliency Agenda.
Angela’s passion for social and environmental justice stems from her experience growing up on the industrial waterfront of Lake Michigan on Chicago’s Southeast side. She holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from the College of Charleston and a Masters in Urban Planning from City University of New York – Hunter College.

Tem Tumurbat

MANAGING PARTNER
NOMADIC VENTURE PARTNERS

Tem Tumurbat is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nomadic Venture Partners. Prior to co-founding NVP, Tem was an investment professional at Resource Capital Funds (RCF), a mining focused private equity investment firm, managing early to late stage investments. As a mining engineer, Tem worked for Newmont Mining Corporation and AngloGold Ashanti.
He served as board member and treasurer of the Colorado Chapter for the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME). Tem received his B.S. in Mining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines.

Aditi Desai

DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIPS
VOLTPOST

Aditi Desai is a sustainability manager with experience across business development, strategy, and project management. She is Director of Partnerships at Voltpost, a climate tech startup that retrofits lampposts into an electric vehicle charging platform to decarbonize mobility and democratize charging access. She began her career in financial services at Barclays Investment Bank where she was a member of the Barclays Environment Network of the Americas (ENA), an employee-led group focusing on championing environmental activism within the bank.
Aditi was nominated for a Barclays Citizenship and Diversity award for her work in ENA. She has a Masters of Science in Sustainability Management from Columbia Climate School. She served as President of Women & Sustainability, a student group dedicated to empowering female leaders in sustainability and was awarded Student Organization of the Year two years in a row.
Aditi also led her graduate program’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) DEI audit. Aditi is passionate about centering equity and environmental justice in her work.

Ozge Guney-Altay

DIRECTOR OF RESURGENCE
POLSKY CENTER AT UCHICAGO

Ozge Guney-Altay, PhD, is the director of Polsky Science Ventures. In this role, she is responsible for leading and managing the startup initiatives for science and technology at the University of Chicago.
Ozge is an entrepreneur specializing in strategic and fiscal development of tech businesses. She is also an operations executive specializing in R&D operations, translational research, technology and innovation, IP protection, and commercialization. She has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Kirk Liu

TECHNOLOGY TO MARKET ADVISOR
ARPA-E

Kirk Liu currently serves as a Technology-to-Market Advisor at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), where he helps prepare innovative energy technologies for transition from the agency-funded lab to the commercial market.
Kirk’s career has focused on commercialization and growth of new ideas. For the past 7 years, Kirk served in various growth capacities for early-stage startups. Recently, he served as the Head of Operations at a seed stage payments technology company. Kirk started his career as a chemical engineer at Honeywell UOP R&D, where he evaluated new petrochemical, oil, and gas technologies from conceptional design to commercial implementation.
Kirk earned his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He also holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University.

Dan Radomski

CEO
CENTREPOLIS ACCELERATOR

Dan Radomski, Executive Director of Lawrence Technological University Centrepolis Accelerator, drives innovation in clean energy and hardware products. Formerly COO at Optimal Group, he scaled the business globally, focusing on electric vehicle development. His role as VP at NextEnergy supported energy tech firms and diversification into clean energy. Dan mentors for accelerators and co-founded a clean energy consultancy. As a developer for DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Lab, he educates product developers on scaling hardware-based businesses, and as an instructor for DOE/ARPA-E I-Corps Program, he shares expertise. Dan’s career underscores his commitment to clean energy and hardware innovation.

Sam Ori

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT EPIC
BECKER FRIEDMAN INSTITUTE

Sam Ori is the Executive Director at EPIC and the Becker Friedman Institute. From 2013 to 2015, he served as Executive Vice President at Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), a Washington, DC-based organization dedicated to reducing American oil dependence in order to enhance economic and national security.
From 2007 to 2013, Sam led SAFE’s policy work on a variety of topics, ranging from global oil and natural gas markets to transportation technology. Prior to joining SAFE, Sam spent four years working in the federal government at the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Department of State, including at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India.

Dr. BJ Johnson

CEO AND CO-FOUNDER
CLEARFLAME ENGINE TECHNOLOGIES

Dr. BJ Johnson is CEO and co-founder at ClearFlame Engine Technologies, a company dedicated to creating innovative, pragmatic, cost-effective solutions that rapidly decarbonize heavy-duty industries. ClearFlame’s technology uses various clean, renewable fuels to power diesel engines, reducing emissions and ownership costs, all while maintaining performance. BJ’s vision has attracted significant investors and strategic partners, including the Department of Energy, Mercuria, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. In 2021, BJ was named to the Grist 50—a list of emerging leaders working on real-world solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. BJ earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. 

Jensen Blezinger

VICE PRESIDENT
SILICON VALLEY BANK

Jensen Blezinger is a Vice President on Silicon Valley Bank’s Midwest Technology Team, where she is responsible for furthering the banks’ efforts in partnering with early and growth stage technology companies and developing relationships across the ecosystem connecting entrepreneurs, investors, and partners alike.
She began her career with SVB in 2014 and has held various roles across the organization, including an associate position on the Northern California Consumer Internet Team where she supported a portfolio of venture-backed, software and ecommerce companies before joining the Global Fund Banking Practice in NYC as a vice president where she managed a portfolio of venture capital and private equity funds and firms. In these roles, she provided clients with creative financing and banking solutions, access to SVB networks, and general business advisory services. Most recently she was working within SVB’s Credit Administration using her institutional know-how to help improve internal processes and communications.
Jensen grew up in Texas and earned her Bachelors of Business Administration from The University of Texas at Austin studying finance and accounting. She currently lives in Chicago with her fiancé and pet bernedoodle named Dolly Pawton.

Geoff Trukenbrod

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
LANZATECH

Geoff Trukenbrod is the Chief Financial Officer of LanzaTech. Geoff has over 25 years of experience building and leading companies through rapid expansions, turnarounds, and exits as an operating executive, equity and debt investor, and board director. Prior to LanzaTech, he led finance and corporate development for multiple venture and private equity backed businesses in the analytics, biotechnology, financial services, and social impact industries.
Geoff also led the financial strategy and operations of Obama for America, the $1.2billion 2012 reelection campaign of President Barack Obama as its Chief Financial and Budget Officer. Prior to 2012, Geoff was a private equity and debt investor where he sourced and structured investments across the capital structure and served as an advisor to the management teams of these businesses. He began his career as a management consultant managing acquisition integration, due diligence, strategic sourcing and operational improvement projects.
Geoff completed his BA in Public Policy and Economics at Hamilton College and received his MBA with Honors from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business