Klarman Hall

Klarman Hall

Klarman Hall

Chris Roe, Director, Worldwide Carbon, Amazon

Chris Roe is Director of Worldwide Carbon at Amazon. In this capacity, he manages the strategy and execution of Amazon’s commitment to reach The Climate Pledge, a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. Chris has over 15 years of experience driving initiatives in corporate energy and sustainability. 

Prior to Amazon, Chris led energy, water, and sustainable building initiatives within Boeing’s real estate and manufacturing operations. Chris has a Master's degree in Engineering from Cambridge University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington. He currently serves on the board of the Smart Electric Power Alliance and the Smart Building Center.

Panel 1: Clean Energy

Speakers TBC

Panel 2: Climate Finance

Nick O’Donohoe

Nick O’Donohoe CMG was Chief Executive Officer of British International Investment (BII) from April 2017 until November 2024. BII (formerly CDC) is the UK’s Development Finance Institution and one of the largest bilateral DFIs in the World. During his tenure, the organization grew from 250 to over 700 people. It deployed over $10B in investments across Africa and Asia in support of private sector development and also became the UK Governments leading provider of climate finance to Emerging Economies. It led innovation across a broad range of key areas of development finance including gender lens investment, blended finance, impact measurement and funding to lower income countries, particularly in Africa.

Immediately prior to joining BII, from January 2016 to March 2017, Nick was Senior Advisor on blended finance to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2011 Nick co-founded, together with Sir Ronald Cohen, Big Society Capital (BSC). BSC was supported by the UK Government, funded by dormant bank accounts, and is considered the world’s first social investment wholesaler. Nick served as CEO for five years, developed the organisation and led several important policy initiatives that have attracted over £10B to the UK social sector since the creation of the institution.

Between 1996 and 2011 Nick was a senior executive at JP Morgan. Among other roles he was Head of European Equity and then Global Head of Research where he led the creation of the World’s number one ranked research department. He served on the Management Committee of the Global Investment Bank and the Executive Committee of JP Morgan Chase.

While at JP Morgan he helped lead the creation of the Banks Social Sector Finance unit and was the senior author of JP Morgan’s groundbreaking 2010 research report on “Impact Investments – An Emerging Asset Class?”

Between1981 and 1996 Nick worked at Goldman Sachs in London and Zurich in a variety of roles including in equity capital markets and GSAM and also as Head of the Swiss office.

He currently sits on the Group Board of Equity Bank, based in Nairobi, and BlueMark in the US. He is a Senior Advisor to McKinsey and to the CEO of Africa50, a large infrastructure developer and investor. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Private Finance in Development at ODI, of the Africa Capital Hub (ACH), and of British Enterprise International (BEI).

Previously he has served as a board or advisory board member at several leadership organizations in Impact and Development Finance including GIIN, EDFI, GSG and GEAPP. He also chaired the UK Dormant Asset Commission which reported in 2017.

Nick has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Trinity College Dublin where he was a Foundation Scholar.

He was awarded the title of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2022 Jubilee Birthday Honours List.

Jonah Wagner

Jonah Wagner is President and co-founder of Constructive, an independent nonprofit reengineering collaboration across clean energy and climate ecosystems. He is the former Chief Strategist at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office and served as Principal Assistant Director for Clean Energy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Prior to DOE, he was Regional Director for Latin America at Delterra, an environmental nonprofit, and Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in infrastructure, public finance and customer experience design. Mr. Wagner holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an A.B. from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs.

Panel 3: Nuclear Learning Session

Speakers TBC

Panel 1: Resilience & Adaptation

Speakers TBC

Panel 2: Food & Agriculture

Speakers TBC

Panel 3: Emerging Markets

Wasim Tahir

Wasim A. Tahir is a Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Development, where his work focuses on climate and development finance, with the goal of mobilizing private capital for sustainable development. He also produces development finance programming for students, serves as Senior Advisor to the Center for Development Finance Studies, and advises ODI Global Advisory, ODI’s new consulting arm.

Previously, Wasim worked at British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution, where he led efforts to scale private capital mobilization and developed BII’s financial sector strategy covering $2.2 billion in investments. A financial services expert, Wasim has advised institutions on corporate strategy, M&A, risk, and operations as a consultant with BCG and Oliver Wyman. He also held strategy roles at Credit Suisse and Lloyds Banking Group.

Morgan Defoort

Dr. Morgan DeFoort has a background in technology development and entrepreneurship with over two decades of experience working in emerging markets – predominantly India and East Africa. Before starting Factor E, Morgan was a Co-Director of the Energy Institute at Colorado State University, supporting over 200 interdisciplinary faculty, teaching, and leading R&D programs in a wide range of technology areas including engine systems, biofuels, and cookstoves. In addition, Morgan was a director at CSU STRATA, supporting university cleantech spinouts during formation and launch. Morgan holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University and a BA in Physics from Hastings College.

Dr. Ekaterina (Katya) Gratcheva

Dr. Ekaterina (Katya) Gratcheva is an Advisor on sustainable and climate finance at the IMF’s Capital and Monetary Markets Department, where she works on implementing the Resilience and Sustainability Trust to help low- and vulnerable middle-income countries build resilience and promote sustainable growth. She is also a visiting lecturer and non-resident fellow at Princeton’s Centers for Public Policy and Finance and for Energy and Environment.

Previously, she led the finance function at the Climate Investment Funds, which has mobilized over $70 billion for climate action in 72 countries. Earlier in her career, she held senior roles at the World Bank, advising central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and pension funds; advancing long-term finance through capital markets; and managing the Bank’s assets and liabilities.

Dr. Gratcheva holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, a Master’s in Applied Mathematics from Moscow State University, and a PhD in Operations Research from George Washington University.

Spangler Hall, Williams Room

Jonathan Schrag

Jonathan Schrag is a climate and energy policy strategist with over two decades of leadership experience in government, consulting, and nonprofits. He is currently Deputy Climate Chief and Director of Investment for Decarbonization and Resilience in the Massachusetts Governor’s Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience, leading efforts on clean energy finance, project delivery, and resilience planning. He was the first Executive Director of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the U.S.’s first regional cap-and-trade program, and has also served as Deputy Commissioner for Energy at Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and as Senior Director at the Environmental Defense Fund’s Clean Energy Idea Bank.

Panel 1: Energy Transformation

Speakers TBC

Panel 2: AI & Data Centers

Michael Onolememen

Michael is a Senior Project Manager within the Commercial Team for Data Centers at

NextEra Energy Resources. Before this, he worked as an Investment Banker at

Goldman Sachs in New York, where he focused on raising private capital for companies within the Technology Media and Telecommunications (TMT) and Natural Resources industries. His primary interest lies in identifying opportunities to create value at the intersection of Energy and Artificial Intelligence.

Klarman Hall

Klarman Hall

Daniel Goldman, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Clean Energy Ventures  

Daniel Goldman has been pioneering clean energy and climate technology investing since the early 2000s, and has generated a strong investment track record over multiple decades. He co-founded Clean Energy Ventures (CEV) in 2016, which currently manages $415M across two funds. He has over 30 years of diverse operational and investment experience in the energy sector and has been investing at the project and venture stages for most of his career with over $4 billion of transactions completed. He currently serves on the board of directors of CEV portfolio companies, including Nth Cycle, Carbon Upcycling, ConnectDER, Lithios, Electrified Thermal Solutions, Advanced Ionics, and OXCCU. He is the venture capital representative on the Advisory Board of Net Zero Asset Managers, a co-founder and former member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of Browning the Green Space, member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee (and former Chair of both) of the Alliance for Climate Transition, a member of the Industry Advisory Board of Greentown Labs, and a member of the Governor of of Massachusetts Energy Transformation Advisory Board. During more than two decades, he has been an active advocate for climate-focused policy, both at the local and national level. Mr. Goldman holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BS from Cornell University.

Klarman Hall

Klarman Hall