2026 Climate Business & Investment Conference

• Bruce Usher, Co-director of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change; Elizabeth B. Strickler '86 and Mark T. Gallogly '86 Faculty Director, and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School and Columbia Climate School

• James Blake, Head of Capital Markets of Fervo
• Vijay Vaitheeswaran (moderator), Global Energy and Climate Innovation Editor at The Economist

• Jacob Susman, Former Senior Vice President, Development at Electric Hydrogen
• Dan Esposito (moderator), Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia Engineering

• Ayse Coskun, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Emerald AI
• Andrea Turner Moffitt ’07 (moderator), Founding Partner at Future Heights Ventures

• Vijnan Batchu, Managing Director and Global Head – Center for Carbon Transition, Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan
• Chris Creed, Managing Partner and Co-head of Credit at Galvanize Climate Solutions
• Nikita Singhal, Managing Director at Blue Owl
• Bruce Usher (moderator), Co-director of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change; Elizabeth B. Strickler '86 and Mark T. Gallogly '86 Faculty Director, and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School and Columbia Climate School

• Jon Guidroz, Senior Vice President, Commercialization and Strategy at Aalo Atomics
• Chelle Izzi '04, Chief Commercial Officer at PG&E
• Heather McGeory '05SIPA, Vice President, Energy and Sustainability at CoreWeave
• Nestor Andres Sepulveda, Commercial Lead for Advanced Energy Investments and Partnerships at Google
• Gernot Wagner (moderator), Senior Lecturer at Columbia Business School; Faculty Director of the Climate Knowledge Initiative at the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change

• Gernot Wagner, Senior Lecturer at Columbia Business School; Faculty Director of the Climate Knowledge Initiative at the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change

Following the Climate Business + Investment Conference, participants are invited to join an optional session "Downscaling Climate Data: An Academia-Private Sector Collaboration" at 12:30 PM, hosted by Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP). 

Attendees will learn about LEAP’s collaborations with AWS and NVIDIA to (1) curate downscaled climate data from historical data and numerical weather prediction models, and (2) create a tool designed to increase stakeholder accessibility and practice with climate data. With an eye looking back at LEAP’s January 2026 Urban Futures Hackathon, panelists will discuss the process of industry-academic partnership, and engage with Hackathon participants as the “end users” of these datasets and tools, to feature co-production as a model for similar collaborations that aim to address gaps, challenges, and opportunities for climate data science’s impact on building climate resilience.

Please note that this session is not included with your conference registration. If you would like to attend this optional lunchtime session, please sign up using the link titled “Register for the LEAP panel.” Registration is first-come, first-served. Due to limited seating, we recommend registering at your earliest convenience to guarantee a seat.

• Candace Agonafir, LEAP Associate Research Scientist, Data Science and Civil Engineering at Columbia University
• Mark Bronnimann, Senior Solutions Architect at AWS
• Kara Lamb, Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University
• Jeffrey Lancaster, Senior Account Manager - Higher Education and Research at NVIDIA
• Karla Pinzón, Manager of Curriculum Development and Solar One; MBA Candidate at Bard College
• Catherine Cha (moderator), Assistant Director of Communications and Knowledge Transfer at LEAP