Organizing Team - May 2009

Ernesto got his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. He later pursued a one year Course in Oil Refining, Gas and Oil Marketing at Instituto Superior de la Energia (Madrid, Spain). After graduating from this program he joined Repsol YPF's propane business in Peru, where he worked for 4 years first as a Project Engineer and later as a Business Analyst. There he worked in project management and business development for the commercial and industrial markets. Last summer he interned at Better Place supporting the Marketing and Communications team. Ernesto is interested in Clean Technologies, particularly in utility-scale renewable generation and electric transportation.

Kris is currently a second year MBA student at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and will be graduating in May 2009.

Kris earned Bachelors of Business Administration from the University of Miami (FL) in 2000. Following university, Kris worked at several large investment banks in New York, largely in operational and business analyst capacities before returning to business school to follow his passion for energy. At Berkeley, he has pursued a wide array of coursework and involvement in the energy industry with a specific interest in utility scale generation, particularly renewable. Notably, Kris has served as the VP of Events for the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative and has been part of the Berkeley-Stanford CleanTech Conference Series since its inception.

A 2007 alum, Pete holds an MS from Berkeley's Chemistry Department where he researched the atmospheric and physical chemistry of oxidized nitrogen. He is now Associate Scientist with ERM, an environmental consulting firm, and he works primarily in oil refining to ensure compliance with air quality and greenhouse gas emissions requirements. He served as BERC Alumni VP in 2008, organizing events like an alumni-oriented evening with PUC President Michael Peevey, as well as a tour of Mirant's gas-fired Potrero Generating Plant. Broadly, he is interested in energy efficiency and diversification of our energy dependencies. Toward these ends utility-scale and distributed energy storage can go a long way.

Rodolfo is currently pursuing his MBA at the Haas School of Business in UC Berkeley and will be graduating in May 2009.

Prior to attending Berkeley, Rodolfo was part of the Corporate Finance Department in a Central American construction materials and energy company. During his time there he was part of the team that designed the business plan for the company's electricity generation division. That experience sparked Rodolfo's interest in energy, an interest he has pursued ever since being in Berkeley. During his time at Berkeley Rodolfo has been involved in courses related to the energy industry and he was VP of Campus Energy Technologies for the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative in 2008. Rodolfo is interested in energy from an entrepreneurial standpoint, especially in electricity generation and biofuels.

Collaborators

M.S. Candidate, Management Science & Engineering, Stanford University

Drew is the Co-President of the Stanford chapter of Energy Crossroads, a non-profit organization of student groups trying to accelerate the adoption of clean energy in cities and universities around the world. He has consulted with Tabrizi, LLC in the technology sector, interned with Mitsubishi Chemical, researched carbon reduction policy for AB32 at Stanford, and is Director of the Americas for a youth campaign focusing on creating action at the climate negotiations this December in Copenhagen. His passion is in finding ways to make adopting clean energy systems as easy and logical as possible for the everyday consumer. Drew is originally from Minnesota, loves baseball, biking, and thunderstorms (though not usually at the same time).

EWMBA Class of 2011, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Evonne is a MBA candidate in the Haas EWMBA Program. She is a Senior Financial Analyst in SolFocus, a leading developer of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology. Her responsiblities include internal and external reporting, corporate FP&A, treasury, and corporate finance activities. She has a BS from UC Berkeley and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Drew is an undergraduate student in the Earth Systems Department at Stanford University with a concentration in energy resources and a minor in economics. He first became interested in the natural sciences at the Island School, a semester long marine biology program he attended as a junior in high school. Because of his experience working on small farms, Drew has tailored his academic career to incorporate this interest, taking classes in California water policy, after which Drew worked at SIEPR researching the economics of water transfers. This summer, Drew will be working at Scripps institute of Oceanography in La Jolla marketing scientific research to potential sponsors. In addition, Drew is an active member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

EWMBA Class of 2010, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Roli started her career in brown-energy, as a field engineer for Schlumberger in the oil and gas industry in India in the year 2000. Most recently, she was a product manager for an enterprise software company InQuira, managing a multi-million dollar enterprise search product. She moved away the energy industry because it was polluting and was technically slow moving. With both those problems resolved now, she is looking forward to re-entering the energy industry in the clean-tech space. She has a bachelor's in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay, master's in Manufacturing from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and is currently finishing up her MBA from Haas School of Business with focus in entrepreneurship, energy and marketing.

MBA Candidate Class of 2010, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

David earned his Bachelor of Business Administration at Goizueta Business School at Emory University. Prior to coming to Haas, he spent five years as a marketing and sales strategy consultant in Atlanta, GA. His studies are focused on the energy sector, in particular energy storage, solar and grid systems.

Founding Team

In the spring of 2007 Bhavik realized that the best way to understand the business viability of emerging clean technologies was to bring the policy makers, researchers and investors on a common platform. "If the traditional rivals could join forces, the fight against climate change would benefit from an unprecedented momentum. The best brains in the business and engineering at UC Berkeley and Stanford would want to work on developing and commercializing next generation clean technologies." With this goal in mind Bhavik spent time with the energy club leadership teams at Stanford University and UC Berkeley to create a new joint partnership, Berkeley-Stanford Clean Tech Conference Series . Presently, Bhavik works at Better Place, a venture backed company that aims to reduce global dependency on oil through the creation of a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles, providing consumers with a cleaner, sustainable, personal transportation alternative. is an avid mountain biker and landscape photographer with a passion for electric cars.

In Spring of 2007, Deep Sahni working with Bhavik Joshi created a vision to build a series of conferences that would bring together key players from Industry, Policy and Academia to tackle issues of Carbon Emissions and Climate Change. Deep Sahni brings his panache for setting visions, roadmaps and building strategic alliances from his extensive 10+ years experience as a High Performance Coach in the fields Career and Leadership Development. He is the author of the upcoming book "7 ways to Unleash Your Human Capital". Deep Sahni also built critical strategic relationships with high visibility organizations in the Bay Area to increase awareness and exposure of the conference. These organizations include, but are not limited to: TIE, German American Business Association, French American Chamber of Commerce, BASES Stanford, and countless others.

He has a Bachelors Degree in Economics with a Business Emphasis from UCLA ('91). While at UCLA, he ran the Campus Events Board and attended the Musician's Institute in Hollywood. After college, John built the music division of what was the largest student marketing company in the Western U.S, Student X Marketing.

John then went onto working for record labels, having spent time as an executive at Giant Records, Virgin Records, and Warner Bros. Records, John entered into the management world in 2000 having success right away with a triple platinum Alien Ant Farm album in 2001. After a two year stint as a senior manager at Sanctuary Artist Management (a publicly held British music company), John formed The BAM Group, making the commitment to focus on building a boutique management company for musicians, actors, models, artists and brands in general.