Climate CEOs

AI is quietly replacing helicopters and guesswork in how utilities manage trees and wildfire risk. This CEO explains how satellite data + machine learning turns an $8B problem into a precision operation. Fiona Spruill is CEO of Overstory, a climate tech company using satellite data and AI to prevent power outages and wildfires. She previously held leadership roles at The New York Times and Meetup....

Three decisions shaping climate CEOs right now: where to build, how to build confidence, and what to fix first. Speed vs purity - 30% of data centers going behind-the-meter, often gas-powered; permitting speed and time-to-power are dominating carbon goals Geography arbitrage - red states with faster permitting winning deployment; “Whole Foods per capita” matters less than interconnection timelines...

Shipping containers, pilot sites, and conservative warranties. Why Tempo is scaling industrial heat the slow-and-steady way on purpose. -- Tempo is commercializing an ultra-high-temperature thermochemical energy storage technology for the $1T+ industrial heat market. Pasquale Romano, CEO, has over 35 years of executive management experience, including roles as CEO of ChargePoint with four exits un...

Former NHL All-Star Mike Richter leads Brightcore Energy, building energy-efficiency and geothermal systems for commercial and municipal buildings. Geothermal basics - Uses stable ~55°F ground temp as thermal battery; far more efficient than air-source systems in extreme temps Market gap - <1% adoption in North America vs ~25% in Northern Europe; demand exists, deployment is the bottleneck Real...

CEOs, "I want input." Teams, "My vote matters equally." That mismatch kills trust and speed. How to balance leadership judgment vs team input in climate tech. The Decision: “This is not a democracy, but I want your opinion” - How to balance authority vs inclusion “I know best” vs “We know best” - CEO judgment vs collective intelligence “I hired you because you’re smart” vs “Sto...

Voyager Ventures backs early-stage climate companies at seed and Series A with ~$475M AUM. Leo Banchik shares how they evaluate opportunities across unit economics, technology risk, and founder-market fit in a capital-constrained environment. In this episode: Unit economics > climate narrative - Companies like Arbor stand out because they work without subsidies. That’s becoming table stakes. Cl...

Three NEW topics on climate tech finance, decision tools, and mindful leadership: Finance — Plan for your exit at the beginning (not the end) Tools — Jobs To Be Done framework (from the Father of Disruptive Innovation) Leadership — The monkey lesson (from Google’s Moonshot Factory) ------------ Join EFI's CEO group — The private room for climate CEOs making nine-figure decisions Become an EFI...

Hard Choices: One decision. Why it matters. So what? Do you want to work on your idea? Or the best idea in the room? Founders are paid to have conviction. The risk is confusing conviction with correctness. ------------ Join EFI's CEO group — The private room for climate CEOs making nine-figure decisions Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow: a confidential peer community for VC- and private equity-back...

Three NEW topics on climate tech finance, decision tools, and mindful leadership: Finance — Gross Margin: Quality > Percent Tools — Quiz: The 5 Types of Wealth Leadership — Motivation: Identity > Consequences ------------ Join EFI's CEO group — The private room for climate CEOs making nine-figure decisions Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow: a confidential peer community for VC- and privat...

MIT PhD tech to mine lithium in low-concentration domestic reserves without chemical reagents or excess water use 🎧 Episode Summary Lithios is an advanced materials company developing a high-performance electrochemical platform to unlock untapped lithium brine resources, especially those previously considered uneconomic due to low concentrations. Mo earned his PhD at MIT and then became an Activa...

Three NEW topics on climate tech finance, decision tools, and mindful leadership: Finance  — Uncapped upside and capped downside. Tools  —  The Lean Canvas: Your business plan is wrong. Leadership  —  Stories do what strategy can’t. ------------ Join the top climate CEO peer group in North America. Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — a confidential peer community for Series A to private equity-back...

Investor lessons from working at three billion-dollar companies and mentoring 200+ founders. 🎧 Episode Summary Tom Chi , Founding Partner of At One Ventures, is also the author of a new book: Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future. It includes insights on: Possibilities for our collective future using science and hard evidence, avoiding the extremes of unbridled optimis...

Hard Choices: One decision. Why it matters. So what? Over-reliance on a few major customers may feel like a win but creates fragility and triggers valuation discounts from wary investors. Leaders must prioritize revenue diversification and cap exposure before a single buyer gains "veto rights" over the business. ------------ Join the top climate CEO peer group in North America. Become an EFI Clima...

How micro power plants at homes are reducing electricity costs and removing power utility bottlenecks. 🎧 Episode Summary Haven Energy is an energy tech company that deploys distributed energy resources at residential and small C&I sites to build virtual power plants (VPPs) at scale. Through strategic partnerships with utilities, non-profits, EPCs, and government agencies, Haven is helping to...

Here are three NEW topics on climate tech finance, decision tools, and mindful leadership: 📊 Finance — Optionality has a balance sheet cost. ⚙️ Tools — Three Horizons of Growth (McKinsey & Company) ⛰️ Leadership — Busy is the new stupid. ------------ Join the top climate CEO peer group in North America. Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — a confidential peer community for Series A to private e...

The leading provider of wildfire and extreme weather risk mitigation solutions protecting communities and assets for utilities, insurance, and fire agencies 🎧 Episode Summary Technosylva provides advanced AI and predictive modeling solutions to reduce wildfire and extreme weather risks for leading utilities, fire agencies, and insurers worldwide. Backed by pirate equity capital and generating ove...

Here are today’s three NEW topics on climate tech finance, decision tools, and mindful leadership: 📊 Climate Finance — Non-dilutive capital is not free money ⚙️ Decision Tool — Take the Four Tendencies Quiz ⛰️ Mindful leadership — Speed vs. direction (don’t get this backwards) ------------ Join the top climate CEO peer group in North America. Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — a confidential peer...

VC backing for the world's most compact, modular, and cost-effective electric powertrains without rare earth minerals risk 🎧 Episode Summary Conifer has created the only rare-earth free electric motor and powertrain that is also better across power density, efficiency and cost metrics, compared to incumbents with rare-earths. Conifer’s in-wheel powertrains and NEMA compatible motors are desig...

Here are today’s three NEW topics on climate tech finance, decision tools, and mindful leadership: 📊 Finance — This one metric quietly kills climate tech fundraises. ⚙️ Tools — Return on Effort (RoE): Fewer hours. Better outcomes. ⛰️ Leadership — “Don’t do anything that someone else can do.” ------------ Join my EFI Climate CEO Peer Group: Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — North America’s top in...

Producing the highest performance, lowest power, and best total cost of ownership solution for AI transformer model inference. 🎧 Episode Summary Positron AI is an AI hardware startup developing energy-efficient solutions optimized for transformer model inference, critical for applications like ChatGPT. They’ve raised about $75M and achieve 3-5x better performance per dollar and per watt versus mo...

Here are today’s five NEW topics on climate & clean energy, startup investment, AI for entrepreneurs, and mindfulness in leadership: 1. 📊 CLIMATE DATA Committed warming: Are we already cooked? 2. 💡 CEO TO KNOW Julia Reichelstein @ Vaulted Deep ($40M for carbon removal with co-benefits) 3. 💸 INVESTOR SPOTLIGHT Bala Nagarajan @S2G ($2.5B for food, energy, and oceans) 4. 🤖 AI INSIGHT Your new...

Using off-the-shelf tech to convert methane, CO2 emissions, and waste into carbon-negative fuels and green chemicals like methanol and ammonia. 🎧 Episode Summary Emvolon helps hard-to-abate industries such as agriculture, aviation, energy, maritime and waste management power the global economy without producing emissions. The company’s patented technology converts greenhouse gas emissions into ca...

Here are today’s five NEW topics on climate & clean energy, startup investment, AI for entrepreneurs, and mindfulness in leadership: 1. 📊 CLIMATE DATA 73% of investors engage in decarbonization for this reason 2. 💡 CEO TO KNOW Randy Allen @ Still Bright (80% savings in copper mining) 3. 💸 INVESTOR INSIGHT How CEOs and investors actually align on priorities 4. 🤖 AI USE CASE Create instant i...

Climate resilience via better data: 7 cm-resolution via satellites and aerial imagery that does in hours what 80,000 drones would do in weeks. 🎧 Episode Summary Near Space Labs is a category-defining Earth observation company delivering high-resolution, high-frequency aerial imagery through its industry-first stratospheric imaging platform, the Swift.  With its nationwide network of autonomous Sw...

Axiom Cloud also helps grocery stores and cold chain storage companies reduce energy use by 11% and avoid costly maintenance. 🎧 Episode Summary Amrit Robbins co-founded Axiom Cloud in 2020 to solve the most painful problems facing cold chain operators and unlock a massive climate opportunity: reducing refrigerant leaks (refrigerants are greenhouse gases that are up to 4,000x more potent than CO2)...