17. Financial Machines’ Peter Knowles

Our season finale covers startup investments that are on the absolute cutting edge. We’re joined by Maryanna Saenko, an early-stage venture capitalist and the Co-founder of Future Ventures (early investors in SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, Planet, and Skype).  Backing visionaries for over two decades through her firm, Maryanna gets to play a part in technology that ranges from Bee Immunology to Nuclear Fusion. She’s also worked on lunar rovers, martian landers, driverless cars, and long-range low-frequency communication systems.   On the show, we cover ‘frontier tech’ and companies in the portfolio at Future Ventures. We also got to reference all of my favorite sci-fi movies (some of which it seems like Maryanna is trying to bring to life) and we even talked about poetry in our rapid fire round! ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

It’s hard to track our individual carbon footprints. Most people have no idea what emissions are associated with a bag of groceries or last night’s takeout. This type of information is hard to come by, which makes it even more challenging to make environmentally friendly decisions. Sustainability Data Service company, Cogo is trying to change that by empowering individuals and businesses to measure, reduce, and offset the impact they have on the climate.  Today’s guest is Ben Gleisner, founder and CEO of Cogo.  On the show, we dove into the individual side of sustainability, behavioral science, and the climate tech behind Cogo. ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

Did you know that greenhouse gas emissions can be turned into leggings or even jet fuel?  Today’s guest, Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, is the CEO of LanzaTech. Her company has been working on carbon recycling technology for over 15 years. Now, LanzaTech has scaled up its technology from a startup and is almost ready to go public.  In the episode, Jennifer gave me an AP chem lesson on the conversion process and the myriad of ways the technology can be used. We also dig into her incredibly impressive biography which, spoiler alert, includes 50 patents, 30 scientific publications, a PHD and an MBA. ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

In recent years, climate-minded companies all over the world have made commitments to reach net zero emissions. That means cutting emissions as close to zero as possible and then funding carbon capture and carbon removal to make up for the rest. Brennan Spellacy is the founder of a software company called Patch. Patch helps businesses reach net zero by connecting them with carbon removal developers. In this episode, we get into Brennan’s journey as an entrepreneur, his version of a book recommendation, and the idea of ‘undoing’ pollution by funding carbon removal and carbon capture projects. Learn more about Brennan Spellacy and his work at Patch. ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

Startups are looking at the climate challenge from all angles. For today’s episode, we’re talking to one that’s helping facilitate the move to clean energy through intelligent software. Peter Knowles  is the president of Financial Machines. In our conversation, he told me about how his startup evolved from a consultancy to software based advisory, which is a feat in itself.   On the show, Peter and I also dove deep into energy storage, renewable energy and the challenges of fundraising for a startup.   Learn more about Peter and Financial Machines here.    ClimateTech with Kentaro will be back with a new episode on August 24.   ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

A lot of lucky people have their personal passions and their professional paths collide. And that could not be more true for Mark Kroese, a 22-year veteran at Microsoft and their General Manager of Sustainability Solutions. Mark started his career at Microsoft in the 90s as a product manager for Word and Excel. Then his love for mountain climbing and visits to the rainforest led him to focus on sustainability. In this episode, Mark shared his thoughts on sustainability reporting and building databases for that information. We talked about how much water data centers use and the environmental impact of our thousands of saved messages and emails. A big takeaway from chatting with Mark: I need to clean out my inbox to save the planet!  Learn more about Mark Kroese and his work at Microsoft.   ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

We have a whole zoo in today’s episode about biodiversity! I shared a fantastic conversation with Dr. Vian Sharif, Head of Sustainability at FNZ and Founder of NatureAlpha. Both FNZ and NatureAlpha are platforms for investors. FNZ is a digital wealth management platform while Vian’s newer venture NatureAlpha focuses on demonstrating the impacts of investments on biodiversity & natural capital. In today’s episode, Vian and I talked about integrating conservation work with investments — and also about pangolins. Check out a pangolin here. Learn more about Vian and her work at NatureAlpha here. ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

We have a little bit of everything in this week’s episode.  We’re diving deep with Nathaniel Bullard Chief Content Officer of BloombergNEF,  Bloomberg's primary research service on energy, transportation, commodities, and technology. Nathaniel is a little bit different from the founder guests we’ve traditionally had on the show. He’s played the analyst slash writer role for a majority of his vast career and today writes a weekly column under the Bloomberg Green banner where he covers energy, transport, technology, climate, and finance.   In this episode, we talked about what we’re seeing in climate from a market-oriented lens. This episode is so rich that we go from discussing deep decarbonization and where that’s going, to tinkering with Web3 and crypto and how that all connects.   Learn more about Nathaniel and read his work here.   ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

For our first episode this season, we have invited two newly minted, homegrown podcasters from Persefoni: Tim Mohin and Caitlin Kinney! Tim Mohin is a lifelong environmentalist and one of the OGs of sustainability. Tim started his career at the US Environmental Protection Agency and moved on to various roles in corporate responsibility and sustainability at big tech firms like Apple and Intel. He also worked as the CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the world's most widely adopted sustainability reporting standard. Tim’s co-host Caitlin is a Gen Z climate activist who is on a mission to make sustainability accessible to the everyday person.   In this episode, we’ll hear from Tim and Caitlin on why sustainability has to be decoded and what we’re missing in these conversations. Plus: What I’m tracking in climate tech and what I really think about Elon Musk.   Listen and subscribe to Sustainability Decoded with Tim and Caitlin here.   ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!

We’re back! This season, we’re talking to brilliant leaders like Mark Kroese, General Manager of Sustainability at Microsoft, Dr. Vian Sharif, Founder of NatureAlpha, Nathaniel Bullard, Chief Content Officer at BloombergNEF, and many more. In each episode, we take a hard look at the most innovative solutions to the climate crisis and learn from the most brilliant minds behind them.    Join me each week as I get into more fascinating and wide-ranging conversations with founders, investors, journalists, and climate tech enthusiasts. Listen to our season launch on 7/13. A new episode drops every Wednesday.   ClimateTech with Kentaro is produced by our incredible team at Persefoni and Hueman Group Media.  Learn more about Persefoni and our climate management and accounting platform by subscribing to our weekly newsletter!