Founder and Executive Chair, New Forests

David Brand founded New Forests in 2005. He is Chair of New Forests’ Board of Directors and the Chair of the company’s Investment Committees. David has over 40 years’ experience in forestry investment, forest management, science, and public policy. David is dedicated to innovative, responsible investment strategies in the forest sector and associated assets.

Managing Director, North America, New Forests

New Forests is a US$7 Billion global investment manager of nature-based real assets and natural capital strategies. As Managing Director, North America, Jeff is responsible for driving the strategy for New Forests’ North American business, raising and deploying capital, and delivering consistent and stable investment returns for clients, while contributing to communities, livelihoods, and the circular bioeconomy.

Jeff brings over 30 years’ experience in leading, managing, and growing businesses across the investment, renewable energy, and agriculture sectors. He has extensive experience in Gen-1 ethanol markets and production, spanning the intersection of agriculture and energy as well as the LCFS regime for biofuels as COO at Green Plains and as Division President at Valmont Industries. Earlier, Jeff was at Goldman Sachs, was founder and portfolio manager for an investment partnership, and successfully exited an LBO of an electronic services business. A nuclear trained submarine engineering officer, Jeff served in the US Navy on board the USS Whale. Jeff holds a BS in engineering from UCLA and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Ph.D., Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean, Yale School of the Environment (YSE)

Dr. Burke is an ecosystem ecologist whose research has focused on carbon and nitrogen cycling in dryland ecosystems. Her work with graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and colleagues has addressed how drylands of the world are influenced by land use management, climatic variability, and regional variability, and has been published in over 170 peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and books chapters. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and received the Presidential Faculty Fellows award at the White House as a young faculty member, in addition to other awards. Burke teaches in the fields of environmental science, ecosystem ecology, and biogeochemistry.

Dean Burke received her B.S. in Biology from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Wyoming. She was a professor at Colorado State University and Professor and Dean at the University of Wyoming, before she joined the faculty of Yale in 2016 as the Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, recently renamed the Yale School of the Environment.

Burke has served on numerous committees and boards for the national and international environmental science organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board, UNESCO SCOPE, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the Dahlem Conference, and many others. She has served the national conservation community through service on boards of the Sand County Foundation, The Conservation Fund, and the Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

A respected educator and intellectual leader in the U.S. and internationally, Dean Burke is particularly interested in fostering interdisciplinary scholarship, and promoting science-based and equitable, community-engaged conservation of working landscapes.

Senior Director, Seale & Associates

Pat Coady has a life long career in investment banking. He is currently Senior Director at Seale & Associates, Washington DC specializing in land and water conservation. His focus is creating basin wide finance plans for important watersheds.

Pat served as U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank. He has had stints as Chief Financial Officer at such diverse companies as a billion dollar financial services company as well as a start-up rocket development enterprise.

He has raised capital for wetland mitigation banking firms and species banks. Pat contributed to the book From Walden to Wall Street and organized a 2007 Conservation Finance Workshop in New York City. Pat is a senior fellow at Conservation International. In 1994, Pat co-founded and served as Chairman of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. He is a Board Member of Virginiaforever, a broad stakeholder group advocating for natural resource funding in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Since 2014 Pat has been a member of the Organizing Committee to the Annual Conservation Finance Investor Conference held at the New York offices of Credit Suisse that brings together the leaders in the field. He is Committee Chair for “The Climate Initiative” of the Harvard Business School Club of Washington, DC.

Pat is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard Business School. He resides in Washington, DC.

Managing Director, NatureVest

Lauren was named NatureVest’s Managing Director in 2022. In this role, she oversees NatureVest, The Nature Conservancy’s Impact Investing Team, whose mission it is to source, close and manage transactions that generate financial, environmental and social returns that directly support TNC’s global conservation strategies.

Lauren is dedicated to developing a broad suite of market solutions. In addition to the existing Investment Origination and post-close Impact Management teams, Lauren will oversee the launch of the new Sustainable Financial Advisory team, which will include dedicated Carbon Finance capacity. These new teams will enable NatureVest to work with a broader suite of financial solutions to help address conservation challenges across all of TNC’s conservation priorities.

President and CEO, Connecticut Green Bank

Bryan Garcia is the president and CEO of the Connecticut Green Bank – the nation’s first state-level green bank. The “green bank model” is demonstrating how smarter use of public resources can attract more private investment in the green economy – reducing energy burden on families and businesses, creating jobs in local communities, increasing the deployment of clean and resilient energy, improving public health, and confronting climate change. With its message of “Inclusive Prosperity,” the Green Bank won the “Innovations in American Government Award” in 2017 by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. And through its design of retail accessible Green Liberty Bonds, modeled after the War Bonds of the 1940’s, the Green Bank won the “Innovative Financing” category from The Bond Buyer in 2020.
Before joining the Green Bank, Garcia was program director for the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. At Yale, Garcia led efforts to develop a leading global program responsible for preparing environmental leaders for business and society. Prior to Yale, he served as Connecticut’s Climate Change Coordinator where he supported the Governor’s Steering Committee on Climate Change. Early in his career, he was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer specializing in NGO capacity building and environmental education in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
He holds a BS degree in political economy of natural resources from Berkeley, MPA in public and non-profit administration from NYU Wagner, MBA in finance from NYU Stern, and an MEM degree from the Yale School of the Environment.
In addition to his professional responsibilities, Bryan serves on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. He is on the Board of Directors of the Energy Foundation, Center for Sustainable Energy, Institute for Sustainable Communities, and Sustainable CT. And he serves in the Advisory Board of the Yale Center for Business and the Environment.
Bryan lives in Cromwell with his husband, Paul Schneider.

Director, Cities4Forests & Natural Infrastructure Initiative, World Resources Institute

Todd Gartner is the Director of Cities4Forests and the Natural Infrastructure Initiative at the World Resources Institute (WRI). His team supports 90+ cities around the world, from Jakarta to Bogota and Nairobi to Salt Lake City, to invest in the conservation and restoration of forests and nature as part of green-gray resilient infrastructure solutions.

Todd specializes in policy development and deploying funding and financing approaches to reduce wildfire risk, enhance water security, and protect natural systems to benefit urban and rural communities. He co-developed the Forest Resilience Bond with Blue Forest Conservation, driving $30M of private capital to reduce wildfire risk, facilitated the first certified green bond issued by a water utility to protect watershed lands ($31M+), and supported the World Bank to unlock $2 billion for integrated green-gray infrastructure for disaster risk management across the Global South.

Todd’s previous work included developing and running the Conservation Incentives and Ecosystem Markets program at the American Forest Foundation, field forestry work in New England, fire ecology and eco-tourism research in Botswana and India, business consulting for the USDA Forest Service and several years as a corporate financial consultant. Todd earned his Master of Forestry degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a B.S. in finance from University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business. Todd is a Baltimore Ravens and outdoor enthusiast and loves to hike, paddle, board, climb and soak in hot tubs.

Vice President Climate-Smart Agriculture, Environmental Defense Fund

Britt Groosman is Vice President of Climate-Smart Agriculture at Environmental Defense Fund, where she helps create environmentally effective and economically sound solutions for the transition towards more climate-smart agriculture in the US, China, EU and India.
Britt is an economist and has been with EDF since 2008. She has served in different capacities across a range of programs and regions. She started as an economist in the US climate program, established EDF’s first European operations, and served as Vice President of Global Climate until mid-2020.

Britt has almost over 25 years’ experience as a strategic leader, environmental economist and advocate working across sectors (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy) and regions (US, EU, India, China, Brazil). Prior to joining EDF, Britt worked as an economist in London for over a decade.

Britt studied Economics (BA) and Law and Economics (MA) at the Universities of Gent, Belgium, and Oxford University, UK.
 

Executive Director, ReFED

Dana Gunders serves as ReFED’s Executive Director.
Dana is a national expert on food waste and one of the first to bring to light just how much food is lost throughout the food system. For almost a decade, she was a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council; she then launched Next Course, LLC to strategically advise on food waste.
Some of her career highlights include authoring the landmark Wasted Report and Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook, launching the "Save the Food" campaign with the Ad Council, testifying in Congress, consulting to Google, being named "the woman who started the waste-free movement" by Consumer Reports and serving as a founding Board Member of ReFED.

Managing Director, Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) - Agriculture and Natural Assets

Dr. Hallstein is an economist, having earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, and his B.A. from Harvard University.

Eric currently has a leadership role in the evolution of MAM’s existing Agriculture business into a leading global natural assets investment platform and is building out our capabilities in North America and beyond.

Eric joined Macquarie in 2022 as a Managing Director in the Real Assets Agricultural and Natural Assets team based out of San Francisco, after ten years with The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

As a Managing Director TNC NatureVest group, he led a team leveraging conservation science and technical expertise to advise ~ $2.5 billion of direct and institutional partnerships focused on forestry, carbon and agricultural investments that aim to deliver impact alongside returns.
Previously at TNC, as a Chief Economist and Director of Conservation Investments, Eric led TNC California’s work in economics, conservation finance, and transactions.

Prior to TNC, Dr. Hallstein was a principal with Imprint Capital Advisors, a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group, a venture investor and Kauffman Fellow with Imprint Capital, Omidyar Network and the CalCEF Clean Energy Fund, and a founding team member of GoodGuide.

Director of Research, Yale Applied Science Synthesis Program The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment

Sara Kuebbing, Director of Research, Yale Applied Science Synthesis Program, The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment

Sara is trained as an ecologist with expertise in conservation biology, invasion biology, plant ecology, community ecology, and ecosystem ecology. She conducts research on how humans can make informed decisions on how to best protect and conserve landscapes, ecosystems, and all the species that lives within them. She work with a variety of scientists, land managers, and policymakers to focus my research questions and share my results.
Prior to moving to Yale, Sara was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh where she ran an empirical research lab in plant ecology and invasion biology. Her research training includes postdoctoral positions with the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies and the Smith Conservation Fellows Program, a PhD from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee and a BS from the Department of Entomology & Wildlife Conservation at the University of Delaware.

Dr. Sara Kuebbing is a Research Scientist and the Director of Research of the Yale Applied Science Synthesis Program at The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment.
Sara is trained as an ecologist with expertise in conservation biology, invasion biology, plant ecology, community ecology, and ecosystem ecology. She conducts research on how humans can make informed decisions on how to best protect and conserve landscapes, ecosystems, and all the species that lives within them. She work with a variety of scientists, land managers, and policymakers to focus my research questions and share my results.
Prior to moving to Yale, Sara was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh where she ran an empirical research lab in plant ecology and invasion biology. Her research training includes postdoctoral positions with the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies and the Smith Conservation Fellows Program, a PhD from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee and a BS from the Department of Entomology & Wildlife Conservation at the University of Delaware.

Senior Managing Director/Head of ESG/Impact – Global Fixed Income, Nuveen

Steve Liberatore is the lead portfolio manager for Nuveen’s fixed income strategies that incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria and Impact investments, including those that comprise our Core Impact Bond, Short Duration Impact Bond and Green Bond composites. He is also a member of the Investment Committee.

Steve served on the ICMA Green Bond Principles Advisory Council and was a member of the initial executive committee. He is a member of the UN Capital Development Fund’s working group on Climate Insurance Linked Resilient Infrastructure Finance and serves on the UN’s Joint Sustainable Development Goals Fund’s Blue Economy Investor Advisory Group. He also serves on S&P’s Global Ratings ESG Leadership Council, the Steering Committee of the Orange Bond Principals, Fannie Mae’s Green Rental Housing Task Force and Sustainalytics’ Investor Committee. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and a subject matter expert across media outlets, such as Bloomberg, CNBC, The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. He and his team were awarded “Investor of the Year” at Environmental Finance’s (EF) 2020 Bond Awards and Nuveen’s Global Fixed Income Impact Report won “Impact Report of the Year (for Investors)” at EF’s 2022 Bond Awards. Before joining the firm in 2004, he held roles at Nationwide Mutual Insurance and Protective Life.

Steve graduated with a B.S. from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an M.B.A. in Finance and Operations from Wake Forest University. He holds the CFA designation and is a member of the CFA Society of North Carolina and the CFA Institute.

Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business

Matthew McKenna is currently with Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, where he founded an initiative to study the role of the private sector investment in rural economic development. The Rural Opportunity Initiative is part of the Business for Impact Program at the business school, where Matt is Executive in Residence and an adjunct member of the faculty.

Matt came to Georgetown in 2017 after a term at the US Department of Agriculture, where he was a Senior Advisor to Secretary Tom Vilsack. It was in this role that he helped develop numerous programs that leveraged Federal grants and loans with sources of private investment.

Matt began his professional career as a tax lawyer in New York City, where he was a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop. He then went to PepsiCo, Inc. where he served in a variety of roles, including Treasurer and Senior Vice President of Finance. He then served as the CEO of Keep America Beautiful, the national volunteer organization for community and neighborhood improvement.

His professional experience includes several for profit and not for profit boards. He has been a director of two public companies and several private businesses. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College and Board chair of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps. He has also been an adjunct professor at Fordham University since 1984.

Director, Global Sustainability, Credit Suisse 

Imene Moussa is a Director at Credit Suisse. She is the Sustainable Financing Expert within Global Sustainability based in London. Since 2020 and until recently, Imene had been leading origination and structuring efforts for sustainability related transactions within Credit Investor Products Structuring.

Previously, Imene was an Executive Director at UBS Hong Kong in charge of Quantitative Investment Strategies solutions for 2 years. Imene originally joined Credit Suisse in 2007 and had been part of the equity derivatives and structuring team in London for 11 years.

Imene holds an Engineering Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from ENSIIE and an MSc in Mathematical Statistics and Probability from Paris 6 University.

CK Blueshift, LLC – Managing Director 

Ana is a highly entrepreneurial leader working in the environmental finance space with expertise in both legal and financial fields and a passion for creating and advancing innovative financing solutions to address critical natural resources issues. She is a co-founder and Managing Director of CK Blueshift, LLC a project incubation and consulting firm focused on the critical challenges facing water and natural resource managers in the American West. Ana also serves as the Interim Executive Director of BlueCommons, a first of its kind “Blue Bank” providing innovative financing to support projects that address water scarcity and sustainability challenges. Ana holds a JD degree from Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia and an LL.M Degree in Environmental Law from Tulane University, is a member of the New York Bar, and is certified credit analyst.

Previously, Imene was an Executive Director at UBS Hong Kong in charge of Quantitative Investment Strategies solutions for 2 years. Imene originally joined Credit Suisse in 2007 and had been part of the equity derivatives and structuring team in London for 11 years.

Imene holds an Engineering Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from ENSIIE and an MSc in Mathematical Statistics and Probability from Paris 6 University.

Founding Partner, South Pole Group

Ingo is a Founding Partner of South Pole Group, a global market leader in the use of results-based/performance-based incentives systems to drive the transformation to the low carbon society world-wide, and as a means to facilitate cooperative actions among stakeholders and within supply chains. He is driving South Pole's work on energy transformation in South East Asia, the acceleration of electric mobility solutions in the region, and strengthening the next generation of integrated carbon markets.

Senior Vice President, Finance Operations, Ripple Labs

Gabe Sheets-Poling, Sr. Vice President of Financial Operations at Ripple Labs, leads an investment portfolio of durable carbon credits, separate from the company’s own offset needs. He’s collaborated with a number of young companies in the intersection of climate & tech, advising on tech strategy, business models and contract structure.

Prior to joining Ripple, Gabe was a Sr. Vice President on the Strategy and Business Development team at Indigo Ag, where he led the instantiation & operations of Indigo's Crop Marketplace, Global Markets and Pricing teams, and was a key contributing member of the fundraising teams.
Gabe spent the majority of his career with Cargill Risk Management (CRM), serving as Managing Director of Trading Technology, leading the tech operations of Cargill's regulated swap dealing unit. In this role, he directly advanced CRM’s embedded technology team, spearheaded custom software development, implemented innovative practices, and oversaw regulatory and control functions. Gabe dedicated the bulk of his time as a Trading Manager to the company’s Producer Product Line, an international unit committed to helping farmers and ranchers around the world devise robust commodity pricing and risk management strategies.

Gabe carries experience as a Senior Broker covering the NYMEX, COMEX, CBOT, and CME exchange floors - as well as all major electronic exchanges - offering market commentary, IT support, and services to hedge funds and commodity trade advisors. He is passionate about developing creative solutions to the problems plaguing our climate, and leverages his blended background of trading, technology, and regulatory expertise to accelerate the reduction of carbon in our atmosphere.
 

Managing Director, The Lyme Timber Company

Peter joined Lyme in 1990 and has led the firm’s conservation-oriented forestland investment strategies.

As of 2023, Lyme has raised more than a billion dollars of private capital that has been or will be invested in high conservation value forests in the U.S. and Canada. Lyme’s conservation advisory business assists families and companies in the design and execution of conservation transactions, resulting in more than 900,000 acres of permanent land conservation in 12 states plus the Province of Quebec.

Prior to his career with LTC Partners and Lyme, Peter was Senior Vice President of the Trust for Public Land (TPL), where he was one of the founding staff. He earned a B.A. with Highest Honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1975. Peter was a Loeb Fellow, received a Certificate in Advanced Environmental Studies from Harvard University in 1981, and received the Kingsbury Browne Award from the Land Trust Alliance and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in 2012.

Peter lectures frequently at graduate schools and professional conferences on conservation investment structures and strategies. He is the co-founder of the Conservation Finance Network and the International Land Conservation Network. Peter serves on the Investment Committee of SLM Partners, the Advisory Boards of Quantified Ventures and Rose Smart Growth Real Estate Fund and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Montshire Museum. He is a former Board Chair of the Land Trust Alliance and served as a founding Commissioner of the Land Trust Accreditation Commission.

Chief Executive Officer, GenZero

Frederick is the Chief Executive Officer of GenZero.
In this role, Frederick oversees the direction of the company and leads the execution of GenZero's strategies to achieve both climate impact and sustainable long-term financial returns.

Prior to his appointment at GenZero, Frederick held various leadership positions in Sustainability, Portfolio Management and Business Continuity Management in his 12 years at Temasek International. As Managing Director of Sustainable Solutions, he established the team and conceived capability programmes in clean energy, urban, and climate and nature solutions. He led key initiatives such as the establishment of Climate Impact X, a global marketplace and exchange for carbon credits, as well as Singapore’s first brownfield distributed district cooling retrofit project in partnership with SP Group.
Frederick worked on value creation projects with some of Temasek’s large portfolio companies like SingTel and Mediacorp, and led corporate governance and stewardship initiatives within the Portfolio Management team. He also led several community programmes. In 2014, he partnered Temasek Foundation to execute a nationwide delivery of mask kits during a severe haze episode and worked with ST Engineering on the development of the world’s first N95 masks specifically designed for young children.
Frederick holds a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a BA and MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Lincoln College, Oxford University.

Professor of Practice, S.C. Johnson College of Business, Cornell University

Dr. Tobin is an ecologist and attorney with over two decades of private sector experience, having worked in the international finance industry for much of his career. Following a decade of corporate legal practice in the area of emerging markets finance, while actively providing counsel on environmental conservation matters on a pro bono basis, he turned his full attention towards the growing area of corporate sustainability, becoming Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainability at Credit Suisse. In this position, he pioneered a variety of initiatives and policies aimed at setting the finance industry on a more sustainable course. In 2016 he transitioned into a faculty position at Cornell University, where he teaches corporate sustainability, environmental and social risk management, impact investing, environmental finance, and related topics to undergraduates and graduate students in business and public affairs. His research focuses on the use of financial tools to generate positive outcomes in the areas of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. In addition, he actively engages with industry and civil society to develop financial solutions to sustainability problems, including as co-founder of the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation (CPIC). Dr. Tobin has extensive leadership and governance experience in not-for-profit entities at the board level, particularly in the areas of environment, science, and education.

Director, Pollination

Laura’s work focusses on nature-positive corporate strategy and policy, and opportunities in the natural capital and nature-based solutions space. Laura advises clients on nature-related risks and opportunities and is a member of the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia’s nature risk working group. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum and Taskforce for Nature Markets working groups on voluntary biodiversity credit markets. Prior to joining Pollination, Laura was a climate and environmental lawyer at leading national and international law firms and she was a finalist in the Lawyers Weekly 30 Under 30 Awards in the Planning & Environment category in 2020-2022.

Executive Director, The Conservation Finance Network

Leigh Whelpton leads the Conservation Finance Network’s (CFN) effort to accelerate land and resource conservation by expanding the use of innovative funding and financing strategies. By sponsoring intensive trainings and supporting a growing number of public, private, and nonprofit professionals, CFN helps to increase the financial resources deployed for conservation. As Program Director, Leigh has spearheaded the development of new trainings and workshops while building a network to enable interaction and exchange among practitioners. Prior to Island Press, Leigh managed professional training programs and applied conservation initiatives for the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Leigh holds an M.E.Sc. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a B.S. (Hons.) from the University of California at Berkeley.