Our Team

Read about the people who are not only making history, but shaping the future.

The Directors

Dr. Walter Schindler

Managing Director

William J. Brooksbank

Managing Director

Lee C. Tashjian

Managing Director

Morton Irvine Smith

Managing Director

Jim Rollans

Managing Director

Alexandra Kinloch

Managing Director

Jim Padden

Managing Director
Agriculture

Louise Bean

Managing Director
London

Radha Bhandari

Managing Director
Middle East

David Fransen

Managing Director
Canada

Luis F. Lugo

Managing Director
Mexico

Omar Habbal

Managing Director
Blockchain

Paula Helene Golka

Managing Director
Germany & Scandinavia

Catherine Webb

Director
Research & Analysis

Lt. General David A. Deptula (Ret)

Strategic Advisor

Vicky Shemer

Managing Director, Nutrition

Lea Goldstone

Managing Director, Research and Analysis

Advisory Board

Paul Anastas

Advisor
  • Professor, Yale University
  • Former Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development and the Science Advisor to the EPA
  • Known widely as the “Father of Green Chemistry”

Gregory L Frank

Advisor
  • Former VP and Operations Manager for Defense & Security and PVP and General Manager for Defense & Security for Bechtel National, Inc.
  • Former Executive Vice President for Battelle Science and Technology International (BSTI)
  • Former COO South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA); public 501(c)3 R&D; corporation established in 1983 with revenues greater than $170 million in 2010
  • Former Manager Director, Chart Capital Partners
  • Captain Frank severed as a Chemical Officer in the US Army

Dan Packer

Advisor
  • National Chairman of Blacks in Energy
  • Retired Chairman and CEO of Entergy New Orleans Inc.

Tom Fisher

Advisor
  • Executive Advisor to the COO/CTO of SAS Institute re: $1B AI strategic initiative
  • Recognized leader in 4 phases of IT history
  • Established eBay IT strategy to support scale and business growth
  • Built business & engineering to support QUALCOMM’s semiconductor and global positioning
  • Responsible for SuccessFactors (now SAP) cloud computing strategy and execution
  • Thought leader in energy efficient data centers

David R. Miller

Advisor
  • Former Mayor of Toronto
  • President & CEO of World Wildlife Fund
  • Advisor to the World Bank and United Nations on Sustainable Urban Development
  • Former Chair of the C40 Climate Leadership Group – Comprised of Mayors from world’s leading cities

Howard Stevenson

Advisor
  • Faculty, Harvard Business School

Julie B. Zimmerman

Advisor
  • Professor of Green Engineering and Applied Sciences at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

John A. Warden III

Advisor
  • Founder and President of Venturist, a strategy advisory firm
  • Architect of Operation Desert Storm (1990-91)
  • Vietnam combat pilot, whose strategic work has been credited by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and Gen. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the principal architect of the Desert Storm Air Campaign
  • Served as an Air Force fighter wing commander and Special Assistant to the Vice President of the United States

Admiral Russell “Russ” Penniman IV, Rear Admiral US Navy (Ret)

Advisor
  • Managing Member of Penniman & Associates, real estate
  • Served as Reserve Deputy Commander/Deputy Commander & Chief of Staff for the U.S. Pacific and Deputy Commander for the U.S Third Fleet (1994-2014)
  • Board Member and Former President of the 22nd District Agricultural Association, State of California, provided oversight, guidance, and annual budget of over $80 million.
  • Former Board Member of The Irvine Museum and The Joan Irvine Smith & Athalie R. Clarke Foundation

Philippa “Pippa” Burke

Advisor
Executive Director of Common Purpose US, the US subsidiary of Common Purpose UK, which is based in London, but international in scope and delivers a range of leadership programs for individuals, organizations, and universities, with a focus on inspiring and equipping people to work together across boundaries.

Susanne Bregy

Advisor
  • Founder and Managing Director of London/New York based Rhodanus Capital Ltd., an early pioneer in impact investing
  • European private equity advisor who started focusing exclusively on impact investing a decade ago
  • Has guided emerging and established asset managers on the subject of impact investing
  • Vision: to bring impact investing into the mainstream of global investment

Patrick A. Ciganer

Advisory Board
Artificial Intelligence
  • Multiple SES level appointments at NASA, DOE, and the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency
  • Former EVP at In Q Tel
  • Significant private sector executive experience in real time data collection, analysis and distribution including expert system design and in depth cyber security development technology areas.
  • Recipient of NASA Leadership Medal
  • DOE/NNSA Distinguished Service Award
  • Member, American Geophysical Union (AGU), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dr. Thomas J. Bogdan

Advisor,
Artificial Intelligence
  • Experienced Physical Scientist, Research Administrator, Educator & Communicator
  • Former President of University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Senior Executive Service appointee at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, and Program Director with the National Science Foundation
  • Current Advisor for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Museum of Boulder, and the National Solar Observatory

Dahl Winters

Advisor,
Artificial Intelligence
  • Founder of DeepScience, Ltd., providing AI for Agriculture solutions; fulfilling R&D; and innovation needs of multinational companies in resource security (protection of water assets through cybersecurity), prediction of crop yields, CO2 sequestration
  • Former chief technology officer for Optar AI, serving the UAS/image analytics space with proprietary deep learning algorithms for anomaly detection
  • Former Geospatial Big Data Architect at Monsanto
  • Former R&D; Scientist at a major satellite imagery and analytics company
  • Award winner at Google-led hackathon and innovation awards from InnoCentive on behalf of a major oil/gas company as well as AstraZeneca

Benson P. Shapiro

Advisor
  • Faculty, Harvard Business School

Marc Fawaz, EMBA, Ed.D., Ph.D

Advisor
  • Veteran executive with more than 20 years of experience
  • Lecturer, UCI Paul Merage School of Business
  • Ph.D. in Global Leadership & Change
  • Published research is in Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibilities

Archie W. Dunham

Advisor
  • Former CEO of Conoco
  • Retired Chairman of ConocoPhillips
  • Led ConocoPhillips into renewable energy
  • Board of Directors of Louisiana Pacific, Phelps Dodge, & Union Pacific Corp.

Lisa Christopher-Stine, MD, MPH

Advisor
  • Associate Professor of Medicine and Neurology
  • Co-Founder and Director of the Johns Hopkins Myositis Center
  • Board-certified rheumatologist and joined the faculty of the Division of Rheumatology at The Johns Hopkins University in 2003
  • Graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in chemistry from Franklin and Marshall College where she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society
  • Elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society at Hahnemann University School of Medicine, where she received her MD degree
  • Principal Investigator of the Johns Hopkins Myositis Registry
  • Published over 110 peer reviewed scientific papers and currently serves as the Deputy Director of Telemedicine in the Division of Rheumatology

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