NextGen Leaders Series powered by Kauffman Fellows #1: Curating Access to Cleantech 2.0 Companies Reinventing the Future
Gain valuable insights into the future and explore how leading Japanese corporations can position themselves for the next wave of innovation.
Hosted at the Japan Innovation Campus, this exclusive conversation brings together Kotai Gen, his Kauffman Fellows classmates, and industry leaders from across the innovation ecosystem to share perspectives on emerging technologies, shifting markets, and the ideas shaping the future.
Our inaugural session will spotlight CleanTech—one of the defining innovation opportunities of the coming decade.
Forces of change—such as rising electricity demand, onshoring supply chains, increased weather volatility, the AI revolution, and more—are giving rise to a new generation of US early-stage cleantech companies. These companies are transforming the energy, industry, and resilience sectors, offering better solutions that happen to be clean. At WovenEarth Ventures, we call this Cleantech 2.0. We believe it is a massive opportunity too often overlooked by investors.
In this talk, Jane Woodward (Managing Partner, WovenEarth Ventures and Stanford Adjunct Professor) aims to demystify Cleantech 2.0—what drives it, what makes it enduring, and how these companies disrupt the status quo. Jane will also share the strategic thinking behind WovenEarth’s unique portfolio structure, which seeks to deliver access to early-stage innovation, exposure to 250+ companies per fund, actionable insights, and attractive, risk-adjusted returns in this underestimated space.
Time Schedule:
3:45 PM Door open
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM Cleantech Sector Trends
4:45 PM - 5:15 PM Pannel and QA
5:15 PM - 6PM Networking
Speaker:
Jane Woodward
Jane Woodward is Managing Partner at WovenEarth Ventures. In 1986, she founded MAP Energy, which successfully invested $2.5B in four innovation waves in energy (natural gas, wind, solar, storage) with an exit to GIP in 2020. Jane is an Adjunct Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, where she has taught energy and cleantech innovation classes since 1991. She holds a BA in Geology (UCSB), an MS in Applied Earth Science, and an MBA (both Stanford University).
Denise Miller
Denise Miller is a Partner at WovenEarth Ventures. She oversees investment and operational diligence, analytics and investor reporting, and the firm’s business operations. She has a deep background in strategy and systems that ranges from work in India for the Clinton Foundation to serving as a strategy consultant for leading US utilities and oil and gas companies with a focus on decarbonization. Denise has an MBA and an MS in Environmental Policy and Planning from the University of Michigan.
Trina Van Pelt
Trina Van Pelt is a Venture Partner at WovenEarth Ventures and has over 25 years of deep expertise in venture and growth capital, corporate development, and scaling investment platforms. Previously, she held senior roles at Intel for 20 years as a General Partner at Intel Capital and Vice President of Corporate Development. Trina earned her MS in Management from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and BBA from the University of Michigan.
Chris Tullar
Chris Tullar is a Strategic Advisor to WovenEarth Ventures. He was a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of VoLo Earth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm dedicated to energy transition. In his dual role as Head of Partnerships and Investment Committee member, he led fundraising efforts totaling approximately $250 million in committed capital across two funds and multiple co-investments. Prior to VoLo Earth, Chris served as Principal and Managing Director at JonesTrading Institutional Services, a leading third-market institutional brokerage. Over a 20-year career in public equity markets, he developed deep expertise in sales and trading, FINRA and SEC regulatory compliance, and cultivated relationships with some of the world's largest asset managers. Chris held his series 7, 24, 63 and 55 FINRA securities licensees. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Sociology from UCLA.
Moderator:
Kotai Gen
Kotai Gen is Director at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). He oversees SMBC’s strategic investments into venture capital funds as an LP investor and startups through CVC as a GP investor. He manages GP-LP relationships, drives business development initiatives, and helps connect Japanese corporations with emerging technologies and innovation ecosystems. Kotai is a Sozo Scholar at Sozo Ventures and is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 30).
Parking Information
Street parking is available around the Japan Innovation Campus in Palo Alto.
For additional options, a public parking garage is located just a couple of blocks away beside Palo Alto City Hall: View on Google Maps