Women Leading the Way: 3 Climate Founder Interviews — Joro, Power For all, Women in Climate Tech
Automating carbon footprint tracking and reduction, unifying 200+ organizations to address energy poverty, and empowering hundreds of women to level up in climate tech
From our Climate Torch podcast…
Most weeks I have the supreme pleasure of interviewing climate CEOs, founders, and investors via my podcast, Climate Torch.* Below are three recent episodes with rockstar women who are showing us how it’s done.
If you like these, here are 40+ more on Apple or Spotify.
And if you want more climate CEOs, founders, and investors to have their stories heard, or you find anything useful when listening, please consider leaving a rating on Apple, or click “follow” on Spotify.
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* I know, everybody and their brother has a podcast these days. And I told myself I would never start one. Alas, the doom and gloom of climate change required this one to launch last year. We need more positive stories out there — more torches in the darkness. (Hopefully, the cheesiness of that sentence didn’t make you too nauseous. I promise, that really was the idea behind the name.)
#1 — Kristina Skierka, CEO of Power For All
Power For All is a global coalition of 200+ private and public organizations campaigning to deliver universal energy access — for nearly 1 billion people — before 2030 through the power of decentralized, renewable electricity.
Beyond the world changing work of Power For All, we also discuss her time at d.light ($200M+ raised for off grid energy globally), why she sold all her possessions and moved to an off-grid ranch in Argentina, her two book recommendations, her three favorite podcasts, why she wakes up at 4am, and her favorite quote by the poet Rumi:
“Set your life on fire, and seek those who fan your flames.”
Learn more about their campaigns, the countries where they focus, and free resources.
Here is the podcast and summary transcript.
#2 — Helen Bertelli, Co-Founder of Women in Climate Tech
Women in Climate Tech provides free monthly programming to its hundreds of members and newsletter subscribers to facilitate the career growth of women fighting the climate crisis. Helen is also Founder of Benecomms, a climate- and impact-focused marketing and PR firm.
In addition, we laughed vigorously at her great taste in coffee mugs (sorry, you’ve got to listen to hear what I mean), how she sings because it’s good for the soul, and her community’s work to expand thinking around the dominant climate-risk reporting framework, TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) to be more like TECFD — where the E represents social equity and diversity.
Here is the podcast and summary transcript.
#3 — Sanchali Pal, CEO of Joro
Joro provides an app for automated carbon tracking to help consumers make better purchase decisions and offset their carbon footprint.
Importantly, before she raised capital from Sequoia Capital, Baruch Future Ventures, and name brand founders (FitBit, CandyCrush, and Headspace), she had reduced her own carbon footprint by 30% using a custom Excel spreadsheet.
In our chat, we also talk about how her time in India and Ethiopia influenced the development of Joro, the factors they use to pick the best carbon offsets (permanence, additionality, biodiversity impact, transparency, local community impacts), how she limits email use to two 30-minute blocks per day, and two of her favorite quotes:
“Even if the company or venture is a failure, you don’t have to be a failure.”
“The people that succeed are the people that keep doing it.”
Here is the podcast and summary transcript.
That’s all, folks.
Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.
— Chris
P.S. Do you want to join our Climate Mastermind?
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—
Dr. Chris Wedding
Founder and Chief Catalyst, Entrepreneurs for Impact
The Only Private Executive Mastermind Community for CEOs, Founders, and Investors Fighting Climate Change
