About Us

Tom Steyer is founder and Senior Managing Member of Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C and a Managing Director and Member of the Investment Committee of Hellman & Friedman, L.L.C. He and his wife, Kat Taylor, recently joined Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and other high-wealth Americans in the "Giving Pledge," a promise to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable and nonprofit activities during their lifetimes.

Tom and Kat are also the founders of OneCalifornia Bank, an Oakland, California community development bank now called One PacificCoast Bank. Mr. Steyer recently teamed with former Secretary of State George Shultz to defeat Proposition 23, which would have rolled back new California advanced energy legislation. Tom graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale and received his MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

Hemant Taneja is a Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners, an investor in early-stage companies. Mr. Taneja leads the global energy practice for General Catalyst and serves on the boards of a diverse set of energy companies. He has broad experience in advanced energy, having co-founded and chaired the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC), a nonprofit focused on advancing New England's energy economy.

Mr. Taneja is a graduate of MIT, earning an M.S. in Operations Research, an M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, a B.S. in Mathematics, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and a B.S. in Biology & Biomedical Engineering.

Reed Hundt is the CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital, a non-profit corporation, as well as Principal of REH Advisors, an advisory firm serving private firms. He is on the board of directors of Intel Corporation and Kno, Inc., and also two non profit organizations, the United Negro College Fund and the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority of Connecticut. In addition, he is on the advisory board of the Yale School of Management, Peek Inc., Mytonomy and e-Access. He is a senior advisor to Skadden, Arps, a law firm, and GTCR, a private equity firm. He is Chairman of the Aspen Institute's International Digital Economy Accord (IDEA) Project.

Reed Hundt was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 1993-1997. Previously he was a partner at Latham & Watkins, an international law firm. He is a member of the District of Columbia bar.

He has written many articles and two books: In China's Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (Yale University Press, 2006) and You Say You Want A Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics (Yale University Press, 2000).

Reed graduated from Yale College (1969) with a B.A. in History magna cum laude and honors with exceptional distinction in history. He graduated from J.D. Yale Law School (1974) where he was member of the executive board of the Yale Law Journal. He is married to Elizabeth Katz and has three children: Adam (b. 1982), Nathaniel (b. 1985), and Sara (b. 1989).

Bill Ritter Jr. is currently the Director of the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) at Colorado State University. The Center started February 1, 2011 with Ritter as the founding Director. In addition to the Director, the Center now employs an Assistant Director, two Senior Policy Advisors, and an Executive Assistant.

Ritter was elected as Colorado's 41st governor in 2006 -- the first Colorado-born governor in more than 35 years. Ritter led Colorado forward by bringing people together to tackle some of our state's biggest challenges. During his 4 year term, Ritter established Colorado as a national and international leader in renewable energy by building a New Energy Economy that is creating thousands of new jobs and establishing hundreds of new companies, enacted an aggressive business-development and job-creation agenda that is focused on knowledge-based industries of the future, such as energy, aerospace, biosciences, information technology and tourism, initiated sweeping K-12 education reforms to give Colorado children the skills and knowledge they need to compete and succeed in a 21st century global economy, and improved access to quality and affordable health care for many of the 800,000 Coloradans who lack health coverage.

Ritter served as Denver's District Attorney from 1993 to January 2005. He earned a national reputation as one of the country's most effective and innovative prosecutors, and several of his programs continue to serve as state and national models.

The sixth of 12 children, Ritter was raised on a small farm in Arapahoe County. He was a member of the first graduating class of Gateway High School (1974), and he earned his bachelor's degree in political science from Colorado State University (1978) and his law degree from the University of Colorado (1981). Ritter is married to Jeannie, and before his serving as District Attorney, he and Jeannie operated a food distribution and nutrition center in Zambia. They have four children: August, Abe, Sam, and Tally.

George P. Shultz is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was sworn in on July 16, 1982 as the sixtieth US secretary of state and served until January 20, 1989. In January 1989, he rejoined Stanford University as the Jack Steele Parker Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business and as a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of Acuitus, Inc., Fremont Group, and Theranos, Inc. He is advisory council chair of the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency at Stanford University, chair of the MIT Energy Initiative External Advisory Board, and chair of the Energy Task Force at Hoover Institution.

He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on January 19, 1989. He also received the Seoul Peace Prize (1992), the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service (2001), and the Reagan Distinguished American Award (2002). He is the recipient of the Elliot Richardson Prize for Excellence and Integrity in Public Service, the James H. Doolittle Award, and the John Witherspoon Medal for Distinguished Statesmanship. The George Shultz National Foreign Service Training Center in Arlington, Virginia, was dedicated on May 29, 2002. Shultz was named a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association in 2005. He received the American Spirit Award from the National World War II Museum in 2006 and the Truman Medal for Economic Policy in 2007. He received the Rumford Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008 and the Commandant's Leadership Award from the Marine Corps' Law Enforcement Foundation in 2009.

Shultz graduated from Princeton University in 1942, receiving a BA degree in economics. That year he joined the US Marine Corps and served through 1945. In 1949, Shultz earned a PhD degree in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.