Livable Planet

Christian Artmann is an attorney with deep experience in investment banking, risk management and regulatory change. Before joining Galvanize, Christian served as the general counsel of Deutsche Bank’s investment bank in the Americas region and was responsible for legal and regulatory coverage of the bank’s capital markets, sales & trading and structured credit businesses. He was a member of the Bank’s reputational risk process and the investment bank’s executive committee.

Prior to joining Deutsche Bank in 2007, Christian practiced capital markets law at Allen & Overy LLP in London and New York and was a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group in Germany. He holds a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, an M.B.A from INSEAD, and a B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton University. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.

Sachi Blue-Smith has had a diverse career spanning venture capital and private equity, executive recruiting, and operational roles at startup and public technology companies. Before joining Galvanize, Sachi most recently served as the Chief Human Resources Officer at GI Partners, a San Francisco-based multi-strategy investment firm that has raised over $25B in institutional capital. Sachi was a member of the firm’s Operations Working Group (equivalent to Management Committee) and ESG Committee. Prior to GI Partners, Sachi was Director, Portfolio Services at Index Ventures, where she helped build Index’s capabilities to accelerate the growth of portfolio companies in both the US and Europe, in terms of headcount and revenue.

Sachi holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. She holds an AB degree from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, where she led the women’s water polo team to its first-ever appearance at the national championships. She still regularly plays masters water polo in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her husband and son.

Kacy was the former Chief of Commercial Strategy at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where she built DARPA’s Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative and provided seed funding to over 50 hard technology startups in biotechnology, microelectronics, cyber, AI/ML, quantum, and advanced materials. Prior to DARPA Kacy spent time at ARPA-E, Fraunhofer labs, and Sikorsky Aircraft. Kacy has a dual business and engineering master’s degree from M.I.T. and an industrial and systems engineering undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech.

Katie Hall is the Founder and Co-Chair of Hall Capital Partners (“HCP”), an independent, SEC-registered investment advisory firm. Founded in 1994, HCP manages over $40 billion in investment assets for foundations, endowments, and large pools of family capital. She served as CIO/Co-CIO at HCP from 1994 – 2018. Previously Katie was Founder and General Partner of Laurel Management Partners, General Partner of Laurel Arbitrage Partners. Earlier in her career, she was a Partner at HFS Partners and Hellman & Friedman.

Katie has extensive experience in the philanthropic and non-profit arenas. She is currently Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is a member of the Board and is Chair of the Investment Committee of SFMOMA. Katie is also a member of the Board of UCSF Foundation and is Chair of the Board for the UCSF Foundation Investment Company. Katie chairs the Investment Committee of the Smithsonian Institution and is a member of the Finance Committee. Previously Katie has served on the boards of a number of civic and educational institutions, including serving as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Princeton University from 2011-2019. Katie was a member of the Board of PRINCO from 1998-2011 and Chair from 2008-2011.

Katie also serves on the boards of Ariat International, San Jose Earthquakes, McEvoy Group, and Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp.

Veery Maxwell has spent her career focused on climate change, is a deep believer in the virtuous cycle of markets, technology, and policy reinforcing each other to drive decarbonization. Previously, Veery was a founding partner at Ajax Investment Strategies, where she invested in technology companies solving climate change. She currently sits on the boards of Descartes Labs, Streetlight Data, Sunfolding, Trace Genomics, and Voltus. Additionally, she serves on the nonprofit boards of Clean Energy for America and CREO Syndicate.

Prior to co-founding Ajax, Veery was a director at Energy Innovation managing a large climate philanthropy portfolio focused on supporting regulatory interventions to drive emissions out of the power, transport, and industrial sectors. Veery previously worked at Climateworks Foundation and The Nature Conservancy.

Veery earned a J.D. degree with honors from UC Hastings School of the Law, and a B.A. degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a double major in finance and international business. Veery lives in San Francisco with her husband, daughter, and Norwich terrier.

Cliff Ryan has spent his career investing in and working with entrepreneurs in the global energy and technology industries. Cliff was previously a Managing Director with Riverstone Holdings, a private equity firm with over $40 billion under management across energy and infrastructure markets, where he worked for over a decade. At Riverstone, Cliff was involved with sourcing, structuring, and negotiating transactions entailing over $25 billion of value and represented Riverstone on the boards of twelve portfolio companies. Cliff started his career in the investment banking division of Credit Suisse focused on M&A and leveraged finance in the global power and renewable sectors.

Throughout his career, Cliff has been an extensive early and growth-stage investor in many leading energy and technology companies as manager of Create Holdings. He was formerly an Advisor to LearnVest, a financial software company which was acquired in 2015 by Northwestern Mutual. Cliff has also served as an Executive in Residence for Energy Impact Partners.

Cliff is a graduate of Harvard College with an AB in Economics with Honors and has twice been Vice Chair of his class’s alumni committee. He lives in New York City with his wife, Alexa von Tobel, a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, and their three children.

Tom Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a multi-strategy global investment business based in San Francisco, from 1986 until 2012. During that period, it grew assets from $6mm to $36bn. Over the same time, Tom was also a partner and Investment Committee member at Hellman & Friedman, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.

After retiring from Farallon, Tom dedicated himself to public service and philanthropy, with a focus on climate action. Tom is the Co-Founder of Beneficial State Bank, a triple bottom line community development financial institution founded in 2007 with over $1 billion in assets. Tom is also the Founder of NextGen America, the largest youth voter mobilization organization in American history. Most recently, Tom was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and beginning in April 2020 served as co-chair for Governor Newsom’s Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force. He also co-chaired Vice President Biden’s Climate Engagement Advisory Council to help mobilize climate voters.

Nicole Systrom has spent her entire career partnering with investors, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists to accelerate high-impact climate and clean technology solutions. Prior to Galvanize, Nicole founded Sutro Energy Group to counsel impact investors, philanthropists, and nonprofits on how to direct mission-oriented resources toward innovative clean technologies. With an extensive background in environmental science and a passion for helping entrepreneurs scale breakthrough technologies, Nicole was frequently tapped by nonprofits, foundations and family offices for her counsel on their climate-positive programs. She is a published thought leader on climate innovation, on topics ranging from identifying gaps in the clean tech ecosystem, to building philanthropic tools for investing in climate solutions, to enabling better state energy policy.

Nicole holds a BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University and an MBA/MS in Environment and Resources from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She serves on multiple climate related governing boards and advisory groups, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family and golden retriever.