Turning Purpose into Practice: Alumni Career Panel

Steph is a clean energy entrepreneur, strategic advisor, board member, and public speaker.

She most recently co-founded and was CEO of Solstice, an enterprise dedicated to radically expanding the number of American households that can take advantage of clean energy using community-shared solar farms (acquired by MyPower/Mitsui). Steph teaches climate tech at Yale School of Management and is a Resident Fellow at the Center for Business and the Environment. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club Foundation, Vote Solar, and Clean Energy for America, and on the Credit Committee of the Community Investment Guarantee Pool. She advises philanthropists, investors, and companies and keynotes on the future of climate tech and clean energy, entrepreneurship, and community benefits.

Steph holds a B.A. from Yale, a Masters in Public Affairs (MPA) with distinction from Princeton, and an MBA from MIT with a Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She was selected as an EY New England Entrepreneur of the Year, US C3E Entrepreneurship Award Winner, Inc Magazine Female Founder 100, Echoing Green Climate Fellow, a Kia Revisionary, a Renewable Energy World 40 Under 40 in Solar, Elle Magazine/INCO’s US Impact Entrepreneur of the Year, and a Grist 50 Fixer.

Maggie Thomas has spent her career working at the intersection of climate and politics. Most recently, she served as Special Assistant to the President for Climate in the Biden-Harris White House. Prior to that, she co-founded Evergreen Action, a climate policy advocacy organization, and worked on the campaign teams of presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren (as lead climate staffer) and Jay Inslee (deputy climate director). Earlier in her career, Thomas held several roles at NextGen America, a political organization that mobilizes young people to vote and make progress on progressive issues. Maggie has a Masters of Environmental Management (MEM) from the Yale School of Environment and a Bachelors in Environmental Science & Biology from Trinity College-Hartford. She currently lives in Washington, DC and consults for organizations that are building power for climate and clean energy. 

Natasha Feshbach is the Fellowship Manager at Activate New York. Here, she runs a two-year fellowship program that supports scientist-entrepreneurs as they launch and grow deep-tech climate companies. Her work focuses on leadership development and entrepreneurial education, preparing Activate Fellows to become impactful leaders. Natasha helps companies at the earliest stage derisk crucial tech, team, market, and finance aspects of their business to enable tech commercialization and company growth. She also has experience in climate communications, working on partnership strategy with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications. She has a master’s degree from the Yale School of Environment and a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Yale University.

Peter is a Lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment and Resident Fellow at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. Outside Yale, he is Founder & CEO of Time4Good, helping Leaders and their teams in a variety of sectors, build purpose-driven paths to maximum positive impact. He is passionate about system change to a ‘Net-Zero’ world: from writing and speaking, to directly helping organizations that are accelerating the transition.

He is on the Expert Peer Review Group of the UN’s Race To Zero campaign and the Distinguished Advisory Group of the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets. He is actively trying to bridge the rainforest nations’ commitments under the Paris Agreement with the opportunity to grow the voluntary market; also serving as an advisor to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations and REDD. plus - a digital platform to bring UN-registered, nationally-issued REDD+ forest carbon credits to a wider world of purchasers.

For over twenty years he has worked on, led and advised, high-growth organizations on leadership, strategy, time maximization, team alignment and entrepreneurial opportunity. His private-sector experience started with McKinsey & Co then spanned over ten jobs in twelve years at the Virgin Group, including CEO of Virgin Mobile South Africa. In non-profit and government, he was Launch Director and COO of Sir Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room; served as Chair of The Energy Efficiency Deployment Office for the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change; and led The B Team’s ‘Net-Zero by 2050’ initiative focused on business encouragement for an ambitious Paris Agreement at COP21.