Götz Martin is a forester by training, holding a PhD in Forestry Science. After an early career stint in the pulp and paper industry, he joined McKinsey and later Pöyry Management Consulting, advising on basic materials, forestry, agriculture, sustainability, and economic development across emerging markets.

In 2015, Götz moved to Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), where he built and led the Sustainability Implementation team, driving landscape-level conservation (HCV/HCS), FPIC-based community engagement, and responsible sourcing. His role later expanded to include climate change strategy and the development of GAR’s bioeconomy initiatives.

Since 2024, Götz has led GAR’s Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and biochar portfolio, overseeing large-scale ARR/ANR, peatland protection, carbon project development, and the company’s emerging biochar CDR business. He focuses on combining scientific rigour, community partnership, and commercially viable climate solutions across GAR’s operations.

Dr. Julio Friedmann is Chief Scientist at Carbon Direct. He works directly with clients, the Science team, and the leadership of Carbon Direct to solve major technical challenges around carbon management and CO2 removal.

Dr. Friedmann recently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy where he was responsible for DOE’s R&D program in advanced fossil energy systems, carbon capture, and storage (CCS), CO2 utilization, and clean coal deployment. More recently, he was a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia. He has held positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, including Chief Energy Technologist.

Dr. Friedmann is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the U.S. on carbon removal (CO2 drawdown from the air and oceans), CO2 conversion and use (carbon-to-value), hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, and carbon capture and sequestration.

Win Sim is Verra’s Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific. He leads strategic engagement and collaboration with government partners to advance the development of high-integrity carbon markets and promote the adoption of Verra’s standards and programs. His work focuses on policy dialogue and technical engagement, including supporting governments on registry interoperability, Article 6.2 implementation and capacity-building initiatives.

Yasuyuki Sakurai is Senior Manager in the Decarbonization Taskforce at Wallenius Wilhelmsen, where he focuses on green product development and aligning commercial strategies with global shipping decarbonisation. With more than 20 years at the company across commercial and leadership roles in Asia and Europe, his current work spans reduced-carbon shipping services, biofuels, EU ETS, net-zero end-to-end solutions and green shipping corridors. He also supports industry collaboration on GHG emissions accounting and the development of solutions that help customers reduce Scope 3 emissions from maritime transportation.

Robin Hüdepohl is Head of Decarbonisation Management & Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Sales at E.ON Energy Projects, where he is responsible for the commercial development of industrial clients’ decarbonisation solutions, including compensation mechanism, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Carbon Capture, Storage and Utilisation (CCUS). Throughout his career, Robin has built new markets and commercial organisations across ClimateTech, Enterprise and Media Technology, holding leadership roles at E.ON, Carbonfuture, LinkedIn, Statista and The Trade Desk. Combining experience from both the supply and demand sides of the CDR market, he understands the priorities of project developers, technology providers, policymakers and corporate buyers and helps align them to accelerate the deployment of durable CDR at scale.

Neelesh Agrawal is the CEO of Calculus Carbon, a Temasek portfolio investment bank building the leading project-finance franchise for Nature-based Solutions across the Global South. Calculus was founded to structure NbS transactions with the discipline of established infrastructure asset classes, separating the offtake from the financier and building bankable capital stacks against long-term contracted revenue. Prior to Calculus, Neelesh was an asset manager for a USD 2.2 billion real estate investment vehicle sponsored by CPPIB, preceded by an investment banking career raising equity and structured debt for infrastructure assets across wind energy, hospitality, roads, and telecom.

Brad is a commercial strategist and coalition builder helping high-potential climate solutions navigate the path from early concept to scale. He currently leads the Market Development Program at Cascade Climate, where he builds programs that bring together first-mover buyers, governments, civil society, project developers, and industry to accelerate progress on carbon removal (CDR) and near-term warming (non-CO2 "super pollutant" mitigation).

Previously, Brad worked to bring first-of-a-kind climate projects into the world at category-creating startups in the agricultural and ocean sectors:

- First at Indigo Ag, developing and bringing to market the first agricultural carbon credit and supply chain insetting projects generated from working land;
- Later at Running Tide, building the first open ocean carbon removal protocols, leading policy and governance for climate intervention in the public commons, and developing novel partnerships with leading research institutes, standards setters, and market makers to advance the nascent CDR field. 

He started his career working on commercial strategy at AB InBev, and before that spent time in Geneva learning how the largest IGOs and NGOs take on global challenges like climate change. He is a regular speaker and guest lecturer on climate action, including at the United Nations, U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, Wharton, Harvard, Yale, and SXSW.

Oori Weisshaus, Ph.D., is an experienced technology and innovation executive with more than two decades of experience in research, development, and commercialization across biotechnology, genomics, water, and climate-tech. His work focuses on translating advanced science into scalable solutions for climate resilience, water stewardship, and environmental restoration.

He earned his Ph.D. in Genetics from the Faculty of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2011. Following his doctorate, Oori led numerous research and product-development programs applying advanced computational and genomic technologies to crop improvement and breeding, working with leading Israeli bioinformatics and genomics companies.

In 2014, Oori joined the founding team of BlueGreen Water Technologies, a global water and climate-tech company developing innovative solutions for water monitoring, remediation, ecosystem restoration, and climate mitigation.

As Head of Innovation and Climate, Oori leads the development and commercialization of technologies designed to address large-scale challenges at the intersection of water and climate. His work focuses on improving water security and ecosystem health through advanced water-quality monitoring, harmful algal bloom remediation, remote sensing, data analytics, and nature-based restoration. He also leads the development of climate solutions that link measurable water-stewardship outcomes with carbon removal, methane-emission reduction, and environmental finance, helping scale restoration projects while delivering long-term ecological and climate benefits.

Masaaki Nagamura specializes in international norm setting on climate change and natural disaster risk financing in the Corporate Planning Department of Tokio Marine Holdings.

He served as an inaugural member of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). In addition, he currently serves as a private sector sherpa supporting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Finance Ministers’ Process on disaster risk financing and other regional policy priorities.

Based in Adelaide Australia, James is a Managing Partner at 123Carbon BV, where he oversees their Environmental Attribute Registry business for the Asia Pacific Japan region. James is also head of new industries, where he is bringing the same Environmental Attribute Certificate  registry benefits that 123Carbon offers their multi modal transport customers to other hard to abate industries such as green Steel, green Cement & Concrete and green Chemicals and Fertilisers. Prior to 123Carbon, James had a long career in commodity risk management and is a veteran of 3 start-ups, including a company he cofounded  'SAP GreenToken',. James holds 3 engineering degrees and an MBA from Adelaide University.

Mitch Kobayashi is Head of Corporate Sustainability Group at Yusen Logistics Global Management Co., Ltd. He leads the Group’s sustainability strategy, focusing on decarbonisation, Scope 3 emissions reduction, and the development of green logistics solutions. Having held leadership roles in Japan, the UK, and the US, he brings extensive international experience in sustainability, business development, and supply chain transformation.

Hara is a community builder for climate tech innovators and enablers. She is an ex-VC investor who now focuses on building the field and market ecosystem that elevate entire categories of entrepreneurs and researchers. She was most recently the cofounder and head of investments of Third Derivative, a global climate tech acceleration platform with RMI.

At Third Derivative, she led the build out of an entrepreneurial support ecosystem that included 18 climate tech funds, 12 leading corporate open innovation groups, and more than two dozen foundations and family offices that deployed flexible catalytic capital.

Prior to that, she led and supported energy, mobility and industrial sector venture capital investments at Braemar Energy Ventures and was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Hara holds a MS in Atmosphere and Energy Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Chemical Engineering from WPI. She grew up in Shanghai, China and now calls New York City home.

Kristina Anguelova supports The Nature Conservancy as Policy and Partnerships Advisor, specializing in sustainable finance, climate finance policy, and Article 6-aligned nature-based carbon projects. She advises on policy and transaction readiness and the integration of sustainable finance into climate and nature solutions across Asia Pacific. Previously, she served as Head of Asia Sustainable Finance at WWF, working with financial institutions, regulators and policymakers to advance sustainable finance best practices. Kristina has collaborated with governments, development finance institutions and private sector actors globally and brings extensive international experience across Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Akinori Uno is a Partner at Arthur D. Little Japan, based in the Tokyo office, and a core member of the firm’s Energy, Utilities & Resources practice. He brings more than 15 years of consulting experience, having worked across Japanese and international consulting firms before joining Arthur D. Little. His work focuses on company-wide strategic planning, organizational transformation, and M&A advisory, primarily for clients in the energy sector including electricity, gas, and oil, as well as in adjacent social infrastructure industries such as trading and construction.

Amid increasingly converging industries, Akinori supports clients in shaping and executing growth and transformation strategies from mid-term planning and portfolio strategy to infrastructure investment and operating model reform, with a hands-on, execution-oriented approach. He has also been recognized for his strong senior network across Japan’s energy and utilities sector and for leading high-value engagements that have contributed to the growth of Arthur D. Little’s energy practice in Japan.

Harish Anchan is the Founder and Senior Director of Earthfit Solutions Pvt Ltd in Pune, India. He works on clean cooking and biochar carbon projects.

His current work includes Earthfit’s school kitchen cookstove project in Tanzania and how it may fit under the Joint Crediting Mechanism between Tanzania and Japan.

LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/harishanchan

Hiromi Kawamata is Head of the Climate Change Policy Group at the Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF). Responsibilities include climate and industrial policy, greenhouse gas accounting, and international standardisation activities related to steel decarbonisation. Current work includes engagement with Japanese government initiatives, the GX Steel framework, GHG Protocol revisions, and international standards development concerning carbon accounting and low-emission materials.