Ashwin has served as the founder/CEO and as a senior executive of both corporate strategy and business development for both early stage and established companies. He is experienced in leading businesses from inception to exit. His 20-year background spans software, internet, green/clean tech, finance, real estate, life sciences and eCommerce. He will be presenting on Crowd Funding.

Jack Lance, an entrepreneur and marketing executive, is an angel investor. He has been a member of the Keiretsu Forum since its launch in 2000. Jack is an actively involved investor and advisor to several early stage companies. He served as a board member of Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster/North Bay iHUB from its inception to 2011; he remains active in this group as a member of its Advisory and Mentoring Committees. Jack is a co-founder of FinancialSoft (www.electronicFinancialOfficer.com), a company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and investors understand financial statements and improve profitability. His passion for helping entrepreneurs and his depth of personal experience, contacts and resources are key assets for its clients. Jack is a Weiss-Caldwell fellow and Entrepreneur in Residence with the School of Business and Economics at Sonoma State University. He also co- teaches a Venture Creation Class at SSU.

Lisa Tamayo-Kennedy is an entrepreneur and investor working with clean tech startup ventures. Her consulting firm, investorMetrix, focuses on researching, reporting and training about sustainability as it relates to profit and value in companies. She is a founder of Green Building Studio, acquired by Autodesk in 2008 and holds an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise.

Gregory Stangl, CEO of Phoenix Energy, has been working in the energy and environment field since early 1999 when he led the buyout and subsequent turnaround of Energy Investors, a firm dedicated to improving air quality in Europe by replacing coal furnaces and improving facility energy efficiency. Developments in Europe led the business into the biomass gasification arena, such that in 2007 Phoenix Energy was spun out to focus exclusively on that market in the US.

Paul Bozzo has a professional background that combines more than 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial strategy, angel/venture capital financing, SBA lending and business planning. Paul is founder and Principal of the 10X Group, a boutique consultancy specializing in working with scalable start-up and fast-growth entrepreneurial ventures in San Francisco’s North Bay region. In this capacity he specializes on issues related to private equity funding, start-up strategy, business planning and financial analysis.

Westhoff, Cone & Holmstedt’s lead banker in the environmental financing sector, Mr. Cone has 37 years of experience structuring bond financings in California and in 32 additional states. Mr. Cone held similar positions with Bank of America, PaineWebber, Dean Witter and Bear Stearns before becoming a principal at Westhoff, Cone & Holmstedt. In addition to his solid waste and environmental expertise, he is experienced with a diverse range of credits and bond structures for infrastructure, housing, industrial development and assessment bonds.

Raymond is currently pursuing a second career in sustainability, with biochar as the focus. For his Capstone project in the Green MBA he was the lead writer for a proposed gasification facility in Sonoma County called Sonoma Green Energy. He recently completed an assignment as consultant and lead writer for a biochar/renewable energy business plan for an Eco Commercial Park in Moss Landing California.

Jenny Kassan is an attorney at Katovich & Kassan Law Group, a law firm that serves social enterprise. Her legal practice areas include small business start-up and financing, securities regulation, nonprofit law, and cooperatives. Jenny is CEO of Cutting Edge Capital, a consulting firm that helps small businesses raise community capital and pioneers tools for a more inclusive and values-driven economy.

Jeff is a co-founder of The Biochar Company (formally EcoTechnologies Group) a whole-systems development company and the senior partner of HMI Biochar in Kauai, Hawaii. He is one of the foremost biochar entrepreneurs in the country, with a focus on advancing new technologies, launching projects, building supportive teams to demonstrate and prove biochar's sustainability, while creating trusted biochar brands with The Soil Reef and Hawaii Biochar Product. Jeff is also the founder of the Char Alliance for The First Tier.

Mike Rocke is Vice President of Corporate Development for CoolPlanetBioFuels, which produces a negative-carbon gasoline blend from non-food renewable biomass through thermocatalytic processing. The firm’s business model is to build, sell, and operate modular fuel refineries that produce gasoline in close proximity to biomass, which in turn is sold to major refiners who need low- and negative-carbon gasoline inputs. The company is currently producing and testing fuel that meets the California 2020 Low Carbon Fuel Standard in conventional automobiles. Mike has previous experience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Intel Corporation, and Transonic Combustion.