Climate Risk and Opportunity for Private Capital

April 9th, 2-3pm

Matt Coleman (Director, Strategic Partnerships at Nephila Climate) and Alice Hill (Senior Fellow for Energy and Environment, Council on Foreign Relations) and Mike Lenox (Professor, Senior Associate Dean and Chief Strategy Officer, Darden School of Business) discuss areas of climate risk and opportunities for private sector mitigation and adaptation. Opening remarks by ERI Director McGlathery. Meeting emissions reductions targets will require major transitions across the global economy. A range of businesses, including producers of fossil fuels, automobile manufacturers, energy producers, and many others are already adjusting their business strategies to adapt. Entirely new economic sectors will need to be built to promote, among other activities, removal of carbon from the atmosphere and climate resilience.

A Conversation

Alice Hill is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her work at CFR focuses on the risks, consequences, and responses associated with climate change. Hill previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff where she led the development of national policy to build resilience to catastrophic risks, including climate change and biological threats. Her co-authored book, Building a Resilient Tomorrow, was published in 2019. In 2020, Yale University awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis.

Matt Coleman is Director of Strategic Partnerships at Nephila Climate (NCx). Nephila is the oldest and current largest investment manager globally that specializes in selling protection against weather and climate risk. Matt develops and manages partnerships that help NCx achieve two key objectives: identify institutions that need financial protection against weather, and better quantify the risk that Nephila underwrites. Previously, Matt was a weather risk analyst at investment manager Citadel LLC, supporting investments in energy and reinsurance. He holds B.S. degrees in chemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an M.S. in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University, and an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Professor Mike Lenox was appointed to the Tayloe Murphy Professorship in Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, where he teaches the core MBA strategy course. He also serves as the senior associate dean and chief strategy officer. From 2008 to 2016, he served as associate dean of innovation programs and academic director of Darden’s Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He helped found and served as the inaugural president of the multiple-university Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability.

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The Climate Ambition Summit is made possible though partnerships with UVA’s Office of Engagement, Career Center, the Office of the President, the Vice President of Research, and Office Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs.