Listen
Stephanie Sonnabend
April 14, 2021
Sudeb Dalai (follow-up)
February 26, 2021
Amrita Saigal and Arun Saigal
January 26, 2021
Sun Yoo
November 25, 2020-
Fireside Chat with Sandra Clarke - CFO of Blue Shield of California
Our Future of Healthcare Leadership Series features multi-dimensional leaders in the field of Healthcare. Our guest this month is Sandra Clarke, EVP and CFO at Blue Shield of California. Sandra brings over 25 years of experience directing worldwide financial organizations in an array of critical industries. She has a Master of Science in Healthcare Law from Seton Hall University School of Law, a Master of Science in Accounting from Bentley University, and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was named by San Francisco Business Times as one of “The Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business 2019."
In this intimate fireside chat hosted by Afsana Akhter, Digital Health Entrepreneur and Co-Chair of the MIT CNC Healthcare group, Sandra will share her journey in becoming a leader, her experiences in leading through change, her vision for transformation in Healthcare. -
ESG Roundtable: Investing in Sustainability
Dive into the latest academic research papers on ESG data and ratings with Florian Berg, postdoc at MIT Sloan, Costanza Consolandi, Associate Professor at the University of Siena in Italy, and Jim Hawley, Senior ESG Advisor, FactSet and Professor Emeritus at Saint Mary's College of California.
Florian works on the Aggregate Confusion Project with Professor Roberto Rigobon and was the lead author of Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings 2020. Costanza studies ESG materiality and is a frequent collaborator with Professor Robert G. Eccles. She was the lead author on How material is a material issue? Stock returns and the financial relevance and financial intensity of ESG materiality 2020. Jim has a new book out with Jon Lukomnik, Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory, seeking to reconnect the capital markets with the environmental, social and financial systems they rely on.
On FRIDAY, June 18 at 11AM-Noon PDT, they will present their research, tease their up-and-coming research, and comment on developments in the ESG research landscape. Yang Ruan, senior data engineer at Truvalue Labs, a FactSet Company, and ESG research fan will moderate.
Come see how the ESG sausage gets deconstructed and scrutinized. Perhaps it will give you some ESG investing ideas, and also come up with good questions for the Professors’ Corner event on FRIDAY, July 16, with Professor Rigobon and Professor Eccles. -
Project Drawdown: Climate Change Solutions Today
We are in a pivotal and potentially transformative moment in human history. New US climate targets announced by the Biden-Harris administration. A huge percentage of American voters supportive of ambitious climate action. Bold climate ambition and plans from large corporations and investors globally. And a suite of climate solutions already in hand to address the climate crisis at the scope and scale required, led by the research of the nonprofit Project Drawdown.
We know what needs to be done and we have the solutions to do it. What we all do next to meet this moment, inside our companies, organizations, communities and spheres of influence is existential to our chances of limiting global warming to the level the science calls for.
In past discussions, many of you have asked “what can I do?” Many of the answers will be covered in this talk by Jamie Beck Alexander. We will take a tour of the suite of climate solutions researched by Project Drawdown, explore the biggest leverage points needed to scale these climate solutions in the world and we'll hear the latest updates on our global effort to achieve DRAWDOWN, quickly, safely and equitably. -
Commercial Fusion: Unlimited Clean Energy?
No fusion machine has ever generated more energy than it consumes, the requirement for a power plant. Tokamaks have come the closest, but historically they needed to be enormous in size to generate the magnetic fields needed to attempt net energy. New high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, developed in collaboration by MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems, will be a game changer for the prospects of commercial fusion power. These HTS magnets will produce stronger magnetic fields and as a result enable smaller, lower cost tokamaks that can achieve net energy from fusion for the first time in history - truly the holy grail of clean energy.
Under Bob Mumgaard’s leadership, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), will use this technology to build fusion energy systems. CFS was spun out of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2018 to leverage decades of fusion research combined with the innovation and speed of the private sector. Supported by the world’s leading investors in breakthrough energy technologies, the CFS team is uniquely positioned to deliver the fastest path to commercial fusion energy. CFS has assembled a world-class team that includes experts in magnets, manufacturing and plasma physics dedicated to the mission of delivering clean, limitless fusion power to the world.
Join us as Bob Mumgaard describes the progress CFS has made in financing, developing, and constructing the world's first net energy fusion machine called SPARC. He will also discuss the company’s plans for scaling production and commercialization of fusion machines to support decarbonization of base load electricity generation around the world. As part of our virtual Fireside Chat, Bob has promised to bring some videos of SPARC hardware and give us a virtual tour of the first SPARC construction site.
