Patrick Ennis

Global Head of Technology
Intellectual Ventures

Patrick Ennis has more than 25 years of experience as a scientist, engineer, businessman and venture capitalist. He is currently at Intellectual Ventures where he invests in innovation world-wide, especially in Asia and North America. Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures in 2008, Patrick was a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners where he helped build early stage startups that emanated from Universities and National Labs.

Prior to joining the venture capital industry in 1998 as a Kauffman Fellow, Patrick held positions with Lucent Technologies, AT&T, and Bell Labs in R&D, product management and marketing. Before joining Bell Labs in 1992, Patrick conducted research in Nuclear Physics from 1984 to 1992 at universities and national labs in North America and Europe. He has published many articles describing his work in scientific journals including The Physical Review, Zeitschrift für Physik, Physics Letters and Nuclear Instruments and Methods.

Patrick has served on numerous corporate, educational, and non-profit boards. His degrees include: a Ph.D., Master of Science and Master of Philosophy in Physics from Yale University, a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics from the College of William and Mary where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Martin Ertl

Chief Innovation Officer
Bombardier Transportation

Since July 2008 Martin Ertl has been with Bombardier Transportation designing, implementing and running the global innovation management activities. In this function he is responsible for the innovation strategy, the governance of the process along the value chain, a balanced project portfolio, external innovation collaboration with suppliers and academia, the discovery and start-up of new ventures and business ideas and the support/training of the divisions and business unit in generating innovations.

Martin is also responsible for the global coordination of the R&D and Product Management: By setting up and running project-like R&D activities based on market insights, a portfolio of innovative solutions applicable for most customer projects is being created. Finally a re-designed platform and product management approach helps to create individual products based on highly standardized modules and systems.

After finalization of his studies in industrial engineering he joined AUDI AG in 1996 and worked in several managerial and non-managerial functions covering HR, manufacturing and design until 2004. In parallel, he successfully completed an executive Master's of Business Administration in 1999/2000 at the Universities of Augsburg and Pittsburgh. In January 2005 he joined BMW AG as Head of Innovation Impulses covering aspects of scouting and monitoring of promising trends, innovations and technologies outside the automotive business by classical methods as well as intensively using external networks and open innovation methods.

Gregory Nelson, Ph.D.

Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Eastman Chemical Company

Dr. Gregory W. Nelson is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Eastman Chemical Company and is a member of Eastman's Executive Team.

A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Nelson received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama in 1984 and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Emory University in 1988. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2007.

After graduation in 1988, Dr. Nelson joined Eastman Chemical Company and conducted individual research in laboratory automation, polymers processing, polymer chemistry, and spectroscopic analysis of polymer systems and processes. He held a number of posts in the Research and Development organization prior to his appointment to the Business Organization in 1998. From 1998 to 2001 he served as Technology Manager for the Flexible Plastics Business Organization and subsequently as Business Unit Manager for the Polyethylene Business. In 2002 he was appointed Vice President, Voridian Technology, a division of Eastman Chemical Company; in 2006 he was appointed Vice President, Polymers Technology. Upon returning from Harvard Business School in 2007, Dr. Nelson was appointed Vice President, Corporate Technology; in August 2008 he was appointed to his current position.

Dr. Nelson is a member of the American Chemical Society and has held a position on the Board of Industrial Advisors to the University of Alabama's Chemistry Department.

Clay Nesler

Vice President Global Energy and Sustainability
Johnson Controls, Inc.

Clay Nesler is the Vice President, Global Energy and Sustainability for the Building Efficiency business of Johnson Controls. In this role, he is responsible for the company's sustainability advisory and enterprise integration services businesses as well as energy and sustainability strategy, policy, innovation and the Johnson Controls Institute for Building Efficiency. He also serves on the company's global environmental sustainability council. Since joining Johnson Controls in 1983, Clay has held a variety of leadership positions in research, development, marketing and strategy in both the United States and Europe.

A frequent international speaker, Clay has presented at the Clinton Global Initiative, the US-India Energy Partnership Summit, the World Climate Summit in Cancun, the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, the UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the UN General Assembly.

Nesler serves on the board of the World Environment Center, the advisory board of the NRDC Center for Market Innovation, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of International Studies and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. He is also the board president of the Florentine Opera Company, the sixth oldest professional opera company in America.

Clay received Bachelor's of Science and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a co-inventor on ten patents. He is the winner of the 2005 Corenet Global Innovator's Award.

Martha Ries

Vice President of Intellectual Property Management
The Boeing Company

Martha Ries is vice president of Intellectual Property Management for The Boeing Company, the world's largest aerospace company. Her organization is responsible for identifying protecting and leveraging intellectual property as a strategic resource.

As part of the leadership team that integrates across Boeing's different business units, Ries oversees the company's patent portfolio; licensing of its technical data, images, consumer products, trademarks and patents; and strategic plans around the company's intellectual property.

Before assuming her current position in October of 2007, Ries was the vice president of Ethics and Business Conduct for Boeing's corporate Office of Internal Governance.

Ries joined Boeing in 1997 as litigation counsel, where she focused on commercial litigation and investigations. Three years later, she was named chief counsel of Commercial Aviation Services within Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In 2003, she was appointed to lead the attorneys representing the Army Systems group within Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Philadelphia.

Ries began her law career as a judicial clerk at the Missouri Supreme Court. She then served as a trial attorney in the Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., where she litigated international trade and customs law issues. She then went into private practice at the Seattle law firm of Bogle & Gates in 1990, and became a partner in 1994. For almost a decade, she focused on litigation and international regulatory work and represented various corporations.

A native of St. Louis, she earned a Bachelor's degree in French and Psychology from Boston College and her Law degree from Saint Louis University. Ries is a member of the bar associations of the District of Columbia, Washington and Missouri. She has been on the board of several non-profit organizations both in Seattle and Philadelphia.

Vincent Schächter, Ph.D.

Vice President, Research & Development
Total Gas and Power

Vincent Schächter is Vice President, Research and Development, at Total Gas & Power. In his current position, he is responsible for Total's R&D programs and partnerships in cleantech, including solar (Photovoltaics and CSP), CCS, energy storage and biotechnology. The network of R&D partnerships he is developing includes start-ups such as Amyris, Konarka, or AEP, as well as several academic institutes in the US and in Europe.

Before moving to Total in 2009 to start the biotechnology R&D effort, Vincent Schächter was head of the Computational Systems Biology Laboratory at the Institute for Genomics of CEA (Commissariat á l'Energie Atomique), a large French government research organization. His research there focused on the reconstruction and analysis of genome-scale metabolic models using high-throughput experimental data. His group coordinated or participated in several EU projects in systems biology and computational biology (MICROME, ENFIN, Biosapiens, TARPOL). Dr. Schächter has organized several international scientific meetings. He also acquired applied experience first as Director of Bioinformatics Research at Hybrigenics SA, a biotechnology company, then as Director of Bioinformatics at Genoscope, the French national Genome Center. Vincent Schächter holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Doug White

Director, Corporate Venturing Portfolio and Tech Scouting, Dow Ventures and Business Development
The Dow Chemical Company

Doug White is a senior director of new business development in Corporate Venturing for The Dow Chemical Company.

Doug is responsible for directing the portfolio of early stage ventures derived from both internal and external opportunity sources with a focus on technology scouting and collaborative models for efficient early opportunity screening and engagement. Dow Corporate Venturing practices a variety of open innovation models within its portfolio including joint development agreements, licenses, strategic alliances/joint ventures, and equity investments.

Doug's 25-year Dow career spans several areas including product R&D, marketing and business development leadership roles covering the early stage of product inception through commercialization. He has managed and directed new business ventures for Dow in many industries including Automotive/Transportation, Textiles, Polyurethane Products, Advanced Ceramics/Materials, Medical Devices, Defense, Energy, and Water Treatment.

Doug earned a Bachelor's of Science in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Master's of Business Administration from Rice University.