We Need More Crazy-Smart Women Leaders in Cleantech

Lucinda Bromwyn Duncalfe

My friend Lucinda Bromwyn Duncalfe always makes me think.

She's "crazy-smart," as she likes to say of others.  One of the smartest people I know.  So I pay attention to what she says or what she writes about.

Lucinda is a serial CEO.  Her gift is to see the potential in a company or its product and take it to the next level.

More often than not, this results in a sale of the company and Lucinda moving on to her next thing.

Lucinda's two posts on women in tech got me thinking this morning.

Specifically, her thoughts on the lack of women in number one positions in tech companies.  She posted her thoughts about Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg on her great new blog here and linked to this story about Google's Marissa Mayer here.

Women in tech is not my usual subject, but I couldn't help drawing parallels with the cleantech world.

Of the cleantech companies I've worked with or advised in the Philadelphia area, two have women CEOs: Emily Landsburg of BlackGold BioFuels and Elinor Haider of NovaThermal Energy.  They are two of the best CEOs I know -- women or men -- and they possess, as Lucinda describes, "all the normal super-powers: crazy-smart, hard working, clearly emotionally intelligent."

In this old (2007) list of Top 10 Women in Cleantech, only one is identified as a CEO, and a couple are listed as Founders or Managing Directors.  The Women in Cleantech and Green Industry group on LinkedIn has 424 members and, while it is managed by a woman, Catherine Bowers, it appears to be owned by a man, Robert Hokin, founder of UK-based ecoConnect.

Ann Goodman, founder of the Women's Network for a Sustainable Future, profiled one cleantech CEO, former undersecretary of energy Kristina Johnson, of hydropower startup Enduring Energy, in her post on GreenBiz.com this past April, How to Grow Women's Potential in Cleantech and the Economy.

Few cleantech companies have women on their boards.  According to an article in VentureBeat in March, Cleantech's sausagefest: 25 companies with all-male boards," the majority of the top 10 cleantech companies as ranked this year by the Wall Street Journal have no female board directors."

Lindsey Riddell, writing in the San Francisco Business Times last year, offered a hopeful outlook for woman leading cleantech and social media companies.

"There is a lot of hope that unlike the semiconductor, telecom and other technology fields, cleantech and social media will become sectors where more women advance to the top, even if that isn’t necessarily the case today, said Caroline Simard, vice president of research and executive programs at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in Palo Alto."

So, while the future may be bright for women CEOs in cleantech and social media, there's still a long way to go.

As Lucinda concluded her post this morning, she finds Sandberg an interesting model, "Yet it pisses me off that she’s the newest girl tech darling. Why?  Because she’s a #2.  She may be the best #2 in history, but I wish we had #1 role models."

Lucinda just sold her latest venture, Click Equations, where she was CEO.  I know she'll be #1 again in her next venture.  I hope she finds something in the cleantech space where I think she could have a real impact.

We need more crazy-smart leaders like her.

We Are a Culture in Recline, Not Decline: Cleantech vs. Social Media

“Ultimate Game Chair”

Katie Fehrenbacher had a disturbing post on GigaOm's Earth2Tech this morning:

"Companies that make online games, social networks, and web coupons seem to be able to raise a lot more money in IPOs right now than companies that make energy technology, greener transportation, and biofuels. Zynga’s reported potential $2 billion raise, could deliver Zynga five times Tesla’s combined IPO and follow-on offering.  If Groupon raises at least $750 million, it would bring in more than the IPOs of Amyris, KiOR, Gevo, Enphase Energy, Luca Technologies and Zipcar combined. It’s kind of sad, actually."

Sad?  I'd say it's kinda whacked.

No offenths to the good guys at Zynga and Groupon (and the good VCs who fund them); it's not their fault; they're just giving Americans what they want: distraction and plenty of it.

Some say we are a nation in decline -- I think recline is more like it.

We value distraction and leisure over production and productivity. 

We'd rather throw angry birds at pigs than throw our genius at building a productive new economy based on real, tangible solutions to our energy and environmental problems. 

Rather than produce real food for real people who really need it, we build virtual farms so our virtual friends can help us grow virtual food.

Our penchant for distraction goes back a long time -- and I'm no stranger to it, as those of you who follow my Boston-related sports tweets on Twitter -- but the fact that we value social media and social gaming technologies over potentially game-changing energy and environment technologies is a disturbing trend.

What would our economy look like if we put even half the energy into creating disruption in the energy space that we put into creating distraction for each other?

Okay, I'm off to watch the Red Sox play the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park...


 

Epic Change Launches "To Mama With Love"

My friends Stacey and Sanjay at Epic Change have done it again! They've come up with a clever new viral awareness and fundraising campaign to support one of their favorite causes, Mama Lucy Kamptioni and her quest to build a home for children in her village in Tanzania.

Although you may not have heard their name, Epic Change was the force behind "Tweetsgiving," the Twitter-based campaign where participants sent a tweet of thankfulness that generated funding for Mama Lucy's school in Arusha, Tanzania, that now serves over 400 children.

With this new campaign, Epic Change is putting a new spin on Mother's Day.

They've just launched "To Mama With Love," a campaign to honor moms across the globe -- including mine -- and raise funds for one remarkable mama to change the world.

Epic Change hopes to raise $50,000 in just on week -- the campaign runs from May 3 - May 9, 2010 -- to fund a home for 50 children in Arusha, Tanzania.

How can you participate? It's easy. Show your mama you love her by creating a virtual scrapbook or "heartspace" on ToMamaWithLove.org site, including photos, videos, notes, and artwork and make a donation in her honor. (You can even send her a customized ecard with a link to her heartspace.)

In addition, Organic Beauty Now of San Francisco will donate $1 for every tweet (up to 2,000) that mentions #ToMamaWithLove to fund room for two students at the boarding facility.

So what are you waiting for? Show some love for your Mama!

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• A Journey to Remember (epicchangeblog.org)
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• 10 Tips for Successful Twitter Fundraising (mashable.com)
• TweetsGiving Construction Update from Arusha (epicchangeblog.org)