Mango Materials is a biomanufacturing company that converts waste methane - the same gas that vents from landfills and wastewater plants - into biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) pellets sold under the YOPP brand. The pellets replace conventional plastics in fibers, films, rigid goods, and 3D-printing feedstock, and they fully biodegrade in soil, freshwater, and marine environments.
Nitricity is a Fremont, California climate-tech company turning air, water, renewable electricity and discarded almond shells into organic nitrogen fertilizer. Its flagship product, Ash Tea, replaces fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers with a regionally produced, OMRI- and CDFA-certified alternative that cuts emissions by more than 90%. Founded in 2018 by three Stanford PhDs, the company closed a $50M Series B in September 2025 and is building its first commercial plant in Delhi, California.
Taelor is an AI-powered menswear rental subscription that pairs machine-curated outfits with human stylists so busy men can dress well without thinking about it. For a flat monthly fee, members take a short style quiz, receive boxes of real clothes to wear for weeks, return what they don't want in a prepaid bag, and buy favorites at a steep discount. Founded in 2021 by Anya Cheng and Phoebe Tan, the company positions itself as the 'Rent the Runway for men' and runs on a circular, lower-waste model.
Levi Strauss & Co. is the San Francisco apparel company that invented the blue jean in 1873 and has spent 170-plus years turning a piece of workwear into a global wardrobe staple. Today it owns the Levi's, Dockers, Beyond Yoga and Denizen brands, sells in more than 110 countries, and is reinventing itself under CEO Michelle Gass as a direct-to-consumer denim lifestyle brand while pushing water-saving manufacturing across its supply chain.
Adriana Echandi Bachtold is the Group CEO of Morpho Travel Experience, a Latin American travel retail and food & beverage powerhouse with over 2,800 employees across 11 countries. Starting as a cashier-seller at what was then Grupo Britt in 2002, she rose through every rung of the organization to become CEO - overseeing 300+ commercial spaces in 23 airports serving 78 million passengers annually. Named Businesswoman of the Year 2022 by Costa Rica's El Financiero and a Moodie Davitt People of the Year honoree, she leads a company built around 'sense of place' - connecting global travelers with authentic local culture, artisan products, and sustainable practices. A fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, she has built a company where 50% of management are women, equal pay is non-negotiable, and a kiosk in San José has become a $225 million regional retail force.
Thomas (Tom) Moran is the former President and CEO of Goodwill Central Coast, the Salinas-based nonprofit that runs retail thrift stores, donation centers, and job-training programs across Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo counties. A physics major turned MBA turned retail-finance lifer, he came in as CFO in 2018 and was elevated to CEO in 2020 after stints at Conn's, West Marine, ARAMARK, Limited Brands, and CarMax.
Archive is the technology platform behind brand-owned resale. It builds and operates customized secondhand storefronts for fashion and lifestyle brands - including The North Face, New Balance, Oscar de la Renta and Dr. Martens - so they can keep products in circulation, capture a new revenue stream, and meet customers who increasingly refuse to buy new.
Glacier builds AI-powered robots that sort recyclables inside Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs). Their compact, conveyor-mounted robots use computer vision trained on billions of recycling images to identify and pick more than 70 material categories, while also generating real-time data on what flows through the waste stream - data that brands and recyclers use to prove and improve circularity.
Emily Gittins is the Co-founder and CEO of Archive, a B2B SaaS platform that powers branded resale programs for 50+ global fashion companies including The North Face, New Balance, and Oscar de la Renta. A Cambridge mathematics graduate turned Stanford MBA, Gittins built Archive after stints at BCG, Google X, and the Global Fashion Agenda, channeling her technical background and sustainability conviction into a company that has raised $76.9M - including a $30M Series B in February 2025 - and been named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2024.
Eric Faurot is the long-serving CEO of Trellis Group (formerly GreenBiz Group), a B2B media company headquartered in Oakland, California that runs flagship sustainability conferences including VERGE, BLOOM, GreenFin, and Circularity. Over 14 years at the helm, he built GreenBiz into a leading platform for sustainability professionals - combining editorial media, peer networks, and live events - before transitioning to a Growth Leader role in July 2024 when Hana Kajimura succeeded him as CEO. His career traces an arc from tech media event production (COMDEX, INTEROP, Black Hat) to climate and sustainability, making him a rare figure who bridged Silicon Valley-era conference culture with the emerging sustainability economy.
Karla Gallardo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cuyana, a San Francisco-based sustainable fashion brand built on the philosophy of 'fewer, better things.' Born in Ecuador and educated at Brown University and Stanford GSB, she co-founded Cuyana in 2011 with Shilpa Shah to create timeless, high-quality women's essentials through ethical, transparent supply chains. Under her leadership, Cuyana has grown to 160+ employees, raised $44.8M in funding (including a $30M Series C), and built a loyal customer base that includes Meghan Markle and Jessica Alba. The company achieves a remarkable 90% full-price sell-through rate — rare in fashion — and has been recognized for pioneering sustainable luxury retail in the U.S.
Krzysztof Marzec is Co-Founder of Trove, the branded recommerce platform powering more than 75% of the U.S. branded resale market. Originally founded as Yerdle in 2012 and rebranded to Trove in 2016, the company has raised over $153 million in funding and serves clients including Patagonia, Levi's, Lululemon, Canada Goose, and Carhartt. With a background spanning commodity futures trading at Geneva Trading USA and early-career roles at Northern Trust and Morningstar, Marzec brings a rare blend of financial markets discipline and entrepreneurial technology vision to the fast-growing recommerce sector.
Pete May is President and Co-Founder of Trellis Group (formerly GreenBiz Group), the leading media, events, and peer-network platform for corporate sustainability professionals. In 2006, he and Joel Makower purchased GreenBiz.com and built it from a niche newsletter into a global sustainability intelligence brand with flagship conferences, digital media, and professional communities. Drawing on over two decades of B2B publishing leadership at Primedia, CMP, and Miller Freeman, May brought seasoned media-industry discipline to a space that desperately needed it — transforming green business from fringe conversation to boardroom imperative.
Rebecca Hu-Thrams is the co-founder and CEO of Glacier, a San Francisco-based company building AI-powered robotic arms that sort recyclables in material recovery facilities. Raised by Chinese immigrant parents who instilled a 'reduce, reuse, recycle' ethos, she channeled her Bain consulting background and Thumbtack operating experience into tackling what she calls 'the most demented form of manufacturing on the planet.' Glacier's robots, trained on 3.8 billion images of waste, sort 70+ material categories at 60 picks per minute - preventing roughly 10 million items per robot from reaching landfill annually. Named Fast Company's #1 Most Innovative Company in Robotics & Engineering for 2026, Glacier has raised $33.2 million including a $16M Series A extension in April 2025 backed by Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund and New Enterprise Associates.
Trove is the Oakland-based recommerce platform that powers branded resale and trade-in programs for retailers like Patagonia, Levi's, Lululemon, REI, Canada Goose, and Carhartt. Its software, operations, and AI-driven pricing engine turn used goods into a profitable new sales channel, helping brands extend product life and capture value from items already in customers' closets.
Zack Peng is the founder and CEO of Seel, a San Francisco-based AI-powered return insurance platform that serves 2,000+ ecommerce merchants. A former software engineer at Orbital Insight with a philosophy and physics background from UNC Chapel Hill, Peng built Seel into an 8-figure platform in five years by turning ecommerce returns - historically a pure cost center - into a risk-priced insurance product. Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners with over $29M raised through Series B, Seel enables merchants to offer extended return windows on final-sale and non-returnable items while using AI underwriting to manage refund liability at checkout.
Dimension is a San Francisco-based B2B waste management platform (formerly Trash Warrior) that uses software and an AI price quoter, Mirror Mirror, to coordinate hauling, recycling, and hazardous waste removal for enterprise customers like Amazon, Instacart, Home Depot, and the DEA - with the long-term aim of pulling the U.S. recycling rate from 35% to 75%.
Daniel Perez is a veteran electronics manufacturing executive with over 35 years of industry leadership. He co-founded OnCore Manufacturing Services, served as EVP at Solectron Corporation where revenues grew from $250M to over $12B, and joined Clover Wireless in April 2017 as CEO and Executive Chairman. He architected the acquisition of Teleplan in 2019 and led the subsequent rebrand to Reconext in 2020 - creating a global aftermarket lifecycle services company serving manufacturers, retailers, data centers, and enterprises across consumer electronics, mobile devices, and enterprise equipment. Perez holds an MBA and BA in Political Science from UCLA and serves on the boards of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and The Tech Interactive.
Marcus Shen is the CEO and Board Member of B-Stock, the world's largest B2B marketplace for excess merchandise, helping retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Costco efficiently recover value from returned and surplus inventory. A former Yahoo! VP of Corporate Development and KKR advisor, Shen joined B-Stock as CFO in 2019, rose to COO, and took the CEO role in March 2022. Under his leadership, B-Stock has become a defining force in the recommerce economy, selling 160 million units annually and keeping nearly 300,000 tons of inventory out of landfills.
Jane Ren is the Co-Founder and CEO of Atomiton, a Santa Clara-based industrial IoT and sustainability software company she co-founded in 2013. With a rare combination of a medical degree from Peking Union Medical College and an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas, she bridges the gap between operational technology and enterprise sustainability. At Atomiton, she leads a 33-person team building AI-powered platforms that help data centers, manufacturers, and buildings reduce energy costs, optimize water use, and hit their carbon targets - work that earned the company the 'Most Innovative Platform in Energy and Sustainability 2025' award from Energy Business Review Magazine.
Dr. Molly Morse is the CEO and co-founder of Mango Materials, a Vacaville, California-based startup that turns waste methane into biodegradable PHA biopolymers. Founding the company in 2010 on the back of her Stanford PhD research, Morse has spent over a decade building a circular bioeconomy solution that converts a potent greenhouse gas into a commercially viable plastic replacement — branded as YOPP pellets. She has won the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge (2012), the C3E Entrepreneurship Award (2018), and was selected as an Unreasonable Fellow in 2022.