One Integrated Team for Power & Decarbonization

Jon Goldberg is an energy and power expert focused on how markets, infrastructure, and technologies scale in the real world. Drawing on more than 20 years of upstream, downstream, and power markets experience, he combines climate science rigor with practical insights to advance large-scale decarbonization and clean, firm power.

Founded in 2020, Relae's team of scientists and finance, policy, and market experts, has served 150+ clients globally across carbon dioxide removal, carbon measurement, clean, firm power opportunities, and low-carbon energy solutions. Jon is also the founder of Carbon Direct Capital, a NY-based asset management firm investing in clean energy, decarbonization solutions and related technologies with a science-focused approach.

Prior to Relae, Jon founded and served as Chief Investment Officer of BBL Commodities, a commodity hedge fund. Earlier, he was a partner at Glencore, where he led the firm's US derivatives business ahead of its IPO. He began his career at Goldman Sachs (J. Aron), investing across global macro markets with an emphasis on commodities.

Jon currently sits on the boards of Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy and Village Health Works. He is also an advisor to Lawrence Livermore National Lab on negative emissions and the co-chair of SB COP's Nature-Based Solutions Working Group. Jon is a regular lecturer and contributor on energy, power, and climate issues. He graduated from Yale College with a degree in economics.

Dr. Friedmann is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the US on carbon removal (CO₂ drawdown from the air and oceans), CO₂ conversion and use (carbon-to-value), hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, green manufacturing, and carbon capture and sequestration.He served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy during the Obama Administration, where he was responsible for DOE's R&D program in advanced fossil energy systems, carbon capture, and storage (CCS), CO₂ utilization, and advanced power generation. More recently, he was a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia. He has held positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, including Chief Energy Technologist.

Prior to joining Relae, Jessica served as the VP of Finance at two mission-driven startups: Angaza, a platform enabling businesses to provide affordable products and renewable energy access to people in emerging markets; and BookNook, an EdTech company focused on K-8 literacy. She previously spent six years at Chevron in a variety of finance roles including Finance Manager for Policy, Government & Public Affairs and Finance Manager for Tax Credit Investments.

Jessica also has experience in management consulting at Oliver Wyman and served as the Board President for the nonprofit organization Alternative Family Services. She is thrilled to bring her passion for helping organizations effectively scale to tackle the urgent need for climate action.

Prior to working at Relae, Dr. Ahmed was the Government Affairs and Policy Lead for the COVID-19 Response at the CDC. She rejoined CDC in August 2021 after two years at the Guttmacher Institute as the Associate Director for Federal Issues. Before her time at the Guttmacher Institute, Dr. Ahmed spent 10 years with the CDC, including seven years based overseas at US embassies in Rwanda, Namibia and Haiti as a senior technical advisor, and three years as the Associate Division Director for Policy and Communications in the Division of Global Health Protection at CDC headquarters in Atlanta.In addition, Dr. Ahmed has worked as a sexual health counselor at an alternative high school in Michigan and as a consultant in Bangladesh on the labor rights of migrant women. Dr. Ahmed has also conducted field research on sex worker rights in Cambodia, health financing in rural Cameroon, and donor coordination of malaria programs in Senegal. She holds a BA in political science from Brown University, MPP and MPH degrees from the University of Michigan, a MBA from the University of Oklahoma, and a DrPH from the University of North Carolina, where she is also an adjunct faculty member.

Cale is a technologist with a background in engineering leadership and software architecture. Prior to joining Relae, he led engineering organizations at Booking.com, with responsibilities spanning new product development, privacy and compliance, and platform engineering for systems serving millions of daily bookings. Before that, he worked to accelerate, digitally transform, and (re)platform a range of startups and small businesses.

Cale is applying the lessons learned in these arenas toward the most critical challenge of our time. His primary focus as CTO is building inclusive, high-performing teams; powerful, secure,  AI-augmented platforms; and delightful products to help the world meet its climate, power, and energy goals.

Dr. Colin McCormick directs Relae's work in power and electricity, data center infrastructure, grid reliability, and space technologies. Trained as an optical physicist and data scientist, he conducted research in applied quantum optics and atomic physics at UC Berkeley and NIST. He previously served as the Senior Advisor for R&D at the US Department of Energy, overseeing the applied energy research portfolio in energy efficiency, renewables, energy storage, grid technologies, electric vehicles and related areas. Earlier, he was a Professional Staff Member for the House Science & Technology Committee, focusing on technology and innovation policy, data interoperability, and technical standards development. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Science, Technology and International Affairs program at Georgetown University where he teaches classes on deep decarbonization and AI & autonomous systems. He is also a Commissioner on the District of Columbia Commission on Climate Change and Resiliency. He has worked extensively with the Climate TRACE consortium, and is a member of the Carbon Mapper Science & Measurement Committee. He was previously a member of the WattTime Board of Directors.

Dr. Atreya has worked in climate technology research and strategic advisory since 2009. She was the lead author of Bioresources within a Net-Zero Emissions Economy, a report by the Energy Transitions Commission evaluating the role of sustainable bioresources in climate change mitigation. While at SYSTEMIQ, a sustainability-focused systems change company, Meera provided strategic advice to a major climate-focused philanthropic foundation and co-authored a report on alleviating the plastic waste crisis; the United Nations Environment Programme is currently using this analysis as the basis for a global plastics treaty. Prior to SYSTEMIQ, Meera was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she was designated as an Affiliate Expert in Renewable Energy & Cleantech and was a key member of the team that steered McKinsey to address its own global carbon emissions. 

Meera is based in London and is an advisor to Carbon Gap and former Technical Advisory Group Member of the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). She holds a PhD in Chemistry (Chemical Biology) from UC Berkeley and an A.B. cum laude from Harvard. Dr. Atreya was awarded a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her doctoral research on engineering enzymes to improve the efficiency, and lower the cost, of converting cellulosic biomass to 2^nd-generation biofuels.

Dr. Sarah Federman has cross-sector expertise in analytics, forest conservation, working lands policy, and the science underpinning biodiverse and resilient landscapes.

In the policy sector, Dr. Federman contributed as a lead author and coordinator to R&D roadmaps for landscape resiliency and climate-smart innovation for the US Department of Agriculture's Office of the Chief Scientist. While at the USDA, she also supported a federal interagency R&D strategy with the Department of Energy focused on the circular carbon economy. In the private sector, Dr. Federman led, developed, and implemented data-driven continuous improvement frameworks for an indoor agricultural technology startup, as part of a broader strategy to enable responsible vertical scaling. 

In academia, Dr. Federman has deep expertise in the ecological dynamics supporting the structure and function of tropical forests. Her work includes peer-reviewed recommendations for forest conservation and management of critically endangered species. She has managed multilateral teams and collaborations in Peru, Madagascar, and Trinidad and Tobago focused on forest ecology and conservation.

Dr. Federman holds a PhD from Yale University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a M.S. in forest science from the Yale School of the Environment. Her graduate studies were supported by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Student Research Fellowship Program.

Greg oversees the curation of portfolios of environmental assets vetted by the expert science team at Relae, helping clients meet their climate goals with confidence.He has spent 20 years scaling climate solutions through capital allocation, data, and technology, with a focus on creative deal structuring and product innovation. Prior to joining Relae, he built out the Capital Markets function at Pachama, then led the company's Product and Operations function to launch a suite of AI-enabled geospatial solutions for carbon project investors. Previously, Greg worked at Silicon Valley Bank where he structured and managed a portfolio of technology company loans and pioneered new financing structures for hard asset and climate technology companies. He has also held positions in management consulting at Deloitte and co-founded two climate technology companies in the carbon measurement and waste management spaces. As an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, Greg has taught courses on innovation, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, and has been a regular mentor in social and environmental impact programs like RADIUS SFU and New Ventures BC.

Dr. Derya Eryilmaz is a power markets expert with about 15 years of experience in the power sector, specializing in economic and statistical modeling, power market design, consumer demand modeling and renewable energy procurement. She recently worked at Amazon and Walmart integrating power market analysis and  analytics to inform clean firm power investment decisions and corporate decarbonization. She also led teams of data scientists and analysts to deliver enterprise scale AI initiatives resulting in multimillion-dollar cost savings. In her previous work, Dr. Eryilmaz provided advisory and consulting services for the top 20 investor-owned electric and gas utilities clients in North America  and she also worked in various oil pipeline, natural gas and power litigation and regulatory proceedings.

Dr. Eryilmaz is teaching renewable energy finance at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. She also taught data analytics and energy economics in the Department of Economics at Northeastern University, and has published peer-reviewed research in The Energy Journal, Energy Economics, and The Electricity Journal. She holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota, with a focus on consumer economics and environmental economics.

Marie Sobieski is General Counsel at Relae. She brings over a decade of legal experience spanning intellectual property litigation, corporate law, and compliance. Before joining Relae, she practiced as a patent attorney and litigator, handling cases in both federal and state courts with both bench and jury trial experience. As in-house counsel, Marie works across contracts, compliance, negotiations, and employment matters to support Relae's global operations. She draws on her background in science, technology, and startup environments to navigate complex legal and regulatory issues with clarity and precision. Marie holds a JD and an MBA.

A.J. Simon is a mechanical engineer and energy systems expert, whose passion for efficiency and insatiable curiosity has led to a 25+ year career spanning industry, academia and the US Department of Energy.

Prior to joining Relae, he managed the Energy Group at Lawrence Livermore National Lab where he led assessments of technologies as diverse as nuclear energy, carbon capture and removal, the energy-water nexus, hydrogen fuel, building energy efficiency, and soldier-portable power.

From 2003 to 2008, he helped to manage a large portfolio of university-led clean energy research at Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project. From 2001 to 2003, he developed combustion and emissions control technologies for General Electric's diesel and gas turbine product lines.

Sanna works closely with clients to advise them on high-quality carbon reduction and removal strategies and solutions, bridging science and impact-focused outcomes.

Sanna has worked in environmental science advisory since 2014. She draws on her professional experience in environmental engineering and strategic advisory with expertise in climate earth systems, land use and water resource management, and urban climate adaptation. 

Prior to Relae, Sanna was the Carbon Dioxide Removal Lead for the Energy Transitions Commission, publishing Mind the Gap: How Carbon Dioxide Removals Must Complement Deep Decarbonisation to Keep 1.5°C Alive in 2022. While at SYSTEMIQ, a sustainability-focused systems change company, Sanna was research manager for the Food and Land Use Coalition during the publication of Growing Better: 10 Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use (laying out one of the first roadmaps for the global food systems transition). She also provided advisory services to the UNEP International Resource Panel on their 2021 strategic direction. She began her career as an civil and environmental engineer, focusing on climate resilient design for major infrastructure developments. 

Sanna is a Fulbright Scholar, and has worked in New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom.