Vilsack, LaHood to lead parade of biofuels, finance, policy leaders as ABLC 2013 gets underway

April 15, 2013 |

Seccretary Tom Vilsack - Advanced Biofuels Enegry Leadership ConferenceIn Washington, the 2013 Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference will kick off at 8am ET this morning.

Among the highlights for today (April 15):

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will take the stage at 2pm for separate addresses, and jointly sign a renewal of the “Farm to Fly” agreement aimed at developing a feedstock supply chain for aviation biofuels.

Jonathan Wolfson, CEO of the #1-ranked Solazyme, ranked #1 in the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy, will deliver the opening keynote address. CEOs of #2 ranked KiOR (Fred Cannon) and #3 ranked LanzaTech (Jennifer Holmgren) will be on stage later in the morning, as will CJ Warner, chairman and CEO of #8-ranked Sapphire Energy and Bill SIms, CEO of #9-ranked Joule Unlimited. Also, Guido Ghisolfi, CEO of Beta Renewables and architect of last year’s hottest deal, the Novozymes-Chemtex-TPG hook up in Beta, will be on stage in the morning session.

The special morning keynote address will feature Bank of America chairman Chad Holliday, following a live policy forum featuring the heads of the five major advanced biofuels trade associations: Advanced Biofuels Association president Mike McAdams, BIO‘s Industrial Biotechnology chief Brent Erickson, Algae Biomass Organization head Mary Rosenthal, National Biodiesel Board CEO Joe Jobe, and Advanced Ethanol Council executive director Brooke Coleman.

Shell‘s VP for Alternative Energy, Matthew Tipper, will be the luncheon speaker and Shell’s Downstream Policy & Advocacy Manager, John Reese, will be taking a look at policy from the oil & gas and biofuels perspective in the morning session.

In the afternoon, attention will shift to equity and debt financing — Citigroup’s Environmental Finance guru Mike Eckhart, legendary VCs Bill Lese and Doug Cameron, popular Raymond James equity analyst Pavel Molchanov, and highly sought-after debt and equity advisors including Mintz Levin‘s Mark Reidy, Stern Brothers‘ John May, Kreig DeVault‘s John Kirkwood, Wilson Sonsini‘s Chris Groobey and DLA Piper‘s John Pierce.

Guy Ouimet, Senior Advisor to the Next Generation Biofuels Fund for Sustainable Development Technology Canada will address opportunities north of the border and the future direction of the $500M equity fund.

The Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference is organized by Biofuels Digest.

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