
Cale Kennedy
Chief Technology Officer
We are committed to helping organizations with carbon management, from carbon footprinting to risk mitigation to carbon removal procurement.
Cale Kennedy
Chief Technology Officer
Christian Braneon, PhD
Head of Climate Justice
Danan Margason
Chief Product Officer
Elaine David
Principal Engineer and Data Architect
Elisse Roche
Head of Brand Marketing & PR
Jonathan Goldberg
CEO + Founder
Julio Friedmann, PhD
Chief Scientist
Maria Mendieta
Director of Product
Matthew D. Potts, PhD
Chief Science Officer
Micah Macfarlane
Head of Commercialization
Nili Gilbert
Vice Chairwoman
Serene Chen
Head of People & Culture
His primary focus is building inclusive, high performing teams, powerful software solutions, and delightful products to meet rising demand for carbon management.
Cale has spent the majority of his career in startups, scaleups, and small businesses. He has built solutions to a wide range of problems including enterprise resource planning, social media platform engagement, field asset tracking, distributed workforce management, ecommerce, hotel tech. Immediately prior to joining Carbon Direct, Cale spent several years at Booking.com where he led the platform engineering organization responsible for modernizing Booking.com’s foundational services. Cale has been applying lessons learned in these various arenas toward the most critical challenge of our time.
Education
B Sc. Mathematical Systems, Applied Computation, and Data Science
University of Oklahoma
Dr. Braneon leads the integration of climate justice into Carbon Direct’s culture, operations, and services across the carbon management industry.
Dr. Braneon brings a broad range of experience in climate science and civil engineering as well as environmental and climate justice to Carbon Direct. He co-leads the Environmental Justice and Climate Just Cities Network at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, serves as Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, and sits on the newly formed Center for Climate Solutions’ Advisory Committee, which was established to further New York City’s efforts to respond to the climate crisis.
Prior to joining Carbon Direct, Dr. Braneon served as a climate scientist in the Climate Impacts Group of NASA GISS and as Co-Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inaugural Environmental Justice Academy for community leaders.
Education
PhD, Civil Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
MS, Civil Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
BS, Civil Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
BS, Applied Physics
Morehouse College
Awards
Quantification of Historic and Future Changes in Atlantic Coastal Marshes and Implications for Global Modeling
NASA
Robert H. Goddard Award
AXA Award for Climate Science
Climate Action Plan Award
White House
Danan focuses on building diverse teams that have a strong combination of technical and commercial awareness. He values direct communication, build-first mentalities, and making progress each day.
Danan has over 10 years of software experience leading product, commercial, and operations functions. Prior to launching Carbon Direct’s software efforts, he led Booking.com’s search and content platforms, sold Tune.com after building it into a 400-person global martech leader, and rowed with the U.S. National Team.
Danan is also a licensed attorney, and uses his legal education to help navigate the global climate policy landscape. As a lifelong skier, hiker, and traveler, Danan sees the effects of climate change daily. He is incredibly passionate about leveraging software to solve physical problems, and sees no better opportunity to do that than in climate tech.
Education
B.A. Philosophy & Political Science
Rutgers University
J.D.
University of Washington School of Law
As a senior individual contributor to the nascent Carbon Direct Data Platform, Elaine plays a key role in shaping engineering culture, developing technical architectures, and ensuring business outcomes through extensive collaborations with the Product team.
Elaine is a software engineer and architect with expertise in fast-paced, collaborative environments focused on innovation, in-depth domain analysis, and scalable applications. Prior to working at Carbon Direct, Elaine was a Principal Software Engineer for Monster where she developed the architecture design and integration approach for GCP-based streaming and batch data pipelines.
Elaine additionally has extensive middle-tier and backend development experience in C# as a Lead Engineer, with a focus on integrating with third-party APIs and rebuilding backends for increased data processing reliability.
Education
MS, Software Engineering
San Jose State University
BS, Computer Science
De La Salle University
Elisse works in partnership with the Science, Product, Design, and Sales teams to build the Carbon Direct brand story. Elisse also manages the PR function at Carbon Direct.
Elisse brings 10+ years of experience in marketing and communications. As a once-upon-a-time English major, Elisse firmly believes in the power of a good story to change minds, perceptions, and even behaviors. Her personal mission is to build a better, more equal, and more sustainable future for all -- a future in which both people and planet thrive, together.
Prior to working at Carbon Direct, Elisse was a Marketing Manager at Google on their Brand, YouTube Social Media, and Google Cloud teams. It was in the latter position that she founded their inaugural Data for Good program to enable nonprofits and social entrepreneurs to apply big data solutions to real-world challenges. During that time, Elisse recognized the importance of driving clarity in the climate sector in order to drive action -- and so decided to pursue additional graduate study to develop her knowledge of environmental science as well as core management skills.
At the Yale School of Management and Yale School of the Environment, Elisse is a joint-degree MBA/ MEM candidate specializing in Climate Justice and Carbon Management. Her research is focused on indigenous carbon management and nature-based carbon sequestration.
Elisse is a passionate DEI advocate and is dedicated to advancing the representation of diverse perspectives. She is a Consortium Fellow, Forté Fellow, and member of Carbon Direct's Climate Justice Committee.
Education
MBA '23
Yale School of Management
MEM '23
Yale School of the Environment
BA, English Literature & Hispanic Studies
Columbia University
Awards
Consortium Fellow
Consortium for Graduate Study in Management
Forté Fellow
Forté Foundation
Jon has over 15 years of experience in energy investing and project finance. Prior to launching Carbon Direct, he was the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of BBL Commodities, a commodity hedge fund. Jon started his career at J. Aron, the commodities division of Goldman Sachs where he managed a large proprietary trading book across global macro markets with an emphasis on commodities. Jon was then a partner at Glencore, managing the firm’s US derivative business prior to its IPO.
Jon's focus on climate change and negative emissions extends to his work at Columbia University where he sits on the board of the Center on Global Energy Policy. He has been a lecturer on energy issues at the university and helps steer the Carbon Dioxide Management program. He is also an advisor to Lawrence Livermore National Lab on negative emissions.
Education
BA, Economics
Yale University
Awards
Board Member
Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University
He works directly with clients, the Science team, and the leadership of Carbon Direct to solve major technical challenges around carbon management and CO2 removal.
Dr. Friedmann recently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy where he was responsible for DOE’s R&D program in advanced fossil energy systems, carbon capture, and storage (CCS), CO2 utilization, and clean coal deployment. 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.
Dr. Friedmann is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the U.S. on carbon removal (CO2 drawdown from the air and oceans), CO2 conversion and use (carbon-to-value), hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, and carbon capture and sequestration.
Education
Ph.D. in Geology
University of Southern California
MS, Geology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
BS, Music
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Awards
Greenman award (Lifetime achievement in CCS)
International Energy Agency: IEA
She focuses on developing product strategy, roadmap, and requirements with cross-functional teams to launch impactful carbon management products.
Maria combines her background in climate change policy, applied microeconomics, and her technology sector experience to deliver world-class, net zero software solutions.
Prior to working at Carbon Direct, Maria was a research fellow at the Inter-American Development Bank and negotiator at the UNFCCC. After working on climate change policy, she decided to pivot into the technology sector where she started as a data scientist. She soon realized that her passion was in product development and leading cross-functional teams.
Education
MS
University of Tennessee
BSc
Universidad de los Andes
Awards
Research Fellowship
Inter-American Development Bank
Specifically, Dr. Potts helps clients assess high quality carbon removal from managed landscapes and works to ensure climate actions are just and equitable. He also works closely with Carbon Direct’s technology team to integrate science, software and product.
Dr. Potts draws on his interdisciplinary background with formal training in mathematics, ecology, and economics to inform his work in nature and community based climate solutions.
Dr. Potts has over two decades of experience in resource management issues in low- and middle-income countries. Though currently on leave from UC Berkeley, this expertise supports his work as the S.J. Hall Professor in Forest Economics at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management and as the Associate Director for Sustainable Development, Blum Center for Developing Economies, where he leads an interdisciplinary lab that focuses on the co-production by human and natural systems of ecosystem services and natural pathways for carbon sequestration.
Dr. Potts recently served as a coordinating lead author on the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment.
Education
Ph.D. Applied Mathematics 2001
Harvard University
A.M. Applied Mathematics 1999
Harvard University
B.S. Mathematics 1996
University of Michigan
Awards
NRT-AI: Digital Transformation of Development (DToD), $3,000,000 (2021-2026)
US National Science Foundation
INCLUDES Alliance: Broadening Career Pathways in Food, Energy, and Water Systems with and within Native American Communities (Native FEWS Alliance), $7,071,915 (2021-2026)
US National Science Foundation
Coordinating Lead Author, Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment (2015-2018)
Specifically, Micah helps clients engage in the carbon market to secure, grow and integrate the highest quality carbon management solutions into their climate plans and businesses.
Over the course of his career, Micah has structured and negotiated >$2B in deals for supply creation and built supply deals and rollouts in over 90 countries. Prior to joining Carbon Direct, Micah worked as Vice President in Energy Private Equity with the SUN Group leading renewables, EV and alternative fuel investments.
Before that, Micah spent a decade developing Advance Market Commitments, public/private partnerships, and investment structures for vaccines and other medical products – leading programs with the Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund, the Asian Development Bank, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Education
BA
Middlebury
MBA
Harvard Business School
Awards
Horace W. Goldsmith Fellow
John H. McArthur Fellow
Nili is the Chair of the US$130+ Trillion Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero’s (GFANZ) Advisory Panel of technical experts, as well as a member of its CEO Principals Group. Nili also sits as the Chair of US Policy for the UN-Convened Asset Owner Alliance. In addition to serving as a board member and Chairwoman of the Investment Committees of both the David Rockefeller Fund and the Synergos Institute, she is a Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and a member of the Social Mission Board of Seventh Generation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever.
Previously, she was Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager of Matarin Capital, which became one of the larger women-owned asset managers in the US. She has previously served as a member of the State of California’s Climate-Related Financial Risk Advisory Group.
Education
BA
Harvard University
MBA
Columbia Business School
Awards
Young Global Leader
World Economic Forum
TopVoice in Finance
Entrepreneur of the Year
National Association of Securities Professionals
“One to Watch”
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Member
Council on Foreign Relations
Member
Economic Club of New York
Her primary focus is in developing organizational systems, culture, internal communication, and recruitment to make Carbon Direct a best place to work.
An energetic, purpose-driven leader with 10+ years of international experience, Serene firmly believes that every organization's greatest potential lies in its people. Serene brings her talent for organization, culture-building, and strategy to Carbon Direct with impressive prior leadership roles in human resources at Barclays, Convoy, and Forterra.
As a proud, first-generation Chinese-American woman, Serene is dedicated to strengthening equity, inclusion, and belonging both inside and outside of work. At Convoy, she was the founder and co-chair of the company's first Asian employee resource group. As a board member and leader of the equity and inclusion committee at The Mountaineers, she works to improve pathways to leadership and foster belonging throughout the 14k+ member organization, to help make the outdoors more welcoming for all.
Education
BSc, Learning & Organizational Change
Northwestern University
MSc, Management
The London School of Economics