About
Amanda Peterson
Co-President
Amanda Peterson is a current second-year MBA student at The Wharton School of Business majoring in Operations Management and Finance. Prior to attending Wharton, Amanda worked for three years at Merrill Lynch & Co. in both Investment Banking and Strategy & Business Development. At Merrill Lynch, Amanda worked on deals spanning the entire capital structure, including: Greenfield project financing, debt capital restructuring, LBO and M&A opportunities as well as public market equity issuances. Before working at Merrill Lynch & Co., Amanda was an analyst at General Electric Energy Financial Services where she evaluated multi-billion dollar public energy and utility companies for syndicated private acquisition and project financing of energy generation assets. She also managed and supported a $12 billion international energy portfolio with over 100 domestic and international assets. This summer, Amanda was a summer associate with Tessera Solar, a concentrating solar thermal developer in Houston, TX. Amanda received her Bachelor’s in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University’s School of Management.
Jordan Roberts
Co-President
Jordan is a second-year Wharton MBA student majoring in Finance. Jordan is currently partnering with the Michigan Renewables Energy Program on a study regarding the economic feasibility of an offshore wind farm in the Great Lakes. Jordan is spending his summer working in strategic planning for First Wind, a Madison Dearborn/DE Shaw portfolio company. Prior to Wharton, he held positions at investment banks Jefferies & Company and Thomas Weisel Partners (both in San Francisco) and Douglas C. Lane & Associates, a New York City-based investment advisory. Jordan received a BBA in Finance, Investment & Banking from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Mat Abramsky
EVP Interdisciplinary Programs
Hailing from Kingston, ON, Mat is an MCP/MBA joint-degree candidate at Penn. Mat’s particular interests lie in sustainable development and energy efficiency/renewables. He majors in real estate, finance, entrepreneurship, and urban development. This year, Mat will be interning at Brookfield Properties in New York in their Transactions Division. He spent the summer of 2008 with PN Hoffman, a DC regional developer, building a LEED Gold mixed-use office property. Before coming to Penn, Mat managed a family real estate development and property management firm. Mat graduated from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He is also the Exec. Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the WGA, a Wharton Leadership Fellow, a runner, skier, hockey player, and amateur photographer.
Walter Czarnecki
EVP External Relations
Walter is a joint-degree student at the Lauder Institute, where he will earn a Wharton MBA in finance and an MA in International Studies with a focus on Mandarin and East Asian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Walter spent his summer internship with Gamesa Energy’s strategy group where he focused on corporate development. Prior to Wharton, Walter spent four years in Beijing, most recently leading the clean energy team for China Renaissance Partners, a China-based investment bank serving Chinese entrepreneurs. Before moving to China Walter worked at Lehman Brothers in both Investment Banking and Strategy. Walter graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Bucknell University with degrees in Economics and English.
Andrew Hines
EVP Career
Andrew is a second-year MBA student pursuing a global career in alternative energy. He is spending the summer with the development group at BP Wind Energy. Before coming to Wharton, he spent three years in India launching the Indian School of Education, an organization to build education leadership through training programs for education professionals. Previously, he worked as a Research Associate at Harvard Kennedy School ’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He holds a BA in Political Science from Amherst College, and is originally from Toronto, Canada.
Raphael Speck
EVP Education
Raphael Speck is a second-year Wharton student. He spent this summer with US Renewables — a private equity firm focused on renewable energy investments. Prior to Wharton he was an investment manager with EIC Partners AG (”EIC”) in Zurich, Switzerland. EIC is a dedicated energy sector investor. At EIC, he launched a new product for the company — the EIC Renewable Energy Fund. After the successful launch of the fund, he worked for EIC Partner’s advisory business. In this function he developed a solar power plant for a client, provided advisory service for acquisition transactions of power plants and identified and evaluated investment opportunities for an external private equity fund. Previously, Raphael was project manager with the power engineering company Poyry Energy Ltd. In this function he led design and development projects in Thailand, United Kingdom, Qatar, and Switzerland. Raphael received a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.
Ghazal Badiozamani
Conference Chair
Ghazal Badiozamani is a second-year MBA candidate. She spent eight years at the United Nations mediating global negotiations on energy and climate change, most recently with regard to the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, and facilitating the implementation of demonstration sustainable development projects in developing countries. She helped start an organization to promote female entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, advises eco-conscious start-ups in CA, and spent the summer working at a clean-tech start-up (Hara Software) and CalPERS. Ghazal holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MSc from the London School of Economics. She dabbles in cooking and loves eating; loves to be in the presence of art and theatre, but knows nothing about them.
Smita Jain
Conference Chair
Smita is a second-year student at Wharton majoring in Strategy and Finance. While at Wharton, Smita has been doing an internship with the Global Environment Fund at their $200M South Asia Clean Energy Fund, evaluating global trends in energy technologies to identify investment opportunities in South Asia. Smita is spending her summer working in finance at Nextera Energy, the nation’s largest wind and solar power producer. Concurrent with her degree at Wharton, Smita is pursuing a joint degree at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she is focusing on Energy Policy. Previously, Smita worked in business development in India and China. Smita received a B.A. in History from University of Pennsylvania.
Noah Kaye
Conference Chair
Noah is a second-year MBA student concentrating in Operations and Management. In addition, he is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Energy, Resources, and Environment from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he studies electricity market reforms and energy technology trends. Previously, Noah was director of public affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the national trade association representing more than 800 companies in the US solar energy industry. At SEIA, he orchestrated advocacy campaigns to create the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for solar energy and the 11-year, $3.35 billion California Solar Initiative (CSI). Prior to SEIA, he developed the policy platform for a U.S. presidential campaign. Noah holds a BA in History from Yale University. He enjoys baseball, dogs, and making rock music, and has fleetingly appeared on Jeopardy.
Jeremiah Marble
VP Communications
Jeremiah Marble is a first-year student at The Wharton School, pursuing a dual degree: an MBA with a concentration in Finance and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute (French track). He graduated from Columbia University with a major in Computer Science. Prior to Wharton, Jeremiah worked for the United Nations in Paris, studied climate change as a Fulbright Scholar to Costa Rica, served as Director of Operations for a social enterprise in Cambodia and Laos, and worked in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corps. Jeremiah speaks English, Spanish, and French. He enjoys Ultimate Frisbee, running, biking, skiing, surfing, and salsa dancing.
Alison Go
VP Marketing
Alison Go is a first-year student at Wharton. Before arriving in Philadelphia, Alison worked at U.S. News & World Report in D.C. as a higher education reporter, as well as an online producer for the publication’s Education section (where she worked on the web implementation of U.S. News’s infamous rankings. Yes, those rankings). She has appeared as a commentator on Fox News, and has reported on the nuclear industry for both U.S. News and NPR. She has also worked at the Boston Globe and the San Jose Mercury News. Alison graduated with a B.A. in History from the University of Michigan, which is not too far from her hometown of Troy, Michigan. She enjoys biking and volleyball, and is eternally searching for the perfect burrito.
