About
Seth Kisch
Co-President
After graduating from Harvard College in 2004, Seth began work at Novantas, a boutique management consulting firm based in New York, where he rose quickly from Associate to Manager. At Novantas, Seth advised Fortune 500 and equivalent companies in the financial services sector and executed corporate strategy, segmentation, product development, and analytical projects. In 2007 Seth joined Battery Ventures, a $3.5 billion venture capital and private equity fund based near Boston, Massachusetts, where he focused on sourcing and executing investments across technology sectors. He also represented Battery as an Observer on the Boards of two portfolio companies. While living in Boston, Seth cofounded Boston International, an organization dedicated to bringing cutting-edge thinking on world affairs to Boston’s young professional and graduate school community. Over two years, he and his team grew the organization to over 1,000 members and hosted over 20 events featuring professors, business leaders, consuls general, world politicians, and others.
Amy Hsuan
Co-President
Before arriving at Wharton, Amy Hsuan worked as a journalist for six years at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., where she covered education and business topics, including renewable energy in Germany and China. She is a three-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists Award for Excellence in Journalism and has won other distinctions for her investigative work in public education. A Newhouse Fellow with a Masters in Journalism from the Newhouse School for Public Communications, Amy served as Vice-President and President of the Asian American Journalists Association-Oregon Chapter from 2005-2009. At Wharton, Amy is a consultant at the Small Business Development Center, a member of the Leadership Coaching Development Program and a Lauder dual degree student pursuing a Master’s in International Studies. For the Wharton Energy Club, she acted as Marketing Director in the 2010 Wharton Energy Conference.
Wilson Chang
Co-President
Prior to attending Wharton, Wilson worked at Silver Lake Partners, a technology-focused private equity firm, where he evaluated investments and buyouts in the technology sector, including various renewable and green technologies. Previously, Wilson worked in the Natural Resources group at Goldman Sachs, advising renewable energy, power, and utility clients. Wilson graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Business Administration. He will be working at a cleantech private equity fund this summer.
David Knox
VP of Alumni
David comes to Wharton from Cape Town, South Africa where he assisted several African governments and extractive industry companies with climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. He worked for Conservation International directing their biodiversity and environmental research programs across the African continent. He has worked across 35 African countries and has advised the governments of South Africa, Liberia, DR Congo and Madagascar on their transition to a low-carbon economy. Most recently, he launched a $20MN World Bank funded strategy focusing on sustainable agricultural and climate change across the Mediterranean basin. David is fluent in Swahili and French, holds a BS in Biology and a minor in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina and a MS in Environmental Science from the University of Cape Town.
Geoffrey Vitt
VP of Careers
Geoffrey comes to Wharton from Google, where he spent nearly six years working in a variety of roles across their advertising product lines. Most recently, he launched and managed a third party developer program for Google’s DoubleClick product, a first in the industry. Previously, he worked on the integration of DoubleClick’s North American operations into Google and managed a number of different teams in both the U.S. and India. While at Wharton, Geoffrey has been very active in the energy, serving on the sponsorship committee of the Energy Conference and taking advantage of the club’s excellent education resources.
Alex Buell
VP of Education
Prior to attending Wharton, Alex was an Associate at Good Energies, a venture capital fund focused on clean technology. Alex analyzed opportunities in smart grid, solar, wind, biofuel, energy efficiency, and energy storage, resulting in over $40m of investments in a range of start-ups. He also worked closely with portfolio companies on marketing, regulatory strategy, M&A, and financing. At Wharton, Alex also focuses on clean tech at WVP Ventures, a student-run venture capital organization.
Elysia Gruber
VP of Communications
Prior to attending to Wharton, Elysia worked for HBO as a Senior Analyst in Finance and Analysis, where she managed annual budgets and strategic long term plans for Affiliate Sales and Business Affairs. She also provided financial analyses for affiliate deal negotiations that led to closing the largest monetary deal in HBO history, valued at over $1 billion. Previously, she worked for TM Capital Corp, a boutique investment bank in New York City, providing financial analyses on mergers and acquisitions and corporate divestitures in consumer, healthcare, technology and industrial sectors. Elysia graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a BA in Economics. This summer, she will be interning at ExxonMobil in the Treasurer’s Department.
Tiyona Taylor
VP of Finance
Prior to Wharton, Tiyona worked for Perot Systems and Dell Inc. in the Consulting Services Unit. Her experience includes project management and strategic management. Tiyona has led several tutoring and mentoring projects and most recently worked on the Board of the Girls Scouts Commonwealth Council of Virginia. She graduated from Princeton University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a certificate in East Asian Studies. She enjoys running, tennis and mentoring young adults.
Tiyona is a Joseph E. Wharton Scholar and will be majoring in Finance and Multinational Management. During the summer she will be interning with ConocoPhillips in their Finance group.
Melanie Chase
VP of Internal Affairs
Prior to Wharton, Melanie was a consultant in KPMG’s Energy and Utilities group. Based out of San Francisco, she worked with a number of major utilities and clean tech companies to improve operations. Her work included utility operational efficiency evaluations, DOE grant compliance preparation, and development planning in the clean tech start-up space. She also led pro-bono projects for a local Micro Enterprise non-profit which trained low income women to start their own businesses. At Wharton, Melanie has also worked as a West Coast Energy Trek lead, 2010 Energy Conference Sponsorship Director and is the VP of Alumni Affairs for the Wharton Marketing Club. Additionally, she is a Program Director for Wharton’s International Volunteer Program and is leading a project in Colombia to help a rural farm co-op obtain and optimize carbon credit income.
Claudia Massei
Conference Co-Chair
Claudia is originally from Brazil, where she started her consulting career after graduating from college with an Engineering degree. During her consulting experience, Claudia was exposed to a variety of industries and engaged repeatedly with oil and gas, mining, and construction. She extensively worked out of Brazil, France, Morocco and South Africa, on a wide variety of topics, including assessing the impact of Morocco’s oil market liberalization on a fuel distributor’s performance and supporting the client to negotiate changes in national oil regulation with the government, while analyzing internationalization opportunities for the company. After Wharton, she is looking forward to concentrating her career in the energy sector. This is what led her to become deeply involved with the Wharton Energy Club, having worked at the 2010 Energy Conference as Alumni Relations and, most recently, taken the role of co-chair of the 2011 Wharton Energy Conference.
Carol Strulovic
Conference Co-Chair
Carol is a double degree student from Venezuela pursuing an MBA at Wharton and an MA in International Studies focused on Brazil at The Lauder Institute. After majoring in Economics and Psychology at Tufts University, Carol worked in Caracas at Deloitte’s Financial Advisory Services Group for two years, and then at Citibank’s Sales and Structuring Desk for another two. Carol became interested in Energy after participating in a one-year colloquium on Oil and Water while at Tufts and interning at a Solar Energy start up, Sky Fuel. While in Venezuela, Carol had the opportunity to work with many clients in both the oil and petrochemical industries. She decided to come to Wharton to merge her interests in business, finance and energy either from an entrepreneurial or an investor perspective. Carol helped organize Wharton’s Energy Conference 2010, and is now co-chairing Wharton’s Energy Conference 2011. During the summer, Carol will intern at Jefferies & Co in NYC, working in Investment Banking, with the Cleantech and Latin America groups. She will also be doing research in Mozambique, regarding the potential of Renewable Energy for the off-grid lighting market.
Raul Coral
Conference Co-Chair
Raul Coral, a Howard Mitchell Fellow at The Wharton School, developed a range of experiences advising energy companies in their strategy decisions at CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates). He has worked with the largest North American utilities and natural gas producers. His work includes advising utilities in the acquisition of large power plants, planning the strategy for natural gas producers in new markets in North America. Raul has also worked with renewable energy companies helping them to evaluate the economics of renewable energy projects. Raul holds two Bachelors of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Master of Science in Engineering also from MIT. This past fall, Raul completed his first Ironman Triathlon (swim 2.6 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles) in Florida. This coming summer, he will be interning with Goldman Sachs in its investment banking group focusing in the oil and gas industry. Raul was born in Ecuador and is a native speaker of Spanish.
