Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change

Anisha Bhandari

Program Manager, Security Policy, Google

Anisha is an experienced program manager with a strong background in security, privacy, policy and product management. Previously a startup founder and once a CNN Journalist. Anisha holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and undergraduate degree from Kennesaw State University.

Anna Wysen

Legal Specialist, Google

Anna is currently on Google's international trade team and is in the prototyping stage for her own startup. Before Google, she worked in the US Federal Government and attended UC Berkeley. She's previously mentored students and is ecstatic to assist startups.

Brian LaFaille

Global Head, Customer Success Strategic Programs, Google

Brian is an accomplished customer success leader, advisor, and mentor for B2B SaaS organizations. He recently led the CS team at Looker growing from a team of 1 (himself) to over 60 individuals scaling from $2M in ARR to $300M+ in ARR and a successful acquisition into Google Cloud.

Bruno Rodrigues

Field Sales Rep, Google Cloud

Bruno is an experienced technical advisor with experience working at & with Founders/Startups. Background includes HealthTech, FinTech, Gaming, Media & Entertainment, MarketingTech and beyond. Certified Google Cloud architect that has onboarded 50+ Startups to Google Cloud across North America, comfortable with both infrastructure and data layers of tech stack.

Christian Spicker

Enterprise Account Executive, Google Cloud

Christian is an outdoor enthusiast, sailor and freediver who is deeply passionate about planet Earth. Besides his experience in cloud computing sales, Christian was part of three hypergrowth environments, of which in one he was building a sales team with strong company culture in Sub Saharan Africa. Coming from Germany and South Africa, Christian brings in a different perspective and is closely connected to the startup ecosystem in both countries.

Drew McKechnie

Customer Success Manager, Google

Drew is an entrepreneurial strategic thinker with more than 20 years of experience providing technical expertise and consulting services to public and private organizations. A certified Project Management Professional and Professional Cloud Architect, he specializes in organizational strategic planning, concept visualization and communication, and the application of effective design toward expedited delivery. According to his colleagues, Drew's strength is his ability to "provide a great combination of process knowledge, business acumen, hard work, and an innate sense of how to put efficient and intuitive customer services together."

Elian Dumitru

Software Engineer, Google

Elian is passionate about purpose driven product ventures, specifically those that seek to address environmental responsibility. His decade-long software development experience lends itself well to teams looking to add value through product innovation.

Harsha Vashisht

Senior Engineering Manager, Google  

Harsha is a seasoned engineering leader, investor and startup advisor. Harsha leads Counter Abuse Platform teams in Sunnyvale to enable Google to fight abuse across 100+ products. He helped start and grow UberEATS engineering and grow Opendoor engineering. He has managed teams in Amazon and Yahoo and loves talking about scaling businesses, teams and systems.

Jon Harmer

Product Manager, Google

Jon is a product manager at Google on the Google Cloud team, working with Google’s acquisitions and “other bets”. Previously at Google, Jon was on the Gmail team, where his team built platform and extensibility features that enabled 3rd parties to integrate with Google Workspace. Jon has more than 20 years of experience at startups and midsized companies, mostly in the SaaS and online media spaces, has been on the early team at a few startups and also co-founded LaaSer, a Techstars Atlanta ‘16 company. Jon has also been a mentor to startups through Google For Startups, Techstars, and Atlanta Tech Village.

Kai Yee Wan

Technical Solutions Engineer, Google

Kai Yee is an engineer and cross-functional collaborator at the intersection of hardware and software. At Google, he works with manufacturers to develop and build next-generation Chromebook devices, and embedded software for smart home devices integrating with Google Assistant. Before that, he was an embedded software engineer at Qualcomm. He loves to engage with anyone about Internet of Things, mobile computing, or just tech and product in general.

KC Ayyagari

Senior Customer Engineer, Google Cloud

KC Ayyagari currently works for Google as a Senior Customer Engineer and he specializes in Cloud Infrastructure Modernization. Based out of New York, in his role, he focuses on Google Cloud technologies and works for enterprise sales teams. Prior to Google, KC worked for Microsoft, IBM, Thomas Reuters, Infosys and he has over 13 years of industry experience. A startup mentor, program manager and a trained architect, he has been active in the space of cloud computing for over 10 years and had experience in building large scale startup programs and designing technical solutions for some of the largest companies as well as Governments. He had experience working with and mentoring startups from all over the world. 

Kenny Vassigh

Technical Program Manager, Platforms, Google

Kenny is a Technical Program Manager (TPM) in Google Cloud's technical networking infrastructure. He’s passionate about technology, product development and anything deep tech. He’s been a startup mentor over the past two years at several Silicon Valley incubators and accelerators including Draper University, Founder's Embassy and Bay Angels. Kenny’s technical background is diverse across hardware, software and system development.

Kevin Wang

Head of Business Development, Google Travel

Kevin is responsible for Google strategic partnerships with the world's top travel companies and airlines. Before moving to the business side, Kevin was engineering manager/TLM and built an airline reservation system. Before Google, Kevin worked for startups at various stages.

Michael Mckay

Supplier Strategy Lead, Google

Michael’s a Supplier Strategy Lead at Google currently within the Real Estate and Work Services space. With 9 year Google experience across a number of business areas and a global background having worked and lived in the UK and Germany prior to the USA. Passionate about mentoring, leadership and supporting diversification efforts in and outside of Google

Mike Borozdin

Engineering Manager, Google

Mike’s specialties are API, platform and infrastructure, and partner products. He’s currently working on Kubernetes at Google. Previously he worked in DevCenter at DocuSign, as well as Windows at Microsoft.

Nirmal Veerasamy

Sr. Software Engineer, Google

Nirmal is a tenured technology professional, with over 15 years of industry experience and 10 years at Google. He is excited to bring his expertise on large scale distributed system designs, Google Cloud and Kubernetes/Istio to help teams grow.

Osmond Ng

Enterprise Customer Engineer, Google Cloud

Osmond is an experienced G4S Agent and technical mentor. He has in depth experience with helping startups realize their design and map to cloud/open technology.

Rafa Barroso

Solutions Architect, Google 

Googler in NYC, GCP Solutions Architect focus on Retail & FSI, Former CIO & Co-Founder @ Parlevel Systems, Google for Startups Agent, Area 120 Contributor, Code Next Coach, Techstars and 3Day Startup Mentor.

Vik Davar

Head of Customer Engineering, Google Cloud

Vik leads a team of customer engineers at Google Cloud, working closely with enterprises to help them with the adoption of GCP’s IaaS, data platforms, and AI/ML solutions. Over his 27 years of experience in the technology industry, he has launched two startups (one in the technology services arena and the other in the cybersecurity multi-factor authentication space) and was an early employee at a third (security analytics). Vik’s areas of expertise and interest include AI/ML, security, data / analytics, and mobile development.

Yaeka Katsuta

Head of Customer Success Engagement, Google Cloud

 Yaeka’s career has primarily been in early/mid stage startups involved in their strategic growth. Her expertise is with Program/Product Management, Customer Success, and entrepreneurship which she further developed through my MBA. She’s worked with healthcare tech, API workflow products, and at Google she supports their analytics platform Looker.

Zlato Fagundes

Account Executive, Global Business, Google

Zlato is a strategic digital media consultant with 8 years experience selling and executing programs to achieve business objectives. His strengths include building strong relationships, navigating organization complexity, and challenger selling. After his career as a ballet dancer cut short due to injury, he worked in arts education and arts policy prior to a pivot to digital media with a boutique marketing firm focused on arts and non-profit organizations.

Aditi Bhargava

Senior UX Researcher, Google

Aditi Bhargava is a Senior UX Researcher working at Google, currently working on building products that improve people's financial health. Her work includes identifying user problems to drive new feature ideation, validating product-market fit for early concepts, and measuring success metrics for launches. Her recent work includes relaunching Google Finance to make investing information more accessible and Google Pixel's call screening feature that has the Google Assistant answer your unknown phone calls.

Anna Roumiantseva

Product Lead, X, The Moonshot Factory

Anna currently leads Product and User Research for a stealth startup at X (Alphabet's moonshot factory). She is passionate about helping teams find solutions to complex, systemic issues through a user-centered lens. She has both founded and worked with dozens of early-stage startups across a wide range of industries.

Austin Fisher

UX Writer, Google Stadia

Austin is a UX Writer & Content Strategist on Google Stadia – Partner Experience, devoted to making it a joy to put games on Stadia. While specialized in content best practices, information architecture, and voice and tone, Austin also acts as key UX lead on projects for content ingestion, validation, and error strategy. He's worked in tech and insurance, covering both consumer and enterprise products, and is excited to help startups find their voice.

Brooke Simon Krebs

T/PgM Sourcing Lead, Google

Brooke Simon Krebs leads a sourcing team at Google focused on hiring for Technical Program Manager talent across the Americas. She has spent the last 10 years in Talent Acquisition, starting her career at a boutique staffing firm where she primarily partnered with early to mid-stage startups. Brooke has direct experience building and leading high-performing teams, and has been recognized for her Inclusive Leadership and Innovation.

Burcu Karagol Ayan

Senior Software Engineer, Google

Burcu Karagol Ayan is a senior software engineer at Google Research working on natural language processing and lately image-text multi-models. She received her PhD from the University of Maryland and worked at a startup before joining Google. Burcu likes mentoring, sharing her knowledge and experience and always looking for volunteering opportunities where she can help others, specifically in the climate change solutions area and efforts around inclusion and equality.

Catherine Chien

Environment & Climate Lead, X, the Moonshot Factory

As Environment & Climate Lead at X, Catherine drives X’s environmental-related moonshots to achieve greater impact and business success. Previously at Emerson Collective, she led venture investments in startups working on environmental technologies and natural ecosystems, and built partnerships with major environmental non-profit organizations. She has deep experience in investments, finance and strategy.

Christopher Mortweet

Commercial Counsel, Google

Christopher is a commercial attorney at Google specializing in cleantech and enterprise partnerships. He has experience advising companies of all sizes on commercial contracts and offering business and legal advice in an advisory role. Christopher is deeply committed to overcoming the climate crisis, and he is always looking for useful ways to contribute.

Chris Van Arsdale

TLM Google Climate & Energy Research, Google

Chris leads Google's Climate & Energy Research Group, part of Google's Applied Science initiative. He has a background in physics, distributed computing, remote sensing, and venture capital.

Drew Stevens

Cloud Solutions Architect, Google

Drew has over two decades of experience in software technology design, project management, marketing, user experience, and entrepreneurial pursuits, both in and out of the enterprise. His industry experience ranges from consumer products to government legal transparency, to distributed knowledge management applications, to energy optimization. After a recent series of startups, Drew is thrilled to be working at Google to help make cloud easier for Google Cloud customers.

Erik Saarenvirta

Customer Engineer, Data & AI Specialist, Google

Erik is a data and AI specialist supporting digital native companies in the Canadian region on their GCP initiatives. He has mentored at two of the GFSA cohorts in 2020 and can mentor on topics such as GCP architectures, HPC, Kubernetes, data engineering, analytics, machine learning and security.

Eugene Brevdo

Staff Software Engineer, Google

Eugene is a Tech-Lead/Manager on the Google Brain team. He has extensive experience with Machine Learning, systems optimization, and TensorFlow. Other areas of experience include Reinforcement Learning and getting organizations aligned/focused on common goals.

Fred Mello

Software Engineering Manager, Google

Fred joined Google in April 2019 as an engineering manager in the Chrome for Android team. He studied computer science at PUC-Rio and University of Toronto. Prior to Google he worked at Intelex Technologies for 10 years developing enterprise-level critical systems. He was part of a handful of start-up projects and defines himself as a continuous learner, family oriented, and sports addict.

Hannah Bascom

Head of Energy Partnerships, Google Nest

Hannah Bascom leads Energy Partnerships for Google Nest, and is passionate about the intersection of energy and consumer technology. After working for utilities for a number of years, Hannah joined Nest in 2014, growing the regulated energy business from the ground up. She is currently focused on product and service partnerships that set the stage for new offerings across the energy and home ecosystem.

Jack Bradham

CE, Google Cloud

Jack is a Sales and Technology Leader committed to customers, experienced in account management and growing new businesses built on trust and mutual opportunity. He uses extensive technology background and network to find common ground and value for customers. Managerial Principles: Individual and Team development, Results, Communication.

Jonathan Rotchtin

Sr. Account Manager, Google

Jon has 8+ years of marketing experience in the financial services sector. He has spent the last 2.5 years helping the Canadian banks grow their business in the US. He was also a mentor for the inaugural Google Accelerator cohort. Feel free to ask him about brand strategy and growth marketing tactics.

Lahiru Maramba

SWE, Google

Lahiru is a software engineer with a strong background in design, prototyping, and Human Computer Interaction. Lahiru has startup co-founder experience. He also has experience working at early stage startups on MVPs. Lahiru holds a Masters degree in HCI from Queen's University, Kingston, Canada.

Matheus Almeida

Partner Technology Manager, YouTube

Matheus has a CS background and has been working in tech/entertainment for almost 12 years now, between gaming, music and digital video (currently at YouTube). In this time, he has been a SWE, PO and more recently Partnership Manager and Consultor.

Michael Cohn

Quantitative UX Researcher, Google

Michael is a mixed-methods user experience researcher with a background in social psychology. He supports teams with survey research, experiment design, and user studies -- whatever is needed to understand their customers' lives and their experience of the world.

Mike Walker

AI/ML & Analytics Specialist, Google Cloud

With over 25 years of software and IT experience including development, architecture, and dev/ops, Mike is able to help startups in a variety of ways. His current role of Machine Learning & Analytics Specialist for Google Cloud focuses on helping companies of all sizes adopt the best tools and practices for powering their business with data. Mike has worked in multiple startups and has many years of experience helping them leverage technology while balancing the often limited resources available to a startup.

Nic van Vliet

Product Support Manager, Google

Nic has supported products for the past 5 years, working in the Commerce, Analytics and GPay industries. Previously to Google, Nic worked for various startups in South America in the NGO and Construction / Staffing industries. He can help you discover main TUIs and work with the product and support teams to reduce friction to help make the customer experience the best it can be.

Nicole Vournazos

Program Manager, Google

Nicole has been at Google for about seven years as a program manager -- working across multiple teams across Cloud Sales, Cloud Engineering, and Core Engineering. She is currently finishing up her graduate degree at the University of Oxford, studying Software and Systems Security. She enjoys helping startups grow and reach the next steps in their adventure.

Olise Okpala

Engineering Manager, Google Canada

Olise is an experienced Engineering Manager currently working at Google Cloud. He previously led teams in industries as diverse as finance, FinTechs, and transportation logistics with focus on digital transformation and improving business success. He has also worked at and founded startups.

Saba Nowroozi

UX Designer, Google

Saba is a UX designer at Google working on Stadia. Prior to joining Google she worked as a UX designer/consultant in enterprise, learning, energy, insurtech, and fintech sectors. She was a previous mentor with Google for Startups Accelerator and has expertise in UX design, UX research, and working in small design teams.

Thomas Turnbull

UX Engineer, Google

Thomas is a user experience engineer at Google, where he's spent the last 9 years working on Google Maps and Search. As a UX Engineer Thomas bridges the divide between design and engineering, bringing a user-focussed perspective to solving technical challenges. Thomas has mentored startups in previous Google startup accelerator cohorts, and is excited to bring his expertise in UX and front-end engineering to support this amazing group of climate-focussed companies.

Will Widera

Strategy Principal, X, the Moonshot Factory

Will works as a Strategist at X, the Moonshot Factory where he helps projects develop business plans to support their breakthrough technologies. He can help startups identify and quantify their strategic opportunities to help teams prioritize their roadmap and tell their story to investors.