Our Team

Peter Malik is the Director of the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in New York City. Peter was born in former Czechoslovakia, and came to the US in 1985 on a political asylum. He received his BA from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and MA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He was actively involved in the political transition of the Czechoslovak system in 1989 and 1990, and served as a translator to the International Committee of Observers during the first free elections. Subsequently, Peter embarked on a career in finance in New York and London, heading several groups as a Managing Director at Credit Suisse and JPMorgan, respectively. His main area of expertise is in emerging markets fixed income, ranging from senior sovereign bonds to junior structured debt for early-stage private borrowers.

Judith Albert is the Executive Director of NRDC’s Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) program. She joins following a career in financial services at Bear Stearns and prior to that JPMorgan. At Bear Stearns she held several senior management positions, most recently Chief Operating Officer, Investment Banking in London. As a banker, she focused on mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance, primarily for Latin American companies. She was a corporate attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and began her career as a program officer with The Ford Foundation in Latin America. Judy is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

Greg Hale is a senior financial policy specialist at NRDC's Center for Market Innovation, where he is focused on developing a large-scale private sector financing market for energy efficiency building retrofits. Greg works with various financial institutions, governmental entities, property owners and non-profit organizations to help develop and scale-up innovative financing mechanisms in the efficiency retrofit marketplace. Greg's work also includes advocacy for energy efficiency leasing practices. Prior to joining CMI, Greg has spent 17 years in the real estate industry, first as a real estate lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and then as co-owner and general counsel of a real estate investment company which acquired, financed, managed and eventually sold a substantial portfolio of properties throughout the western United States. Greg is a graduate of Dartmouth College and The University of Michigan Law School.

Greg's links:

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Tommy Hayes is the Program Associate for NRDC’s Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) program. He works closely with E2’s regional chapters (New England, New York, Northern California, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, and Southern California) to grow membership and amplify E2’s “independent business voice for the environment” through events, publications, and high-impact advocacy efforts. Prior to NRDC, Tommy was a science teacher in Puerto Rico. He holds a B.S. in environmental science and anthropology from the University of Notre Dame.

Philip Henderson is a new Senior Financial Policy Specialist with the Center for Market Innovation. Philip has worked in residential real estate finance leading innovation and the application of technology. He will be working with CMI on buildings, specifically how to use financing tools to achieve greater energy efficiency. Following work on Capitol Hill and with a DC law firm, he was with LendingTree from 1999 to 2006, as counsel and on the business team. Philip was then General Counsel for Overture Technologies, a firm that creates underwriting systems that enable greater rigor and transparency in the loan decisions and allow investors to access loan-level data underneath securities. Philip has a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Philip's links:

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Jennifer Henry is CMI's Real Estate Sector Manager, based in NRDC's Chicago office. Jennifer holds a Masters of Urban Planning from New York University and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the past she has worked with NRDC on legislation for New Jersey that would establish a tax credit for smart growth development, and has also worked with the Trust for Public Land and Madison Metro Bus Transit. More recently, she worked at the U.S. Green Building Council with a coalition of the nation's leading progressive design professionals, builders, developers, and environmentalists to develop LEED® for Neighborhood Development, a national rating and certification system that takes LEED beyond the single building scope to incorporate criteria regarding compact development patterns, proximity to transit, mixed use, mixed housing type, and pedestrian- and bicycle- friendly design.

Radhika Khosla is a Welch Environmental Innovation Fellow at NRDC’s Center for Market Innovation. Radhika completed her Ph.D. in the Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago where she focused on urban climatology with a focus on building energy efficiency. Alongside, she worked with The Climate Group where she developed the organization's entry strategy into the green buildings' space in India. She has also worked directly with the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and with the Center for Advanced Studies on India at the Univ. of Pennsylvania on assessing India's options in climate change negotiations. Radhika has her undergraduate and master’s degree in Physics from the University of Oxford.

Christine Luong is the manager for NRDC's Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) partnership. She works with the business community to find opportunities to drive economic growth by supporting good environmental policies. Prior to joining NRDC, Christine worked in the health care sector and managed environmental health and safety projects with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Education Association. She holds a master's degree in public administration from San Francisco State University and a bachelor's degree in environmental science and policy from Duke University.

Sasha Lyutse is a Policy Analyst at NRDC's Center for Market Innovation. Prior to joining NRDC, Sasha worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, providing client relationship management, custodial, financing and reporting services for hedge funds, as well as at US embassies in both London and Paris. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a dual Masters in Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Sciences Po University in Paris.

Sasha's links:

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April Mo is Program Coordinator of NRDC's Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) where she works on the execution of all aspects of the program, including events, advocacy, publications, website and data management. April's experience prior to joining NRDC in 2005 includes marketing/publications at Business for Social Responsibility, English instruction in Taiwan, nonprofit development and newspaper business reporting. April holds a bachelor's degree in mass communications from the University of California-Berkeley.

Yerina Mugica is an Associate Director at NRDC's Center for Market Innovation, specializing in developing clean energy solutions. Yerina has an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has worked as a consultant to government and private sector clients. She has also published case studies on renewable energy, conservation and microfinance programs in Latin America. Yerina is currently leading an initiative to unlock the energy efficiency potential in buildings by working with key industry leaders to develop a policy road map that works for consumers, business and the environment.

Douglass Sims Senior Energy Project Finance Specialist,joined the Center for Market Innovation in April 2010. Doug will work on issues relating to the financing of renewable power in the US and internationally. Prior to joining NRDC, Doug was an attorney for 8 years at international law firm Allen & Overy LLP, where he was part of the Project Finance and Latin America groups. He represented independent power companies and other infrastructure investors as well as public and private financial institutions in connection with power and infrastructure projects, mainly in emerging markets, including Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, Togo, Burkina Faso, Trinidad & Tobago and Brazil. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.) and Stanford University (B.A.).

Douglass's links:

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Cai Steger is an Energy Policy Analyst at NRDC's new Center for Market Innovation, focusing on federal and state policies that drive clean technology innovation, investment and deployment, with a concentration on renewable energy -- especially solar and algae biofuels. His recent projects include developing a federal deployment mechanism to encourage large-scale penetration of distributed generation, analyzing impacts of climate legislation on renewables investment, and managing a year-long project to understand the sustainability of algae biofuels production. He joined NRDC in 2008. He has an MBA from Columbia business school, a BA from University of California, Santa Barbara, and eight years of strategy, research and business development experience in multiple industries.

Cai's links:

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Samir Succar Prior to joining NRDC, Samir Succar was a member of the research staff of the Energy Systems Analysis group at the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) of Princeton University. His work there focused on integration issues associated with utility scale renewable energy and on enabling technologies for intermittent generation. Recent studies focused on the implementation of energy storage as a strategy for enhancing transmission infrastructure utilization and mitigating the intermittency of renewable energy with particular attention to compressed air energy storage (CAES). Other research activities include optimization of wind turbine rating for wind/storage systems and analysis of the competition of utility-scale wind/storage plants with other low- carbon technologies such as coal IGCC with CCS. Previously Samir worked at the Princeton Macroelectronics Group developing fabrication methods for solution processed organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) and at Schlumberger ATE developing charged particle optics for voltage contrast defect detection systems. He received a BA from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University.

Samir's links:

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Alisa Valderrama is a Financial Policy Analyst with the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City. Prior to joining NRDC, Alisa worked on the finance team at the Clinton Climate Initiative. Previously, Alisa helped launch the World Bank's first program geared toward corporate responsibility in environmental, social, and governance issues. She has consulted on securities law reform for the United Kingdom Treasury, and assisted in fraud investigations conducted by the United Nations Oil-for-Food Independent Inquiry Committee. Alisa serves on the board of EcoNext, which works with leaders from the insurance, legal, and energy sectors to translate energy savings into financial returns. She also advises social entrepreneurs as a member of Echoing Green's Social Investment Council. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics (LL.M.), the University of Southern California (J.D.), and the University of Pennsylvania (B.A.).

Alisa's links:

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Marian Weber is a director in the development department at NRDC. Prior to joining NRDC, Marian spent nearly seven years in the Equities Division at Goldman Sachs, including as a Vice President in Equity Research Sales, where she worked with hedge funds, asset managers and pension funds. Marian also served on the Young Professional Advisory Board of the Mentoring Partnership of New York. She is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs.

Starla Yeh is a Welch Environmental Innovation Fellow with the Center for Market Innovation. Starla’s work encompasses all three focus areas, with a special interest in EPA’s non-CO2 regulations for reducing emissions from power plants in the transition to a clean energy future.  She has worked on modeling the effects of such rules on the nation’s coal generation fleet and analyzed the potential for making better use of existing resources, including natural gas, as well as resources like demand response and energy efficiency.  Additionally, Starla’s work with CMI includes research on federal government loan guarantee programs for renewable energy projects.  Prior to joining NRDC, Starla was an Associate at Swiss Re Capital Markets in the Capital Markets Insurance Solutions group, structuring Insurance-Linked Securities, including catastrophe bonds and other related products.  She is a graduate of Vermont Law School (J.D.), and DePauw University (B.A.).