Former Chief Commercialization Officer for the U.S. Dept. of Energy brings strategic perspective on commercialization, policy, and capital to CEV's Strategic Advisory Board
October 9, 2026 – Clean Energy Ventures (CEV), a venture capital firm investing in early- and pre-growth stage climate technologies, today announced the appointment of Dr. Vanessa Z. Chan to its Strategic Advisory Board. Drawing from decades of leadership within both the public and private sectors, including serving as Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office of Technology Transitions at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Chan brings deep expertise in bringing capital providers, corporates, and government together to de-risk and scale new energy technologies.
Chan joins former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (Chair of the Board), former ARPA-E Director Ellen Williams, former TotalEnergies Ventures President Girish Nadkarni, and former United Technologies SVP of Science & Technology J. Michael McQuade on the Strategic Advisory Board, which advises CEV's investment team and portfolio companies on technology, markets, and policy.
From 2021-2025, Chan led the DOE's work to move clean energy technologies from its 17 National Laboratories into the private sector. She spearheaded the Pathways to Commercial Liftoff reports, laying out the business case for commercializing 11 technologies, from geothermal and hydrogen to chemicals and cement. The reports have shaped both federal and private clean energy investment. She also led the creation of the “Adoption Readiness Levels” framework and served on the Loan Program Office Investment Committee during her tenure at the Department. In 2024, TIME named her to its TIME100 Climate list of the world's most influential climate leaders.
Prior to that, Chan spent 13 years at McKinsey & Company, where she was a partner and co-led the firm's innovation practice, helping publicly traded companies commercialize new technologies. Today, she serves as the inaugural Vice Dean of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Jonathan & Linda Brassington Professor of Practice in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). She is an active angel investor who holds three patents and a Ph.D. from MIT and B.S.E. from University of Pennsylvania, both in Materials Science and Engineering.
The appointment builds on an existing collaboration with CEV, having partnered on CEV’s Structuring for Scale initiative, the firm's work on new financing models for early commercial projects. Chan and CEV Co-Founder and Managing Partner Daniel Goldman also co-authored “Tariffs won't win America the industrial race,” published in Latitude Media in July 2026, which argues the U.S. needs its own model for sharing the risk of first-of-a-kind energy projects.
“I've known Vanessa since she led commercialization initiatives at the DOE and am delighted to welcome her to the Strategic Advisory Board. She will add fresh insights and perspectives in support of Clean Energy Ventures’ strategy, investments, and portfolio development," commented Board Chair, Ernest Moniz.
“Vanessa has spent her career on the hardest step in climate tech: getting proven science to commercial scale,” said Daniel Goldman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Clean Energy Ventures. “We've seen that up close within our Structuring for Scale initiative. She understands how capital markets, corporates, and government can manage technology risks, and how to encourage collaboration among them. We and our founders will benefit from her experiences and network across the industry.”
“Everyone wants to be eighth or ninth in line for a new technology, but almost no one wants to be first,” said Chan. “Getting these critical technologies down the cost curve requires finance, industry investment, long-term purchasers of products, and government all sharing the risks together. I’ve seen CEV’s thoughtfulness about financing first-of-a-kind projects and building impactful technology companies with that reality in mind. I'm looking forward to supporting the fund and its portfolio companies.”
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