Lara Pierpoint is passionate about technologies that meaningfully reduce emissions and contribute to a cleaner environment. As the Managing Director for Trellis Climate at Prime, she is demonstrating systems innovation and catalytic investment approaches that will speed commercialization, deployment, and scale-up of climate change mitigation infrastructure.
Before joining Prime, as co-CEO and a founding member of Actuate, Lara built the Actuate Climate program to design interventions that get emissions-reducing technologies on the ground faster. In December of 2022, Actuate Climate and the Prime team joyfully decided to join forces, and Lara’s team and programs became Trellis Climate.
Prior to Actuate, Lara worked on energy technology innovation at Exelon. As Director of Technology Strategy for the company, she advised on energy technology trends, invested in early- and mid-stage energy storage companies, and ran Exelon’s partnership R&D program.
Before her time at Exelon, she directed the Office of Energy Supply Security in the U.S. DOE Office of Policy and Systems Analysis, where she was responsible for policy and analysis related to coal, gas, and nuclear power and energy cyber and physical security. She served as AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, focusing on nuclear power and waste issues, energy finance, and electricity storage.
She received her PhD from MIT in Engineering Systems, studying deployment of advanced technologies for nuclear waste recycling, and she holds dual masters degrees from MIT in nuclear engineering and technology policy. She completed her B.S. in physics at UCLA.
CEO Cindy Taff on turning the earth into a battery — and proving the technology at scale in rural Texas
Microsoft’s Phil Goodman on structuring offtake agreements for CDR in an emerging market.
Captura CEO Steve Oldham on the science of ocean-based carbon removal — and scrambling to deliver a first-of-a-kind pilot.
The company aims to reach industrial-scale production at its Brazil facility by 2030.
Sam White of Promethean Power Systems on the merits of slow, steady growth, failing up, and designing for other countries.
Overture VC’s Shomik Dutta on why climate startups need political muscle — and how policy fluency can be a competitive advantage.
Kairos Power’s Mike Laufer on why non-nuclear demonstrations, rapid iteration, and vertical integration could change nuclear economics.
8 Rivers CEO Damian Beauchamp on the hard choices when building industrial-scale clean technologies.
The senator helped pass the landmark climate law. Now, he is looking to protect its policy wins from the GOP.
Zach Jones reveals how his team's rebellion led to a breakthrough in clean hydrogen production.