— Earth Finance, the Seattle corporate strategy and climate investing company, announced Wednesday it acquired Molecule, a Seattle-based climate advocacy firm. Molecule’s founder and principal Timothy Zenk will join Earth Finance as managing director and leader of its renewable fuels and public policy teams.
Prior to launching Molecule, Zenk was a business development strategist at now-closed Phytelligence, a well-funded Seattle startup behind a novel method of rapidly growing fruit trees. He was executive vice president at Algenol Biofuels, leading business development partnerships in the U.S., China, India, and others. Prior to that, Zenk served as senior vice president of corporate development and policy at Sapphire Energy, a Bill Gates-backed company that focused on developing renewable crude oil from algae.
Zenk also served on California’s advisory committee on implementation of the low carbon fuels standard in California. He also held leadership roles in federal and state governments, including deputy press secretary and campaign chairman.
Founded in 2019, Molecule helps sustainability-focused companies with communication strategies to advance their objectives in policy or national interests.
“Tim adds depth and breadth to our climate policy domain expertise to help clients and partners accelerate the global journey to a sustainable economy,” Reuven Carlyle, the co-founder of Earth Finance, said in a news release.
Earlier this year, Jennifer Sullo was hired by Earth Finance as managing director of asset management and investing solutions. She previously worked more than nine years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as global head of sustainable investing solutions, and was a vice president at J.P. Morgan. Sullo also worked for ING and GE.
Earth Finance raised $14 million and launched earlier this year. Carlyle recently retired from the Washington state Senate. The other two founding partners are investment executive Bryan Weeks, who serves as CEO, and climate strategy expert Garrett Kephart, who is president of the firm.
— Seattle early-stage venture capital firm Trilogy Equity Partners hired Ernie Archambault as an analyst. Archambault recently graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in finance. He previously was an associate at Salt Lake City-based venture firm University Growth Fund and intern at Seattle-based search fund Blue Wood Capital.
— Lindsay Randall will join J.P. Morgan in Seattle as vice president for startup banking. She is a senior program manager at Moonbeam, a Seattle company that connects enterprises with startups. “I am beyond excited to help JP Morgan support founders in the PNW in this new role,” she wrote on LinkedIn.
— The Washington Research Foundation named five venture analysts as part of its sixth cohort to assist with grant-making and investment activities:
- Cade Ito is a fourth-year doctoral candidate at the University of Washington (UW) in the Molecular Medicine and Mechanisms of Disease program, focusing on engineered B cells and other cell therapies.
- Kevin Jiang is a fourth-year doctoral candidate at UW’s Department of Bioengineering specializing in developing point-of-care diagnostic technologies and medical devices for detecting viruses and bacteria.
- Ashish Phal is a fourth-year doctoral candidate at UW’s Department of Bioengineering. He uses computer-designed growth factor mimics to study early development cellular fate decisions.
- Chase Suiter is a fifth-year doctoral candidate at UW in molecular and cellular biology. He is developing techniques for studying protein degradation at scale.
- Lillian Tatka is a fifth-year UW doctoral candidate in bioengineering and data science, creating software tools for computational systems biology.
— Seattle law firm Perkins Coie named Roger Wilkes as COO. He previously spent four years as COO at New York-based law firm Kobre & Kim. Prior to that, Wilkes served as COO for U.S. marketing and sales at PwC.
