PRIZE CAPITAL - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chief of Staff
- Chief of Staff to the Chairman
Emily Arnold currently serves as Chief of Staff to the Chairman at Prize Capital, LLC. On behalf of Prize Capital, Ms. Arnold is the Project Manager of the Osa and Golfito Initiative at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. The Osa and Golfito Initiative, the concept of which was co-developed by Prize Capital, is seeking to create a plan by which it could be possible for the Osa and Golfito cantons of Costa Rica to improve the wellbeing for their human populations, while supporting and strengthening the conservation efforts of the richly biodiverse region.
Prior to working at Prize Capital, Ms. Arnold worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), serving as the Costa Rica sole in country representative while pursing a master's degree. Their focus on investigating strategies to make Costa Rica fossil fuel free in the energy and transportation sectors caused her to frequently interact directly with high level government officials, including President Arias, and the Minister of the Environment and Energy.
Ms. Arnold initially built a foundation in community development and conservation working with small NGOs in Greece and Mexico, after which she worked in Paris at France Nature Environment, a network of over 3,000 organizations lobbying to influence French, European and international environmental policy. She then worked in Washington, DC at the Earth Policy Institute, led by Worldwatch Institute founder Lester Brown, where she contributed to Brown's book Plan B 2.0 and authored an Eco-Economy Update on the negative impacts of bottled water on the environment.
Ms. Arnold first discovered her passion for for-profit environmental ventures while working at Canopy Development, a start-up company exploring a sustainable tourism-based model for conservation and economic development. At Canopy Development she ran the internal sustainability efforts of the company, as well as serving as project manager for the first Canopy Development branded resort.
Ms. Arnold holds two masters degrees: one in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development from the United Nations Mandated University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica and another in International Affairs from American University in Washington, DC. She received her BA from Smith College in Sociology and French.
Jesse Berst is a recognized authority on the emerging clean energy/smart energy revolution and the market opportunities it represents.
Jesse provides high-level, strategic consulting to large corporations, utilities, investors and government agencies.
As Managing Director of the energy consultancy Global Smart Energy, his current and former clients include Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Department of Energy, Global Environment Fund, the GridWise Alliance, Avista Utilities, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, the State of New Mexico, and the Province of British Columbia.
Jesse graduated with honors from the University of Puget Sound with a degree in business administration and serves on the Advisory Council of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Jesse lives with his wife in Bellevue, WA.
Lee Stein - Chairman, Founder
Lee Stein brings many years of experience as a business executive and entrepreneur to his current activities as a business-minded environmentalist. Educated as an accountant (B.S., Syracuse) and an attorney (J.D., Villanova), he has served as Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President of First Virtual Holdings, Director and President of Seaport Village on the waterfront in San Diego, Director and Controller of WestAir Airlines (DBA) United Express, and as an officer and/or director in various private entities.
He is credited as a co-inventor of e-mail messaging processes, and in 1994, he co-patented what The Economist magazine described as the world's first Internet-banking (payment) system. The patents issued were subsequently acquired by eBay.
After a career of serial entrepreneurship in the worlds of entertainment finance, Internet commerce, and real estate development, he turned his entrepreneurial and business activities to the environment and what he describes as "its disturbing deterioration." In 2000 he formed Virtual Group, LLC, a private holding company focused on early-stage technologies.
He was especially troubled by the distrust between environmental organizations and business entities. He had based his operating strategies on the concept of "inclusivity" and wanted to help forward an agenda acknowledging that environmental practices had to be good for business or they were not good environmental practices and, likewise, that business practices had to be good for the environment in order to be good business practices.
In 2001, he was invited to co-found the Southern California chapter of Environmental Entrepreneurs, known as E2. Affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), E2 brings together entrepreneurs to influence state and national government policies by serving as the "business voice for the environment." To date, they have advocated to promote smart growth, reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions, fund ocean restoration, advance the market for alternative transportation fuels and cleaner-operating vehicles, and ensure that state-issued bonds embody environmental principles.
In 2006, Mr. Stein formed Prize Capital to fund global competitions aimed at discovering innovative solutions in the areas of energy and the environment. Formed to attract investment capital for early-stage innovators, the public-private partnership is based on a model that integrates investment concepts and international prizes, and for which Mr. Stein has filed patent applications. The first application of the Prize Capital model will be focused on using algae in a carbon recycling processes that can create outputs from vitamins to fuel and plastics.
Job Titles:
- Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking
Prof. Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking, Harvard Business School, performed early diligence on the Prize Capital model and deemed it "a novel way for investors to get exposure to a broad spectrum of approaches in emerging technologies" and that can "address exactly [the need for increased early stage investing] in a novel and powerful way." (The full analysis is available for download here)
Tom Huppert currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer of several entities owned in part or in whole by Lee and June Stein, including Prize Capital LLC; Virtual Group LLC; Virtual Capital LLC; Wemtec Inc. and Prize Capital Partners Corporation.
Mr. Huppert has been working with Mr. Stein developing, building and selling start-up companies since 1996. Huppert served as CFO when Stein's company First Virtual Holdings Incorporated (Nasdaq:FVHI) went public December 13, 1996 and was eventually sold to Doubleclick (Nasdaq:DCLK) in 2002.
Prior to working with Mr. Stein, Mr. Huppert served as acting CFO and VP Finance for Rubio's Restaurants Inc (Nasdaq: RUBO) and worked as a Certified Public Accountant for a local firm in San Diego.
Tom has a Bachelor of Science in Business with an emphasis in Accounting from San Diego State University and maintains his CPA license with the State of California. He lives in San Diego California with his wife and two children.