In this “The Experts” episode, Sanjeev Krishnan sits down with Damien Ma, founder of MacroPolo, to explore how China’s evolution from a manufacturing hub to a tech and industrial powerhouse may reshape global markets. They trace the arc from pre-Olympic optimism to today’s era of strategic competition, unpacking how China leveraged industrial policy, second mover advantage, and massive infrastructure investments to rapidly advance and sometimes leapfrog in critical sectors like AI, clean energy,...
Aug 07, 2025•37 min•Season 2Ep. 10
In this “The Pitch” style episode we dive into how Urbint is transforming utility resilience with AI-powered solutions for storm response, damage prevention, and worker safety. Founder and CEO Corey Capasso joins S2G’s Chuck Templeton and Bala Nagarajan to discuss why utilities, which are facing numerous challenges from aging infrastructure to extreme weather and workforce turnover, need smarter, faster, and more adaptable solutions. They explore how Urbint is helping utilities move beyond phone...
Jul 24, 2025•35 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this episode of the S2G Podcast, Sanjeev Krishnan, Managing Partner at S2G, chats with Tonya Bakritzes, CMO at S2G, about why we’ve entered the Age of Adaptation —an era defined by volatility and disruption as well as immense opportunity. From climate change and AI to geopolitical shifts and rising capital costs, Sanjeev breaks down the four forces reshaping markets and what it will take to build companies that don’t just survive, but thrive in this environment. In this conversation, we explo...
Jul 10, 2025•36 min•Season 2Ep. 8
In this episode, Dan Ripma, Vice President on the food and agriculture team at S2G, sits down with Dr. Jeff Bland, biochemist, entrepreneur, and educator who is also widely regarded as the “father of functional medicine,” to explore the past, present, and future of the medical industry. Jeff shares his five-decade journey, from pioneering vitamin E research and leading Metagenics to launching the Institute for Functional Medicine and, most recently, Big Bold Health. He reflects on the limitation...
Jun 26, 2025•42 min•Season 2Ep. 7
If you are a business leader trying to get past AI chatter and buzzwords, this episode will help you cut through the noise. Chuck Templeton sits down with longtime friend and generative AI strategist Justin Massa for one of our most actionable conversations to date. Whether you’re trying to figure out what AI means for your business or frustrated by AI tools that don’t deliver, Justin offers clarifying frameworks, real-world case studies, and an accessible perspective on how business leaders can...
Jun 12, 2025•39 min•Season 2Ep. 6
In this “The Experts” episode, Chuck Templeton sits down with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist, policy expert, author, and climate visionary. They discuss Ayana’s most recent book What If We Get It Right: Visions of Climate Futures , which uses a blend of interviews, essays, and art to imagine a world where climate solutions lead to healthier ecosystems and thriving communities. In this episode, Ayana challenges us to reframe climate action as an opportunity rather than a burden and emp...
May 29, 2025•39 min•Season 2Ep. 5
In this episode of the S2G podcast, Chuck Templeton sits down with Jordan Schenck, the newly appointed CEO of Flashfood, to discuss the company’s triple-bottom-line solution to a massive problem: food waste. Flashfood is flipping the script on grocery store surplus by turning what would have been fodder for landfills into affordable, high-quality meals for customers–all while boosting retailer foot traffic and revenue. Jordan shares how Flashfood is harnessing data to build strong customer relat...
May 15, 2025•33 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Over the last three decades in the natural foods business, Seth Goldman has launched category-defining brands, navigated major acquisitions, scaled mission-driven supply chains, and brewed a whole lot of tea. In this “The Experts” episode, Chuck sits down with the founder of Honest Tea, PLNT Burger, Eat the Change, and Just Ice Tea to discuss what it takes to build a values-driven company in a crowded, ever-evolving food landscape. From label confusion to regenerative agriculture, navigating evo...
May 01, 2025•36 min•Season 2Ep. 3
To kick off Season Two and introduce one of our new formats—The Pitch—Chuck Templeton sat down with Coulter Lewis, founder and CEO of Sunday, just in time for spring. Sunday is on a mission to help yard owners around the country reconnect with their little patch of earth through smarter, safer lawn care. If you’ve ever stood paralyzed in the garden aisle, unsure of what to buy or how to apply those bags of soil and fertilizer, you’re not alone—and many of those traditional products are loaded wi...
Apr 17, 2025•38 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Welcome back to the S2G Podcast! The podcast will still feature in-depth insights into the food and agriculture, oceans, and energy sectors but with a fresh twist. This season, we're serving up three different formats: The Pitch, The Experts, and The Seams. In “The Pitch,” we'll interview company leaders, focusing on their pitch to customers. You’ll get insights into how these guests have scaled their businesses by solving a distinct pain point and designing a unique value proposition that reson...
Apr 10, 2025•2 min•Season 2Ep. 1
If you are a retailer, CPG company, entrepreneur, investor, or just interested in the natural food space, we have a sugar-free, plant-based, adaptogen-rich, protein-packed treat for you. For our final episode of the season, we're excited to bring you a panel discussion from a webinar put on by Naturally Chicago, an organization doing amazing work to bring together the natural products sector through events, resources, and industry insights. The conversation featured panelists from SPINS, a compa...
Dec 23, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 25
How to describe Sam Kass? He’s a Michelin-star restaurant-trained chef, a White House Senior Policy Advisor, an investor, an author, and that’s just the shortlist. We are always talking about bringing industry-spanning stakeholders together, and when it comes to the food system, Sam has sat at so many of those tables. He brings this holistic perspective grounded in pragmatism and cautious optimism to everything he does–including this wide-ranging, eye-opening conversation. In this episode, Chuck...
Nov 26, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 24
When the world seems so deeply divided, how can we step across barriers and preconceived notions to build avenues for conversation and collaboration? In this episode, Kaitlin Yarnall, Chief Storytelling Officer at National Geographic, argues that storytelling could hold the key. National Geographic has become synonymous with eye-opening, awe-inspiring, perspective-shifting storytelling. They have been honing the craft for well over a century, telling stories that have helped to alter perceptions...
Nov 14, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 23
What do bioactives, aquaculture operations, and warehouses have in common? They can all be powered by AI. In honor of spooky season, we’re taking you on a cross-sector journey to explore a topic that can sometimes get a scary rep. We recently released a report that identifies use cases for AI across our focus sectors and evaluates the challenges and opportunities to see where AI can drive significant business value and environmental benefits. In this episode, we’ll hear from Vikram Sharma, opera...
Oct 31, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 22
In this episode, we’re digging into successful strategies for corporate innovation with Audre Kapacinskas, Principal of Corporate Development at S2G, and Ryan Smith, Chief Growth Officer and Executive Vice President at Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition, a multinational food and biotechnology company focused on seasonings. Audre shares five takeaways from over 600 conversations with corporates about driving effective innovation in the face of significant challenges to making the kind of rapid, large...
Oct 17, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Many cities, such as San Francisco and New York, are passing policies to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. However, one of the biggest challenges to the adoption of EVs is the lack of fast charging stations. Revel, a company formally known for its fleet of rentable electric mopeds, is currently focused on transforming the EV charging landscape in urban areas. In this episode, Chuck Templeton sits down with Revel’s co-founder and CEO, Frank Reig, to explore the company's evolution f...
Oct 03, 2024•34 min•Season 1Ep. 20
This week we launched a report called The Climate Finance Relay Race. It explores how asset owners are navigating climate investment and their rationale for their approach. We believe the most impactful and perhaps swiftest approach to designing a fit-for-purpose capital market system is partnership with asset owners. The idea of the “climate finance relay race,” is that the handoff of risk and reward across parties can better enable asset owners to underwrite more productive and less volatile e...
Sep 19, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 19
What if we can have it all? According to Katlin Smith, Founder and CEO of Simple Mills, eating in a way that’s healthy for our bodies and the planet shouldn’t be about compromise. In this episode, Katlin takes us through her journey of building a good-for-you food brand that would not only compete in flavor with other health companies but with the status quo. Katlin was pretty green when she started Simple Mills, and, through savvy, sheer determination, and a bit of luck, she figured out how to ...
Sep 05, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 18
If you’re looking for insights into developing a go-to-market strategy, this episode is for you. Chuck Templeton sits down with the team at Sentera, a company that uses remote data collection to empower growers and agribusinesses to make real-time decisions to help improve farm profitability. Sentera's CEO Brian Wenngatz and CTO Eric Taipale take us through their journey to launching Aerial WeedScout, which enables the rapid detection of weeds so farmers can reduce herbicide use and maximize equ...
Aug 22, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 17
The rapid growth of reshored manufacturing, AI data centers, industrial decarbonization technologies, and electric vehicles are driving unprecedented demand for electricity. Many of the companies with the greatest energy demands have also committed to net zero emissions targets which will require them to use renewable power sources. While the renewable energy sector has grown tremendously, developing the capacity to meet the energy demand increase will face numerous challenges. In this episode, ...
Aug 08, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In this episode, S2G’s Managing Partner Sanjeev Krishnan and Jessica Murphy, VP of Community, delve into the key drivers of change within complex sectors like food, agriculture, oceans, and energy. They dissect the critical elements - innovation and business model innovation, community and storytelling, engaging with industry incumbents, and changing capital markets - essential for fostering sustainability and resilience in the global economy. Using conversations from this year’s S2G summit as a...
Jul 25, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In this episode, we are sharing a panel on “Nutrition at the Forefront of Health” from the S2G summit. Matt Walker, Managing Director on S2G’s Food & Agriculture team, interviewed Susan Bukata, Professor and Chair of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of California San Diego, Bill Dietz, Director of Research and Policy at the Global Food Institute at George Washington University, and Howard Lossing, former CEO of Cambrooke Therapeutics, about the growing influence and importance of nutriti...
Jul 11, 2024•36 min
In this episode, we’re exploring the pivotal role of data to not only protect our ocean but to better leverage its immense potential to foster climate resilience and drive a sustainable marine economy. At the S2G Summit, Larsen Mettler, Oceans Managing Director at S2G, led a panel with Kimberly Mathisen, CEO at Hub Ocean, Justin Manley, Senior Advisor at OceanKind, and Zack Baize, Program Manager at NOAA’s Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerator. The panelists discuss the opportunity to scale...
Jun 27, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In this episode we are sharing a panel from the S2G summit moderated by Kate Danaher, Oceans Managing Director at S2G. Jason Giffen from the Port of San Diego, Ingrid Irigoyen from the Aspen Institute, and David Millar of Fugro discuss the current efforts underway to decarbonize the industry and what it will ultimately take to get us there. Solutions discussed range from green methanol to electrification and innovative business models. The panelists also share their perspectives on current and f...
Jun 13, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 12
In this episode, Chuck Templeton sits down with Jason Wellcome and Mike Bruno, advisors at Play Bigger, to discuss the methodology behind category design. The discussion unpacks how companies can shift their thinking from making better products to forging entirely new market categories, drawing on illustrative examples like Qualtrics' evolution from survey tools to an experience management platform. Jason and Mike delve into the strategies that enable businesses to identify unique problems, achi...
May 30, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In this episode, Rishad Tobaccowala, former Chief Growth Officer at Publicis Groupe, and current author, speaker, advisor, and host of the What Next? podcast, offers an incisive look into the evolving nexus of technology and human capital shaping the future of work. Rishad discusses the critical importance of rethinking workplace design and integrating new technologies into workflows to drive growth. He also provides actionable strategies to leverage advancements in AI and enhance employee engag...
May 16, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In this episode, Chuck Templeton is joined by Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, co-founders of Back to the Roots, a company that's redefining what it means to be a home gardener. Starting from an unconventional college experiment using coffee grounds to grow mushrooms, their venture has grown into the only end-to-end organic gardening brand, helping to ignite a new generation of sustainability-minded gardeners who are looking for a more rooted relationship with their food. The duo discusses the ...
May 02, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In this episode, Sanjeev Krishnan, co-founder and managing partner of S2G Ventures, takes us through his career path from investing in telecom in emerging markets to building out a life sciences investment group at the IFC, the early days of energy environmental investing, his decision to hone in on food and agriculture, and finally to his journey with S2G. Sanjeev shares learnings critical for anyone investing or innovating in tough tech sectors, including his framework for using capital market...
Apr 18, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In this episode, we dive into the entrepreneur and investor journey that has led to the first EPA-approved RNA crop protection product and created a paradigm shift for the industry. Chuck Templeton chats with both GreenLight Biosciences CEO Andrey Zarur and S2G Managing Director Matt Walker, who has been working with Andrey and the GreenLight team for many years, about the company’s journey from defining a pressing need to designing a solution and bringing their first product in the market. Ther...
Apr 04, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Not many people produce category-defining companies twice. But then again, not many people are John Foraker. The comforting taste of Annie’s mac and cheese or their cheddar bunnies masks their revolutionary origins when organic products were relegated to the back corners of grocery stores. As the former longtime leader of Annies, John is partially to thank for bringing natural foods to the fore. Today, as the CEO of Once Upon a Farm, he is changing how customers buy baby and kid foods while meet...
Mar 21, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 6
