AbsoluteClimo LLC

AbsoluteClimo LLC, founded in 2016, is a U.S. (Honolulu) headquartered world leading climate forecasting and risk management company created and operated by pioneering reputable climatologists, meteorologists and seasoned entrepreneurs with accomplished scientific and business industry track record including NASDAQ/NMS listing and successful M&A. We have an outstanding multi-continental, multidisciplinary, diverse global advisory team.

Contact AbsoluteClimo info at absoluteclimo dot com.

AbsoluteClimo Co-Founders

Melissa Barrington

Melissa is a climatologist and physical meteorologist with over 25 years of experience as weather and climate practitioner. Melissa has worked as an on-camera television, radio, social media meteorologist for The Weather Channel, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox TV in America. In 2001, Melissa received the International Americas Award from the International Weather Conference/Festival in Paris, France, where Melissa presented and fielded questions on climate and climate change.

Melissa authored The Barrington Report (monthly reports including seasonal climate forecasts and related discussions on droughts, floods, heat waves, El Niño / La Niña) in partnership with WeatherLabs. Melissa holds a B.S. degree in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University.

Brendan Lane Larson

Brendan is a climatologist, physical meteorologist and seasoned entrepreneur who previously founded WeatherLabs where he created its weather analytics software and intellectual property foundation on NextStep™®. WeatherLabs pioneered online and web-based delivery of weather services to marquee customers including American Express Travel, America Online (AOL), Apple, Excite, News Corp., and The Microsoft Network (MSN), along with strategic technology partners NeXT (acquired by Apple Inc.), Nokia and Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle Corp.).

Brendan helped take WeatherLabs public on the NASDAQ stock exchange (NMS listed) as the world's first publicly-held online weather company, and helped negotiate a $12M e-commerce marketing alliance with America Online. WeatherLabs was later acquired by The Weather Channel / weather.com prior to the $3.5B NBC Universal, Bain Capital, Blackstone acquisition.

Brendan taught the world's first graduate course on Environmental Finance Weather Derivatives at the University of Hawaii's Master's of Financial Engineering program, co-founded and co-invested in the program's hedge fund. Brendan has been a discussant on climate change, finance and weather risk management panels at the UH School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology, and is an invited business school guest lecturer on enterprise risk management / insurance.

Brendan has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and interviewed by ABC News Nightline and CNN Headline News. Brendan holds a B.S. in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University / John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences University of North Dakota.

AbsoluteClimo Advisors

Sudhir Ispahani

Sudhir Ispahani founder and CEO of Alpha Global Partners LLC, serves on numerous boards/advisory boards and is an investor in emerging technology firms in Silicon Valley. Having served previously, as the Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of the Technology Board for Liberty Global, United Pan European Communications and Chello Broadband. Sudhir was responsible for the strategic technology roadmap and implementation of triple play services serving 15 million subscribers across Liberty Global Europe and its affiliated subsidiaries. He led the  architecture, engineering and operations efforts to establish broadband hvideo, voice and high speed internet across Europe.

Sudhir was the first founding President of EuroCableLabs, the center for vendor testing/certification, emerging technology testing and technology standards development for digital broadband technologies in Europe.

In 2003, Sudhir was awarded Europe’s prestigious (Euro 50) as one of the top 50 European executives in the broadband Industry. In 2005, he was also awarded the coveted European Cable & Communications Association Award for his contribution as the founding President of EuroCable Labs.

Prior to Liberty, Sudhir served as Executive Director at MCI (WorldCom) where he pioneered many new and innovative approaches to effectiveness and efficiencies in managing MCI’s network engineering, IT and Operations organizations.

Sudhir has a BS in electronics and telecommunications and a post graduate diploma from The Institute of Telecommunications, Vienna, Austria. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA.

Chris Maeda, PhD

Chris Maeda is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Botco.ai, which provides multiple industries worldwide with a conversational marketing platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and ontology-based natural language processing (NLP) technology. Chris has over twenty years of experience in computer science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence including having worked as a researcher at Xerox PARC on the Aspect-Oriented Programming Project and at Carnegie Mellon on the Mach Microkernel Project (the Mach kernel powers Apple’s iOS® and macOS® inherited from NeXT™). Chris has a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Prior to Botco.ai, Chris has served as EVP and CTO for KANA Software, Inc., a public software company; and has co-founded and served in senior roles in several private software companies. Chris was an early investor in WeatherLabs, Inc., AbsoluteClimo’s founders’ previous successful pioneering Internet and online weather services company.

Paul Owens

Paul Owens is currently Senior Vice President, Pension Policy with Ellement Consulting Group. Paul was previously Deputy Superintendent of Pensions with the Government of Alberta and was responsible for regulation of 700+ private and public sector pension plans in the Province of Alberta. Paul transitioned the regulatory environment from rules to principles based with a focus on pragmatic, client focused regulation. Paul was the founding CEO of a jointly-trusteed Canadian public sector pension plan with assets in excess of $5 billion covering 30,000 members.

Paul also aligned and integrated investments, liabilities, systems and governance into a functioning, low cost, value-added operation. He transitioned a union-management lay board with revolving membership from an operating governance style to a policy focus. He previously designed and managed 11 global pension plans for a leading Canadian bank and is known for successful board leadership with international not-for-profit organizations. He also has extensive experience in industry related teaching, course development, governance, advisory committees, conference presentations and writing.

Paul is the recipient of the Libby Slater Award from the International Pension and Benefits Lawyers Association and has given presentations on ESG and climate change to the Investments and Pensions Europe 2019 conference and to the University of New Brunswick Masters in Quantitative Investment Management program.

Paul enjoys taking guided walks with Wiley the grey wolf in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Paul believes wolves are a key part of the eco-system and he looks at the positive impact they have had when they were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park.

Thomas Schmitz

Thomas started his career in 1994 with Deutsche Bank, Germany, initially with Private Wealth Management and then Investment Banking. In 2000 he joined Enron Europe’s physical gas business and then moved to trading European power markets. He then worked in similar trading and sales roles for Aquila, BHP Billiton and BNP Paribas before joining Constellation Global Commodities as Head of Origination for Continental Europe. In 2009 Thomas relocated to Sydney, Australia, taking on the role of Global Head of Business Development for d-cyphaTrade (now ASX Energy).

In 2013 Thomas joined the European Energy Exchange AG where he initially ran their London office as Head of Sales – Clearing & ISV, Coal & Freight. In 2017 he was appointed Head of Sales EEX Group – Global Commodities; Member of the Executive Management Team of Cleartrade Exchange in Singapore; to lead EEX Group’s Global Commodities portfolio and leading the group’s expansion in Asia from Singapore.

Currently Thomas is Director of Energy Markets at Equis Australia. Equis has a track record of delivering lasting, renewable energy projects that provide sustainable benefits having developed over 220 renewable projects, totalling over 17GW, across Asia Pacific since 2010. Prior to Equis, Thomas was Head of Trading, Wholesale Markets & Commercial Analytics at Goldwind Australia, the World Leader in PMDD Turbine Technology. Thomas is also part of the Zero Carbon Project taking on responsibility for developing and launching the global green electricity marketplace.

Ajay Somani, PhD

Ajay Somani is a quantitative trader with fifteen years experience in the hedge fund industry in the financial hubs of Chicago and New York City. He has expertise in trading a variety of asset classes including energy, power, options, equities, futures and FX. Ajay uses his deep insight of market mechanics and machine learning techniques to power his algorithms which range from high frequency market making to lower frequency statistical arbitrage trades. Ajay grew up in India and studied for his undergraduate degree at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai. He earned his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he worked on fabricating 3D Integrated Circuits (ICs) and analyzing the environmental impact of the semiconductor manufacturing process. His side gig at MIT, which was his coursework in the financial technology option (FTO) program, led him to his later career path.

In his spare time, Ajay likes to play squash, watch football and make craft cocktails for his friends. He lives with his beautiful wife and two adorable kids in the cultural melting pot that is Jersey City.

Haleakala Volcano Silversword
Haleakalā Volcano Silversword image copyright 2002 Brendan Lane Larson