Event

You’re invited to Penn Alumni Water Forum’s Speaker Spotlight, a special edition of our monthly PAWF meeting where we’ll hear from speaker Rekha Menon-Varma, Managing Partner at Vertaeon, LLC, and moderator Marissa Rosen, founder and owner of Climate Social, LLC. 

Water risk has become a strategic business risk and a key part of the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and climate change agenda of companies. This goes beyond the realm of sustainability departments and to the core of investor and community interests. Manufacturing companies and their supply chains with assets in water-stressed areas face reputational, financial, and operational risks. During this talk, Rekha will review recent trends and progress or lack thereof, from corporate, industry and country perspectives. Another related and important topic that will be discussed is the impact of increasing and more severe natural disaster events.  It is imperative to track and analyze these risks in the entire ecosystem which can lead to effective risk mitigation or business continuity planning. Rekha will briefly discuss how Vertaeon is utilizing their SaaS risk platforms to do this to support manufacturing clients.
 

Speakers:

Rekha Menon-Varma, Wharton, MBA 2006, is a Managing Partner as Vertaeon, LLC. At Vertaeon, Rekha has brought business insights to the forefront, in envisioning and executing the development of innovative Risk, ESG and Market analytics SaaS platforms. Vertaeon is a thought-leader in this area with a focus on manufacturing sectors, including automotive.  Rekha has extensive leadership experience in the deployment of Enterprise and Supply Chain Risk programs, Sustainability programs, CEO and Board-level reporting, and growth strategy assessments including M&A/JV options, at NV Bekaert SA and at Vertaeon.  Prior to this, she worked in the US Chemical Industry, at Lyondell Chemical, in multiple marketing and engineering roles of increasing responsibility.

Rekha received MS in chemical engineering from Auburn Univ. at Auburn, AL and MBA from the Wharton School at Univ. of Pennsylvania. She is the Co-President of Wharton Club of Atlanta and a member of the 100+ Women Strong program at Auburn University Engineering. Rekha was part of the alumni advisory group for Wharton IGEL initiative and is a frequent speaker at national conferences.  
 

Marissa Rosen, Penn, MES 2012 is the founder and owner of Climate Social, a niche communications and marketing firm that builds compelling brands, promotes high profile events, and engages digital communities through social media, public relations, copywriting, branding, and content creation.  Marissa is a recognized social media influencer; she has spoken on podcasts and training programs. Previously, she worked for Sustainable Brands, as well as Wharton SBDC and PennDesign at the Philadelphia Energy Efficient Buildings Hub. Since 2015, Climate Social’s clients have included TriplePundit, WBCSD, USFRA, South Pole, Net Impact, Fermata Energy, LanzaTech, and Penn’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, amongst dozens of climate and sustainability-focused organizations.