Barbara Burger

Chevron Corporation

Vice President, Innovation & President, Chevron Technology Ventures

Barbara Burger, PhD., is Chevron’s Vice President of Innovation and President of Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV). CTV addresses Chevron’s business needs through the identification and integration of innovative externally developed technologies that strengthen Chevron’s business now and in the future. Barbara joined Chevron in 1987 as a research chemist and has held a number of management positions across International Marketing, Chemicals, Technology Marketing, Lubricants and Technology Ventures. She serves on the Board of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) Climate Investment LLP. Her many civic and industry affiliations include leadership positions with Houston Exponential, the Houston Symphony Society and the Rice University Corporate Innovation Advisory Board. Beyond Houston she serves on the leadership counsel for Cyclotron Road, the external advisory council for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the governing board of the MIT Energy Initiative, the MIT Visiting Committee as well as the Board of Oil and Gas Climate Initiative Climate Investment LLP. Burger is an active alumnus of the University of Rochester and the California Institute of Technology. She serves on Rochester’s Board of Trustees and the university’s River Campus Libraries National Council. In addition, at Rochester, she established the Barbara J. Burger Endowed Scholarship in the Sciences and founded the Barbara J. Burger iZone, where students generate, refine, and communicate ideas for social, cultural, community and economic impact. At Caltech, she supports graduate women in Chemistry that aim to contribute through careers beyond academia and serves on the Strategic Advisory Board for the Resnick Sustainability Institute. Barbara holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Rochester, a doctoral degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and an academic honor MBA in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sessions With Barbara Burger

Tuesday, 8 March

  • 10:30am - 11:10am (CST) / 08/mar/2022 04:30 pm - 08/mar/2022 05:10 pm

    New Business Models for Bringing Climate Tech Solutions to Scale
    Panel Diversity & Inclusion/Future of Workforce

    As the energy system decarbonizes, it is becoming more complex and more interconnected. Today’s emerging energy system is fundamentally different, forcing companies to compete globally. New technologies will have to be developed to meet climate ambitions, evolving energy uses, and emerging new supply chains. How will corporate structures and business models change as new opportunities, but also new threats, emerge? What new business models can scale new technologies to support decarbonization efforts? What opportunities and challenges will companies face?

  • 11:40am - 12:30pm (CST) / 08/mar/2022 05:40 pm - 08/mar/2022 06:30 pm

    How Is the Capital Transition Changing the Energy Business?
    Panel Finance & Investment/Trading & Risk Management/ESG

    Capital allocation for the energy sector has undergone a sweeping reorientation in the past two years. The shift is more complex than moving into cleantech and out of fossil fuels, incorporating increasingly sophisticated understanding of climate risk and intense engagement with shifting value within business models. Having raised huge volumes of capital for energy transition plays in the last two years, investors and their counterparts are now deploying that money into markets and capital expenditures (Capex), presaging significant shifts across the energy ecosystem. What is the current state of energy transition investing? How does the investment horizon influence sectoral focus in analyzing investments or deploying capital? Does cleantech benefit from longer investment horizons? What level of returns are currently found in cleantech or clean infrastructure? What can we expect a decade from now?

Thursday, 10 March

  • 12:30pm - 01:10pm (CST) / 10/mar/2022 06:30 pm - 10/mar/2022 07:10 pm

    Advancing Energy Innovation: Growth of the ecosystem
    Panel Innovation & Technology

    Originating in the Silicon Valley, the term “Innovation Ecosystem is the evolving set of actors, activities, and artifacts, and the institutions and relations, including complementary and substitute relations, that are important for the innovative performance of an actor or a population of actors.” Creating energy sector innovation ecosystems has been challenging due to a multitude of participants, access to capital, role of governments, and challenges scaling promising technologies. With the need to develop and scale new technologies to achieve net zero by 2050, energy innovation will be the linchpin. What are critical factors for creating successful clean energy/tech innovation centers? Where are the most successful cleantech innovation ecosystems, and what makes them successful? Does the nature of the energy system make it less receptive to new ideas and innovations? How could governments incentivize these ecosystems? How could the pace of knowledge transfer be accelerated from innovation to deployment? With future growth in energy demand and investments centered in developing countries, how can new ecosystems be created in these countries?

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