Ep. 160: Jim Kapsis, Founder & CEO of The Ad Hoc Group

Today's guest is Jim Kapsis, Founder & CEO of The Ad Hoc Group. The Ad Hoc Group is a focused consultancy working to help startups succeed in complex regulated markets, such as energy, mobility, and smart cities. Jim founded The Ad Hoc Group to help startups and investors scale innovative businesses to solve our most pressing climate and sustainability challenges. Jim has been a Senior Advisor to Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet's urban venture, and spent six years building and leading the global regulatory team at Opower. Before entering the private sector, Jim was a climate negotiator in the Obama Administration, where he helped broker the Copenhagen Climate Accord in 2009. He has experience working across governmental agencies at the State Department, Defense Department, and Congress. Jim is also the co-host of CityLab's podcast, Technopolis, about how technology disrupts, remakes, and sometimes overruns our cities. In this episode, Jim walks me through his work in the public and private climate sectors and what motivated him to found The Ad Hoc Group. We dive into the company's mission and the bridge it's creating in the climate space. Jim also explains why policy is critical for early-stage climatetech and sustainability startups. Jim is a fantastic guest and has a wealth of knowledge for those interested in regulation, policy, and climatetech startups. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded May 18th, 2021