Pivotal Leaders launches talent search

Gregg Semler

Pivotal Leaders, a community-nominated and peer-selected network of top prospective clean technology business leaders in the Northwest, is a unique talent search launched in late February. The leaders will be chosen using a two-step process of community nomination and peer selection, with a final list published in mid-June.

The goal of Pivotal Leaders is to identify and recognize the top prospective CEO and CTO talent in the region and establish a business network to support these leaders in furthering entrepreneurial development in clean technology. The nominees can come from any source, including companies, universities or government. They do not need to be in Northwest, but must have ties to the region.

“The Northwest has a very strong reputation in sustainability, says Gregg Semler, managing director at Portland-based Pivotal Investments and one of the founders of Pivotal Leaders. “We want to build on that and really build cleantech companies here so we can start to build the economy and jobs in the Northwest in this important sector.”

By increasing awareness of some of the Northwest’s top entrepreneurial talent, Pivotal Leaders aims to expand access to resources that would help stimulate further investment in innovation and development of clean technology jobs in the Northwest.

“We can do so much here in the Northwest because of our early adopter market mentality,” Semler says. “We need to highlight these business leaders so they can attract human capital as well as investment capital. ... We need people to start thinking about how to create solutions for these large markets—energy, air, water, green building materials, sustainable agriculture and forestry—and until that happens, we're going to lag the rest of the country in terms of business formations.”

Pivotal Leaders was formed by venture capital firm Pivotal Investments and is supported by presenting sponsors Perkins Coie, Ernst & Young and the Portland Development Commission. The winners of the Pivotal Leaders search will attend four to five networking events throughout the Northwest, and meet with one another monthly starting in June.