Juliana Garaizar is the Head of Houston Incubator and VP of Innovation for Greentown Labs. A Board Member of the Angel Capital Association, Juliana is a Lead Investor of the Portfolia Rising America Fund that invests in BIPOC and LGTBQ founders, as well as the Portfolia Consumer and Rising Tide Funds. She is also an Advisory Board Member of the University of Houston Cougar Venture Fund, the Houston Diversity Fund, the Investors of Color network and Impulse4women. Juliana is a Kauffman Fellow, and received MBAs from the London Business School and Haas School of Business in Berkeley, specializing in Entrepreneurship.
In this conversation, Mosby and Juliana do a deep dive into entrepreneurship, climate tech, the energy transition, and Houston’s place at the intersection of these threads. Juliana talks about being from the Basque Region in Spain, her father’s adventures travelling around the world, her early studies in France, and how those experiences have informed her life. Juliana discusses her time in Singapore working first as an International Trade Consultant for the Trade Commission of Spain and then for Citigroup where she started thinking about going to business school. Mosby asks Juliana about her mission in Houston, what Greentown Labs—an incubator for climatetech start-up companies—offers the city, and what the city offers the world. They discuss why entrepreneurs might be the most important key in navigating climate change.