Vanessa Z Chan was appointed by President Biden to serve as the Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office of Technology Transitions at the U.S. Department of Energy. She reports directly to the Secretary of Energy and her department's mission is to drive private sector uptake of clean energy technologies and to use the $500B from IRA and BIL to catalyze the $23Trillion in the Private Sector. In addition to quarterbacking DOE’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff, creating the new Adoption Readiness Level framework used to manage the risk of DOE’s investments, she also serves on the Credit Review Board for the Loan Program’s Office the decision making board for LPO’s $400B loan authority and is an ex-officio board member of DOE’s new Foundation for Energy Security Innovation which she stood up. She currently is on a Leave of Absence from PENN where she was transforming engineering education as the Jonathan and Linda Brassington Professor of Practice and Undergraduate Chair of the Materials Science & Engineering department. Director Chan is an innovator with over two decades of experience driving commercialization for organizations with significant R&D investments through strategy, performance management and culture change at all levels. As a former McKinsey & Company partner with an MIT Ph.D., she has helped her clients across a diverse set of industries grow at the interface of technology and business. She is an experienced Venture Board Director for Vanguard and United Technology Corporation and a board member at multiple start-ups. Director Chan has broken many ceilings during her career. She was the first woman and the first East Asian elected partner in McKinsey’s North American Chemicals practice. The first Professor of Practice to be endowed a scholarly chair in the history of Penn Engineering and the first Asian and first Professor of Practice to be appointed Undergraduate Chair for a department. Director Chan is also dynamic speaker who gave PENN's SEAS Commencement Address in 2018 and again in 2021. She inspires people & organizations to innovate, to reframe failure and is a well regarded keynote speaker.