Join the Young Professionals to close 2022 with a festive holiday party at Maggiano’s Little Italy! We’ll be joined by Matt McIlwain to discuss insights on the economy, the business environment in Washington State and finding opportunity in challenging markets and WPC's Environment Center Director Todd Myers to discuss his new book Time to Think Small. 

Wine, beer, and appetizers will be served. 

Register below!

Meet our Speakers:

Matt Mcllwain:

Matt McIlwain is Managing Director at Madrona, where he is passionate about founders building companies that leverage applied machine learning and cloud computing to solve problems better than ever. They can be intelligent applications for enterprise or “intersections of innovation” — where life science and data science intersect.

Before joining Madrona in 2000, Matt was vice president of business process for the Genuine Parts Company (NYSE: GPC). He also was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in technology-driven sectors. Prior to that, he worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse.

Outside of Madrona, Matt was a board member (and previous chair) of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center for a decade and continues to serve on the Board of Advisors. He is also a board member of the Washington Policy Center. Matt enjoys adventures with his family, discussing public policy issues, and trying out new technologies. He is also an avid runner, Peloton biker, and Seahawks and Sounders fan.

Matt graduated from Dartmouth College and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has been on the Forbes Midas list and Top 100 Venture Capitalists by CB Insights and The New York Times several times. In 2017, Matt was named Emerging Company Director of the year by the Puget Sound Business Journal in partnership with the prestigious National Association of Corporate Directors’ Northwest chapter. In 2011, he received the Washington Policy Center’s Champion of Freedom Award.

Todd Myers:

With more than two decades in environmental policy, Todd Myers’s experience includes work on a range of environmental issues, including climate policy, forest health, old-growth forests, and salmon recovery. A former member of the executive team at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, he is a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council.

He is the author of “Time to Think Small: How nimble environmental technologies can solve the planet’s biggest problems,” which outlines how small technologies are empowering people to protect threatened wildlife species, reduce CO2 emissions, and reduce ocean plastic. His previous book “Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment” documented how our environmental policies are driven by a desire to look good rather than to help the environment.

His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Seattle Times, and USA Today, and he has appeared on numerous news networks including CNBC, Fox News, the BBC, and CNN. He served as vice president of the Northwest Association of Biomedical Research and received their Distinguished Service Award in 2018 for his support of bioscience. He has also served as president of the Prescription Drug Assistance Foundation, a nonprofit providing medicines to low-income patients.

In 2021, Myers served as president of his local beekeeping club in his quest to build an army of stinging insects at his command. He has a bachelor’s degree in politics from Whitman College and a master’s degree in Russian/International Studies from the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He and his wife Maria live in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state with 200,000 honeybees, and he claims to make an amazing pasta carbonara and an incredible dirty vodka martini with blue-cheese-stuffed olives.