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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Lessons from Innovation and ClimateTech with Luke Oberlander 6-10-26
00:12:28
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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:30]
B
Hello and welcome to the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. My name is Chanel Bunger and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Luke Oberlander, a client based fellow who joins the podcast today to share insights into his background, trends he's keeping on, and a bit more. Luke, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [00:47]
C
Yeah, Chanel, thanks so much for having me. Really appreciate the opportunity and been looking forward to the conversation.
- [00:52]
B
Well, it's great to have you. And could you get us started out by introducing yourself and talking a bit about your background?
- [00:59]
C
Yeah, happy to. So I had the unique opportunity to spend nearly a decade growing alongside a healthcare technology startup. So during that time just helped support the company's growth really from an early stage startup into an organization serving health systems, employers, health plans nationwide, really before an acquisition. So I kind of to start the story, graduated from Tulane with a degree in business management and more of an entrepreneur focus. And so I knew I wanted to pursue startups and around that time I joined a company called Recovery One which focused on virtual musculoskeletal care. So helping patients really recover from injuries and surgeries through digital physical therapy and remote care. So joined very early and ended up wearing a lot of hats. Over the years I started in more of the customer support area, helping patients navigate the platform, making sure they were successful and then moved much more into implementations, customer success and eventually more growth oriented initiatives. One of the unique aspects of being at a startup is just getting that exposure to every part of the business. So I worked with again all different aspects in the healthcare system being provider groups, health systems, employers, brokers, channel partners and really helped deploy our technology improve that adoption and build process is to help bring that solution to the market. And looking back, I guess what I really learned was how difficult organizational change can be. Technology is important, but honestly success often just comes down to the people, the workflows, the incentives, the adoption really. And after almost a decade at Recovery One they were acquired and I found myself Sort of at a natural inflection point in my career. So created this opportunity to reflect on what I wanted in the next chapter of my life. And rather than moving directly into another health care role, I decided just to invest some time exploring an area, yeah, I'd been interested in, which is climate and sustainability. So I actually joined the Climate Based fellowship in late 2025 and just started diving deeper into the different avenues of, of the sustainability ecosystem and became particularly interested in climate tech, the renewable energy transition, nature based solutions. And what excites me about climate is I see many of the same challenges and experiences that I did in health care. There's an incre amount of technology being developed, but the question increasingly isn't whether they work, it's how do we deploy them faster, scale them effectively, help organizations adopt them successfully. And that's really where I see my experience fitting in and where I'm excited to contribute next.
- [03:44]
B
Great. Well, thank you so much for that introduction. And now moving forward, could you talk a bit about the trends that you're watching either in healthcare tech, climate tech, startup space, or just whatever you're keeping an eye on right now?
- [03:57]
C
Yeah. So I was actually at SF Climate Week recently, being from the Bay Area, and one of the things that struck me was just how much the conversation has shifted from awareness much more to execution. I'd say five years ago, many of the discussions just centered on whether organizations should decarbonize. And today much more of the conversations are how to deploy those solutions faster, finance them, integrate them into existing infrastructure and really scale them operationally. So the challenge is no longer I'd say what should we do? It's how do we do it at scale. And a few themes definitely stood out to me. I'd say the first is data and software just making climate action more precise. Whether it's the satellite monitoring of methane leaks or grid analytics, or AI driven forecasting, organizations just have access to better information than ever before. And we're just moving from much more broad estimates, it feels like, to much more targeted decision making, which I think is so important. I'd say second is much more just on that adoption and deployment remaining being that biggest challenge. In many cases, the technology again already exists, and that was said multiple times at SF Climate Weeks. It's just those bottlenecks are the permitting, the financing, the customer adoption, the regulation, and just that operational execution that really helps scale organizations. And I'd say third is the most successful solutions just increasingly tend to be leading with economics rather than just climate benefits. So solar Became mainstream because it got cheaper. Heat pumps gained traction because they lower utility bills. Businesses and consumers typically just adopt those solutions when they create immediate value. So coming from healthcare, that definitely resonated me. And that again, technology adoption is just rarely driven by the technology itself, but more of the value people receive from it. And I think that's why I think the companies that ultimately will win in climate tech won't necessarily be the companies with the most impressive technology, but the ones that can make the adoption the easiest for folks.
- [06:19]
B
Got it, got it. And what parallels are you seeing between climate and healthcare, especially when organizations are trying to adopt new technologies?
- [06:30]
C
Yeah, so it's a great question. And I'd say one of the biggest similarities I see between healthcare and climate is that both require sort of making decisions today that may not fully pay off for years. In healthcare, whether you're investing in more of that preventative care, the physical therapy, wellness programs, new care delivery models, the best outcome often just doesn't show up next quarter. Unfortunately, they show up years later through those improved health outcomes. The lower cost, the better quality of life. Climate seems similar. Many of the investments being made today on the grid, the electrification, energy storage, decarbonization, all have those long time horizons. So the benefits compound over time, but still requirements that immediate action today. And what that has reinforced to me is just the importance of balancing more of that. I'd say that long term vision with near term value. Organizations still need to see progress along the way. Whether you're a patient committing to physical therapy or a company investing in sustainability initiatives, people need to see evidence that they're actually moving in the right direction. So I think innovation is partly about having a conviction in a long term outcome, but decision making is about breaking that journey into much more measurable milestones that actually create confidence and momentum. So that's something that I guess I see repeatedly in healthcare and I think it's equally relevant in climate tech, where many of the most important challenges will take years or even decades really to solve.
- [08:08]
B
That makes a lot of sense. And now we've talked about the trends that you're keeping an eye on. And with all those in mind, what are you most focused on and excited about going into the second half of 2026?
- [08:19]
C
Yeah, I guess it's a great question. What excites me most are those technologies sitting between innovation and implementation. What's drawing me is really that the energy transition in areas around energy infrastructure, grid modernization, software platforms that are just helping organizations operate more efficiently. And what kind of fascinates me about that is that it's just one of the largest, I'd say, operational transformations happening anywhere in the world right now. We're rethinking how we generate, how we distribute, how we store and consume energy and doing so while demand just continues to grow as we use more technology. So that's definitely something that, that I'm very kind of focused and excited to see how we use technology to fix these problems while also updating our infrastructure, which always takes quite a bit of time. And then beyond energy, I'm also interested in nature based solutions and the built environment because both really represent opportunities to create measurable impact at massive scale. I feel like. And ultimately I'm just attracted to those organizations that are kind of focusing on solving those practical input implementation challenges because that's where I think some of the greatest leverage exists today in the ecosystem for sure.
- [09:42]
B
Absolutely. And now with all of your experience in technology startups and healthcare, I'm curious what advice you would give to evolving leaders or young professionals trying to make an impact in their career.
- [09:54]
C
Yeah, there's definitely a few pieces of advice that I could give coming from the space. I'd say first is absolutely understanding that the operational reality strategy to me only matters if it can actually be be executed, which was a lot of my, my career. So to me the best leaders understand how decisions affect the people in the processes responsible for actually delivering on those outcomes. And I'd say second is to stay really close to those customers. I've spent a lot of time in those customer facing roles and customers will tell you where those opportunities and problems are if you're really willing to listen and focus your solution on that. And I think that's always a great place to start. A couple more is just kind of learning how to work cross functionally. I think some of the most meaningful outcomes I've seen happen really when the product, the engineering, the operations, the sales and customer teams are all very aligned on the same goals and moving forward with that vision in mind. And I'd say lastly is don't be afraid to ask questions. I'd say some of the most valuable moments in my career came from admitting that I didn't understand something and asking for clarification. And if you're confused, chances are other people are too. And don't be afraid to be that quote unquote dumb person in the room and ask that question because it'll bring so much more information to you and ideas forward that I think are always beneficial for the masses. So to me those are really the advice I'd give to leaders, along with finding a mentor that just really invests in that time to help you develop and challenge your thinking and just help you accelerate your growth throughout your career.
- [11:44]
B
I love that. That's excellent advice. Well, Luke, I want to thank you for your time today, but before I let you go, is there anything else that listeners should know?
- [11:52]
C
It's a good question. I'd say I'm just incredibly optimistic about where the industry is headed, both in healthcare and more in the climate sustainability space. There's so many, you know, talented people building practical solutions to real problems. And I think my biggest takeaway from this past year is that, yeah, we're just moving very much in the right direction. No matter what you hear in the news, know that there's, you know, a lot of smart people working on the hard problems that we need in order to deploy and actually, you know, take us to the next level and turn a corner. I'd say so just continue to, you know, explore opportunities where you can contribute. And so excited myself just to keep learning, meeting people, and seeing where those conversations lead. So very grateful for the opportunity and to share my story today. And thanks so much, Chanel.
- [12:43]
B
Nicely said. Well, I love ending on a positive note and just want to thank you for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Becker business and Becker private equity podcast. Thank you so much.
- [12:54]
C
Thank you.