Emilie Mazzacurati is the founding partner of Tailwind Futures, a strategic venture fund focused on technologies addressing climate-driven and systemic disruptions. She has 20 years of experience working as a climate tech entrepreneur and investor, bringing deep expertise in physical risk and supply chains.

The following points summarise the key themes for corporate venture investors that emerged from her keynote session.

  • Supply chains are increasingly exposed to overlapping stressors — geopolitical conflict, climate events, regulation, cyber threats and labour disruption — which compound rather than act independently. 
  • Recent examples (e.g., Strait of Hormuz disruption, Panama Canal drought, Red Sea attacks) illustrate how predictable and unpredictable shocks combine, driving sharp cost increases (e.g., >$400k per voyage) and widespread operational disruption. 
  • The scale of the opportunity is significant: around 45% of corporate growth has been lost due to supply chain disruptions over the past decade, and around 10% of global GDP depends on logistics. 
  • Mazzacurati frames resilience not just as risk mitigation but as a source of competitive advantage, enabling firms to anticipate disruption and outperform peers. 
  • Three key investment verticals emerge: 
    • Material substitution and onshoring: replacing vulnerable commodities with locally produced alternatives (e.g., advanced materials replacing copper). 
    • Predictive analytics: modelling supply chain networks to forecast disruptions and simulate cascading effects across ports, shipping routes and industries. 
    • Insurance innovation: new parametric products to transfer risks not well covered by traditional insurance. 
  • Case studies highlight: 
    • Advanced materials (e.g., carbon nanotube-based alternatives) that reduce dependency on scarce commodities. 
    • Complex systems modelling that predicts second-order impacts of disruptions across global logistics networks. 
  • For corporate investors, the implication is clear: resilience technologies underpin future infrastructure, workforce protection and industrial systems, offering both strategic protection and new growth avenues. 
  • The broader thesis extends beyond supply chains to infrastructure, energy and workforce resilience, all requiring significant capital deployment and innovation. 

This summary was generated by AI and lightly edited by GCV staff.