Demex Group: Steve Bennett

Climate Tech Cocktails

Fellow Climate Warriors, welcome to another episode of Climate Tech Cocktails.

In this episode, we’re grabbing a drink with Steve Bennett, co-founder, and chief climate officer of the Demex Group - the first company to offer comprehensive solutions for assessing and transferring climate risks at scale.

Demex uses modeling to evaluate weather risk and helps clients transfer that risk to maintain their resilience.

Steve’s background as a weather person at The Weather Channel and then Scripps Institution of Oceanography led to founding his first software firm, EarthRisk Technologies.

Continuing his mission to bridge the gap between weather volatility and business operations, Steve joined founder Ed Byrns in creating the Demex Group to meet the ever-increasing need of businesses to understand and guard against catastrophic and damaging weather events.

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We’re grateful to have you with us, fighting the good fight with a cool beverage in hand.

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📝Show Notes Below👇

🎧 New podcast episode:

Steve Bennett, co-founder, and chief climate officer of the Demex Group

“We link the weather in an area to the economic impact. The core of our technology is really about pricing the risk using a climate appraisal; we look at what parts of a client’s business are affected by weather by working with first-party data, determining the relevant weather characteristics, running a baseline scenario and a climate scenario, and comparing cost. This allows us to price the risk, producing a premium for an insurance policy that will protect the customer.”

- Steve Bennett on the special sauce that Demex offers its clients

Find Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephendbennett

And his company’s site: https://thedemexgroup.com

🥃 What we drank during the episode: SeaFall Chardonnay, 2017 Sonoma (me) and a Midnight Manhattan (Steve).

Enjoy the show!

📻 Listen to the episode on Spotify,Apple Podcasts,Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Audacy, and Substack👉

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Companies/Startups mentioned during the show:

🌪️Demex

🌪️Scripps

🌪️Castello Di Amorosa

🌪️EarthRisk Technologies

🌪️NOAA’s Billion Dollar Weather Event Research

🌪️NRON

🌪️Citadel

🌪️WORAM New York

🌪️DHL

🌪️Everstream Analytics

🌪️San Diego Gas and Electric

🌪️Ten Percent Happier

🌪️Basecamp

🌪️Verisk Analytics

🌪️Branch Insurance

🌪️ StormPulse

🌪️RiskPulse

People/places/things mentioned during the show:

🧠Sonoma

🧠Midnight Manhattan

🧠Climate Change’s Effect on Wine

🧠Duke University Energy Center

🧠Yellowstone’s Weather Event

🧠Insurance Weather Limitations and State Interventions

🧠National Flood Insurance Program

🧠Colorado River Deadpool Possibility

🧠Hoover Dam

🧠Lake Mead

🧠Lake Powel

🧠MegaDrought

🧠Las Vegas and Los Angeles Water Supply Vulnerabilities

🧠Alfalfa Crop in California Valley

🧠Yangtze River Drought in China

🧠Europe’s Drought

🧠Climate Migration

🧠Wet Bulb

🧠Corn Sweat in Illinois

🧠Hurricane Bob

🧠Jeff Skilling

🧠Tom Skilling

🧠Ken Griffin

🧠Bermuda

🧠Ed Byrns

🧠The Cold Event in Texas

🧠Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

🧠You Play to Win the Game by Herm Edwards

🧠Ten Percent Happier by Dan Harris

🧠Steve Lekas from Verisk Analytics

🧠Out of Beta Podcast

🧠Matt Wensing

-TIMESTAMPS-

[0:00] Intro

[1:01] Drink of the Show

[6:12] A Little about Wine and A Little about Raleigh

[8:30] Catastrophic and Costly Weather

[14:14] Home Insurance and Climate

[18:49] The Colorado River

[24:54] My Paris Heat Wave Story

[28:14] What is Climate Migration

[36:08] Climate Pioneers, Let’s Head to Vermont

[37:28] Steve’s Weather Expertise and Career

[53:03] The Entrepreneurial Evolution

[61:50] How Demex Meets a Growing Need

[65:51] How Weather Models Work

[72:44] Demex’s Special Sauce

[74:32] 3 Books

[80:40] 3 Start-ups

[84:23] Final Thoughts and Conclusion