Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1541563
with the Regional Water Authority. ree finalists are now working with ClimateHaven to prepare pilot programs in Connecticut. Collectively, their technologies give the authority a range of potential tools — from autonomous underwater vehicles that inspect infrastructure, to biological sensors that detect pathogens and algae blooms, to robotic systems that feed data into analytics platforms predicting maintenance needs. e entire Water Tech Future Forum was exactly the kind of stage Lee wants to provide so all of ClimateHaven's startups can find their footing and their audience. And that's exactly the kind of "connector" role Lee has pointed her career toward. But the shiing focus of grant dollars from Washington has changed the realities for ClimateHaven's portfolio of startups. "We're still waiting for a million-dollar (federal) transportation grant," Lee said. It's the kind of situation that will test Lee's skills in finding innovative solutions for getting these new technologies to market. Her background suggests she's up to the task. Big-picture thinking Lee is the daughter of a British mother and a Chinese father who had fled the mainland for Taiwan. ere were a lot of stops along the way west before her father settled in as a human rights lawyer at the United Nations. Her mother also is a lawyer. Lee recalls her years commuting from the New York City suburbs to the UN School — "a train, the subway and a bus," she recalls — as a factor in shaping her sense of independence and confidence. at experience also helped her earn early entry to Yale. Of course, speaking Mandarin and French may have helped too. She tells the story of returning home aer her first day on the New Haven campus. "I told my father I'd met the man I was going to marry," she recalls. Cooler heads prevailed and the then-17-year-old agreed to put a pin in that relationship. A few years later, she circled back and married that Yalie. ey've now been wed for 25 years. Along the way to getting her law degree from Columbia, Lee had a State Department internship at the UN, worked in the office of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and clerked for a federal appeals court judge. Aer graduation, she joined Davis Polk & Wardwell, a global law firm specializing in corporate law, tax and financial regulation, as an associate in mergers and acquisitions. ere she encountered an unfamiliar feeling: she wasn't positioned to excel. e firm prized meticulous attention to detail — a skill she had mastered — but her strengths, she realized, lay in big-picture thinking and relationship building. She needed a change. And a connection she had made while working on an M&A case soon opened a new path. Continued from previous page 1 4 C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 5