Featured Speaker Connects are an amazing chance to join a limited number of attendees and have an intimate discussion with some of our Featured Speakers. Come brainstorm new ideas and engage in conversation in this unique opportunity. Advance sign-up is required, and access is limited to Interactive and Platinum badge holders. An RSVP does not guarantee a spot. If selected to participate you will receive a confirmation via email.

Colette Pichon Battle is an award-winning lawyer and climate justice organizer. She is a trusted voice in the climate justice and Black liberation movements, and her work focuses on creating spaces for frontline communities to gather and advance climate strategies that help us steward the water, energy, and land. A generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, she is a 2019 Obama Fellow and is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the 2023 Heinz Award for the Environment, the 2022 Catalyst Award from Rachel’s Network, and the 2022 William O. Douglas Award.
Colette is the co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth and is a former corporate lawyer. Internationally, Colette has gained recognition for her outstanding use of the legal and judicial process to achieve environmental goals. After 17 years of work leading the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy’s development of programming focused on equitable climate resilience in the Gulf South, in 2022, she expanded her vision into Taproot Earth, inspired by her learnings with GCCLP and movement partners across the South.
When not working to save the world, you can find Colette spending her free time in rural Louisiana, amongst the land, waters, and people who have poured love and nourishment into her from birth.