👋 60 Climate Thought Leaders to Know this Earth Day

This Earth Day we put the spotlight on 60 Climate thought leaders who are on a mission to engage and educate global communities driving climate action forward.

Their collective efforts and combined impact show the urgent need for action is possible and offers hope for a brighter future. 

Meet the climate voices driving innovation and investment through communications, capital, community-building and more.

Without further ado…

Climate Changemakers

🌬️ Lubomila Jordanova 
Founder & CEO of Plan A

Lubomila is on a mission to educate the global Climate community on decarbonisation and enable thousands of businesses to reach their net-zero and ESG goals. 

🥗 Julia Stamberger 
CEO and Co-Founder, The Planting Hope Company
Board of Directors, Plant Based Food Association

Julia is an innovation entrepreneur with a 20-year career in the emerging better-for-you food & beverage space. She has directly created and launched myriad brands and supported multiple successful food and beverage brands.

🍓 Jesse Kahn
Co-founder and COO of Brightly Ventures

Jesse leads the operations and growth of a first-to-market service that creates value at the intersection of food waste and climate change, with over 20 years of experience in the food and beverage industry.

🌪️ Dan Sherrard-Smith
Founder and CEO of MotherTree 

Dan educates consumers on the impact of their money when it’s in current accounts, savings, and pensions, mortgages, insurance and broadband and launched a platform to better inform them.

🌳 Thomas Panton
Founder of Canopey.com

Thomas launched a platform to streamline the sustainable shopping journey with verified sustainable products in one marketplace with impact data and is co-creator of The Topic podcast, with Nadiah Arif. 

☁️ René Schäfer 
Co-Founder at senken

René is a building digital economy, platform-based business models and the impact of future technologies, exploring new trends and their impact on socio-technological systems. He shares regular graphs and visualisations in Climate Trends to the German-speaking network.

🗺️ Nat Bullard
Managing Director at Business Climate

Nat has spent nearly two decades working on two essential drivers of the 21st century: deep decarbonization of the global economy, and the business of climate. His BloombergNEF weekly writing reached almost 300,000 subscribers and he is now an independent advisor, strategy facilitator, keynote speaker and board presenter on deep decarbonization technology, policy, markets, and strategy.

🐳 Mathias Boissonot 
CEO and Co-Founder at Handprint 

By enabling millions of businesses to become regenerative, Mathias is building a leading Regeneration as a service platform in Asia and is an advocate for restoring natural ecosystems that are critical for planetary health.

NatureBased Leaders

🐞 Oliver Dauert 
Founder of Wildya and Wild Business Mates 

Oliver is on a mission to turn eco-anxiety into action through mental fitness coaching thanks to the best R&D team in the world, nature. 

🌾 Elena Doms 
Head of Earth Plus

As well as cleaning soils from pollution, capture CO2 and creating a circular economy through nature-based solutions, Elena works on global projects, interviews experts and runs a video series on ClimateTech news.

🧑‍🌾 Philippe Birker 
Co-Founder at Climate Farmers

Philippe helps the transition towards a regenerative future by supporting regenerative farmers in Europe in their work to regenerate our soils through climate farmers.

🌿 Matthew Hayek 
Assistant Professor at New York University

Matthew quantifies how plants, animals, and technologies can slow down or hasten climate change and then communicates this knowledge across sectors to address the urgent challenge of climate change and its impacts on planetary health.

Talent to watch

🌱 Clover Hogan 
Founder & Executive Director at Force of Nature

Clover is leading global research on climate anxiety, and delivers programmes to young people in 50+ countries to help them take action and works with businesses, policy-makers and educators to place young people at the heart of decisions affecting their future.

🎬 Felipe Andres Fontecilla Gutierrez
Climate Action Director at 2811

Felipe works with young people to build capacity to act and advocate on a wide range of intersecting topics across climate justice, intersectional feminism, and peace. Through education he creates change through community organizing, project management, workshops development and leadership, teaching and multidisciplinary artistic work. 

💥 Sophia Kianni 
Founder and President at Climate Cardinals

Sophia launched Climate Cardinals, the world’s largest youth-led climate nonprofit, with 14,000 volunteers in 80+ countries. She is also the co-founder of Phia, a forthcoming digital fashion platform. She is the youngest United Nations advisor in US history and was most recently appointed to serve on the EPA’s National Youth Advisory Council.

Circular Economy

🔁 Harald Friedl
CEO at Circle Economy

Harald addresses the "lack of awareness" gap which is holding back the accelerated transition to a circular economy and is on a mission to inspire 111 million people about the circular economy by ensuring all countries adopt circular economy strategies & action plans, providing businesses with circular economy strategies and helping people reconnect to themselves & nature.

⭕ Vojtech Vosecky 
Founder at The Circular Economist

Vojtech is a leading circular economy advocates in Europe, in pursuit of a world without waste and he has been working with the biggest cities, companies, and nations around the world to make it happen. His experience comes from co-founding a successful think tank called the Institute of Circular Economy, as well as working on related issues in the European Parliament.

📦 Sonalie Figueiras and Luc des Vallières 
Co-Founders at Source Green

Sonalie, a sustainability expert, food futurist and eco-powerhouse has been inspiring global audiences for over a decade with practical steps on how to fight climate change.

Along with Luc who combines his experience in sales, market research and financial analysis, he is an avid zero-waster on a lifetime mission to fight marine plastic waste.

Climate Media and Community

🧬 John Cumbers 
Founder and CEO at SynBioBeta

John has been leading the global activity hub for the synthetic biology industry for over 11 years and is on a mission is to connect, educate, and inspire the community of innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers who are shaping the future of biology.

📝 Shyla Raghav 
Chief Climate Officer at TIME and Co-Founder TIME CO2

Shyla is passionate about accelerating climate action and nature conservation via technology, radical collaboration, market innovation, policy development, and elevating local leadership. 

🌍 Tim Steppich 
CEO and Founder of ClimateU 

Tim brings his experience as a ClimateTech investor to build ClimateU and is on a mission to shift millions of people and billions in required capital into the European climate sector. Through community building, data and insights, ClimateU's mission is to show any organisation or individual, how they can maximize their climate impact and how to best get involved with the sector.

💰 Sophie Purdom
Managing Partner at Planeteer Capital & Co-Founder at CTVC

Sophie invests in and supports early-stage climate tech founders & their companies via Planeteer Capital, and writes CTVC for 60,000+ subscribers. Before that she launched an ESG fund, published a book on sustainable investing, and helped found an agtech startup that raised +$65m.

🗞️ Helena Bottemiller Evich
Founder and Editor in Chief at Food Fix

Helena previously led coverage of food and agriculture at POLITICO for nearly a decade; she now runs an online publication about food policy in Washington and beyond.

📖 Thomas Kostigen 
Author at Cool Foods

Thomas is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and journalist in Climate. He founded the Climate Survivalist column for USA Today and has written for numerous publications, including The Washington Post, National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal. 

🎤 Michael Liebreich 
Managing Partner, Ecopragma Capital

Michael is a speaker, analyst, writer, advisor and investor in the future economy. He is also host of Cleaning Up, a podcast on leadership in an age of climate change. 

Ben James
Founder's Associate at Axle Energy

Ben is a C’’’’’limateTech specialist, and following his experience at World Fund and Octopus Energy, he now writes ClimateTech guides and a blog on decarbonisation to inform and inspire Climate enthusiasts.

💟 Leone Baron 
Community Lead at MCJ Collective

Leone is interested in how technology and community can connect the dots of climate action and is passionate about helping businesses (particularly FMCG) take steps to reduce their environmental impact, and helping individuals take action via their work.

🖊️ Ketan Joshi 
Senior Associate at Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC) 

Keitan is a prolific, energised, data-driven writer who's been tracking climate and energy for ten years. He writes for media outlets, consults to organisations working on climate and uses social media to dive head first into modern climate issues.

🙌 Christine Gould 
Founded Thought For Food

Christine is currently working on a stealth project at the intersection of agrifood and climate. As a community builder, she brought together 30,000 innovator talents in 183 countries, and accelerated and launched 100+ science and tech-based startups across the value chain that have raised $300m+.

🎤 Freya Pratty
Senior Reporter at Sifted 

Freya covers all things ClimateTech, writing weekly climate newsletters and working on investigations, few people know the ins and out of climate like Freya.

Nick van Osdol
Founder and Editor in Chief at Keep Cool

Nick tells underpriced stories and essential reads at the intersection of climate and business through his newsletter, Keep Cool.

Startup Growth

🚀 Sean O'Sullivan
Managing General Partner and Founder at SOSV

With over $1.5B in assets under management, Sean is at the forefront of SOSV’s world-leading startup development programs by funding 100+ new startups per year. He helps SOSV-backed founders go further & faster and creates technology to solve real problems for real human beings.

🤝 Jamil Wyne and Suma Reddy 
Founders of Riffle Ventures and the Climate Tech Bootcamp

As advisors, investors, and educators focusing on climate entrepreneurship and investment around the world, Jamil and Suma are working at the intersection of entrepreneurship and innovation.

💡 Jorge Vega Matos 
Director at The Edge, Unseen, In-Between

Jorge supports companies and organisations with the capacity for widespread, positive, systematic impact. Having worked across decarbonization, the blue economy, social justice, and solidarity in transitioning economies and societies, Jorge makes climate innovation for a broader audience through communication and designs.

👋 Richard Brubaker 
Founder and Managing Partner at Collective Responsibility

Richard has spent the last 20 years in Asia working to engage, inspire and equip those around him to take their first step. He has overseen the development and execution of more than 250 projects focused on solving the social, environmental, and economic challenges that are faced in Asia.

🐾 Erik Stadigh 
Co-Founder and CEO at Lune

Erik is an entrepreneur, angel investor and business executive helping businesses build a climate positive legacy. He brings his experience as a Partner at Crane Venture Partners and as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to support startups.

Investment

💸 Chris Sacca 
Founder and Chairman at Lowercarbon Capital

As an accomplished venture investor, company advisor, and entrepreneur, Chris manages a portfolio of 70+ start-ups as well as an array of mature enterprises through his holding company, Lowercase Capital with experience in developing cutting-edge business models, fostering innovative and nimble corporate cultures and attracting the best talent.

💵 Steve Molino
Principal at Clear Current Capital

Steve supports founders facilitating the shift to a more sustainable food system by investing in early-stage startups at an early-stage venture capital firm and is co-host of podcast Future Food Weekly Live with Sonalie Figueiras.

💶 Yoann Berno
Founder of Climate Insiders 

After building and investing in top tech startups throughout his career, Yoann co-founded Climentum Capital. His mission now is to democratize climate investing as a force multiplier to accelerate the climate transition through his angel syndicate, podcast and weekly newsletter.

💲 Jacqueline van den Ende 
CEO of Carbon Equity

Jacqueline is an entrepreneur and investor building high impact ventures with Carbon Equity, a fintech platform that seeks to power the world's most impactful climate technology solutions with retail capital. She talks about the intersection of climate change and finance and how we can steer the planet towards a sustainable future through effective capital allocation.

💚 Daniel Skavén Ruben 
Founder of Solvable Syndicate

Daniel supports the FoodTech ecosystem through his work as an angel syndicate lead, operating expert, mentor, advisor, editor of FoodTech Weekly and angel investor to 30+ agrifood startups. 

👩‍🔬 Lia Carlucci 
Venture Partner at Marvelous

Lia is a Scientist, entrepreneur and food and climate investor with a track record in food tech, FMCG, entrepreneurship, venture capital, R&D and sustainability and writes a bi-weekly 3-minute newsletter with food and climate insights.

🇮🇳 Priya Shah 
Founder and General Partner of Theia Ventures 

Priya is an early investor in India’s ClimateTech venture ecosystem and a Director on Sustainability Mafia, one of India’s largest climate founder coalitions. She is actively involved as a mentor, advisor, and thought leader with several think tanks, university labs, accelerator programs, and foundations on ClimateTech innovation.

Big Brands

📊 Kate Brandt 
Chief Sustainability Officer at Google

Kate leads sustainability across Google’s worldwide operations, products and supply chains. In this role, she partners with Google’s data centers, real estate, supply chain, and product teams to ensure the company is capitalising on opportunities to strategically advance sustainability.

🧮 Tim Mohin 
Partner and Director at BCG

With over 20+ years’ experience developing strategies to embed sustainability into business operations for Fortune 500 companies, Tim provides expertise to apply sustainability to corporate strategy to both derive business value and achieve positive impact on a planetary scale.

☕ Michelle Burns 
Executive Vice President-Global Coffee, Social Impact & Sustainability at Starbucks

Michelle leads a global team of industry experts responsible for sourcing, developing and roasting coffee; advancing coffee R&D and innovative farming practices; developing and executing programs, initiatives and partnerships to support Starbucks environmental and farmer promises through the lens of coffee, tea and cocoa communities; and driving partner and customer engagement, education and experiences to bring coffee storytelling to life.

🫘 Andrea Illy 
Chair of illycaffè

Andrea is co-Chair of the Regenerative Society Foundation, created in 2020 with the goal of engaging as many businesses as possible in the journey towards a new model of regenerative socio-economic development.

Climate Organisations and Research

🪴 David Carlin 
Founder of Cambium Global Solutions 
Head of Risk at United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative

David Carlin is an acknowledged authority on climate change and sustainability as the Founder of Cambium Global Solutions, an advisor to governments, corporates, and financial institutions on climate and sustainability. He led the creation of UNEP FI’s risk programming, working with over 100 global financial institutions on topics of climate stress tests, risk modeling, TCFD and TNFD disclosure, among others.

🔍 Jonathan Foley 
Executive Director at Project Drawdown 

Jonathan is a climate and environmental scientist and science communicator. His work is focused on understanding our changing planet, and finding new solutions to sustain the climate, ecosystems, and natural resources we all depend on. His research and insights have led him to become a trusted advisor to governments, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and business leaders around the world.  

🧫 Bruce Friedrich
Founder and President at The Good Food Institute

Bruce serves as GFI’s chief thought leader and relationship-builder, working in close partnership with their global teams and food system stakeholders around the world to accelerate the production of plant-based and cultivated meat in order to bolster the global protein supply while protecting our environment, promoting global health, and preventing food insecurity.

🌎 Gonzalo Muñoz Abogabir
Founder at TriCiclos

Gonzalo is the first COP High Level Climate Action Champion coming from the private sector, named by the Chilean COP presidency and the UNFCCC. He is involved in the Global Climate Action Agenda and currently Chair of the Food and Water strategy for Non State Actors at COP28.

⚡ Michael Barnard
Chief Strategist at TFIE Energy

Michael spends his time projecting scenarios for decarbonization 40-80 years into the future, and assisting executives, Boards and investors to pick wisely today. Whether it's refueling aviation, grid storage, vehicle-to-grid, or hydrogen demand, his work is based on fundamentals of physics, economics and human nature, and informed by the decarbonization requirements and innovations of multiple domains.

🔬 Jack A Bobo
Director Food Systems Institute at University of Nottingham

With over 20 years of experience in food systems, food technology, food policy, consumer trends, science communication, and international relations, Jack is a recognised authority and thought leader in his field and leads interdisciplinary research and education on the complex and interrelated challenges facing the global food system University of Nottingham.

🎓 Ben Packard 
Executive Director at University of Washington’s Earth Lab

Ben is responsible for working strategically within and beyond the University to promote new learning and action to address environmental challenges by building relationships between the University and public, private and nonprofit sectors. The initiative uses collaboration to tackle thorny environmental challenges including climate change, ocean health, natural hazards and healthy ecosystems. 

🎯 Isha Datar 
Executive Director at New Harvest

Isha has been pioneering cellular agriculture since 2009, driven by a passion to see transformative technology create a better world. In 2010, she published "Possibilities for an in-vitro meat production system" in Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies; thus began her quest to establish the field of cell ag. She co-founded Perfect Day and The EVERY Company.

🔢 Lorenzo Chiavarini 
VC Research Lead at Dealroom.co

Lorenzo is passionate about new trends at the intersection of technology, innovation and business and unlocks the power of data through their intelligence platform on startups, innovation, high-growth companies, ecosystems and investment strategies.

🤝 Paul Dickinson
Founder Chair at CDP

Paul has a strong interest in promoting dematerialised economic growth through widespread provision of fiberoptic internet. His prime area of interest involves supporting investors and corporations to use the logic of their transition plans to accelerate policy from governments that avoids dangerous climate change.

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