Chief Executive Officer, Activate
Dr. Cyrus Wadia is a leader and innovator in climate-smart entrepreneurship. He is Chief Executive Officer of Activate, overseeing the organization’s expansion, and was the former Director of WW Product Sustainability at Amazon, launching Climate Pledge Friendly. Prior to Amazon, Dr. Wadia was Vice President, Sustainable Business & Innovation at Nike where he integrated sustainability into new product development and advanced Nike’s efforts in enterprise risk management.
Dr. Wadia served as Assistant Director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy between 2010 and 2015. There, he advised the Obama administration and led new budgetary and legislative initiatives in energy, climate, advanced materials, manufacturing, and critical minerals. In this role, Dr. Wadia was responsible for the creation and expansion of more than $1 billion in new budgetary initiatives and led the development of the nation’s first policy framework and strategy on critical minerals. Between 1996 and 2010, Dr. Wadia held many leadership roles as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a senior program officer at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and the founding member and Co-Director of the Haas School of Business Cleantech to Market initiative.
Dr. Wadia holds a Ph.D. in Energy & Resources from U.C. Berkeley, and an M.S. and S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.