GreenBiz

Emily Kirsch is the Founder and CEO of Powerhouse and the Founder and Managing Partner of Powerhouse Ventures. Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with leading global corporations to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate. Powerhouse Ventures backs entrepreneurs building the digital infrastructure for rapid decarbonization. Prior to founding Powerhouse, Emily worked as the Lead Organizer at the Ella Baker Center, where she founded and led the Climate Action Coalition which drafted and secured passage of the most ambitious Energy and Climate Action Plan of any city in the nation. Emily designed and launched the Green Jobs Corps with Ella Baker Center Founder and former Advisor to President Obama, Van Jones. Emily hosts the Watt It Takes podcast and serves on the Advisory Boards of University of San Francisco’s Masters of Science in Energy Systems Management. Emily also served on the World Economic Forum’s Advanced Energy Technologies Council, is on the board of Station A and is on the Investment Advisory Board of NYSERDA.In 2017 Emily received the Entrepreneurship Award from C3E, a partnership between the United States Department of Energy, Stanford, and MIT to highlight women’s leadership in clean energy. In 2019 Emily was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Her work has been cited in Bloomberg, The Guardian, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, and The New York Times. Emily has guest lectured at UC Berkeley and Stanford.