Dawn Lippert ’06 B.A., ’07 M.E.M. is the Founder and CEO of Elemental Impact and a General Partner at Earthshot Ventures

Dawn Lippert is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Elemental Impact and a General Partner at Earthshot Ventures. Together, the sister organizations act as a force multiplier, enabling Dawn and her teams to meet entrepreneurs where they are–with the right kind of capital at the right time–so more climate technologies can succeed.

Dawn founded what is now Elemental Impact in 2009. The nonprofit investor works to scale innovative climate technologies that deliver meaningful environmental benefits and lasting impact in local communities. Since its founding, Elemental has invested in more than 160 companies across energy, mobility, water, industry, nature-based solutions, and agriculture, which have gone on to raise $11.8 billion in follow-on funding. Dawn views philanthropy as the first gear in a much larger system: when deployed catalytically, it can help set the entire system in motion. 

In 2021, Dawn helped launch Earthshot Ventures after seeing that many climate companies were also exceptional venture opportunities with the potential to deliver significant returns. As AI drives one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in a generation, Earthshot invests across the “clean intelligence stack,” the AI supply chain extending from upstream critical minerals through infrastructure and the application layer. Its portfolio is now valued more than $15 billion, demonstrating that strong returns and meaningful climate impact can go hand in hand.

Dawn serves as a C3E Ambassador for the U.S. Department of Energy and co-chair of Aspen Energy Week. She also holds advisory roles with PRIME’s Investor Advisory Committee, the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Accelerator, and the Yale Planetary Solutions Impact Accelerator. Her work at the intersection of innovation, community impact, and public policy has been featured by Axios, Bloomberg, The Economist, Heatmap News, Politico, and TED.

After graduating from Yale, Dawn was a management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton’s alternative energy team in Washington, D.C. There, she helped launch ARPA-E and helped implement the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy and the State of Hawaii created to reduce the state’s dependence on imported oil and accelerate its transition to clean energy. She has also worked on clean-energy and environmental projects in India, Africa, and Latin America.

Dawn earned a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment. Her senior thesis, “The Two Thousand Pound Question: An Analysis of Leatherback Sea Turtle Management on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico,” received the Gaylord Donnelley Prize. Her finding that climate change was one of the most serious threats to fragile ecosystems has informed her life and work since Yale.