Team

We are a team of systems strategists, facilitators, partnership builders, network managers, data analysts, and innovation managers that bring a systems perspective to conversations, strategies, and ideas that have the potential to shift stakeholder perspectives and catalyze system change. Working together, we bring valuable systemic insights into the practical reality of collaborative decision-making, problem-solving innovation, and learning.

Steve Smith

Chief Executive Officer

Steve joined GKI as CEO in August 2023. He brings over 35 years of experience as a senior executive, founding, operating, advising, and investing in diverse initiatives in technology, media, energy, life sciences, and financial services across the globe. He is excited to bridge his business acumen and experience in sustainable investing to enhance GKI’s impact.

Steve began his journey in venture operations at GE and later Ritchie Capital, Global Technology Investments, and Pegasus Capital. For the past several years, Steve has continued to work with dozens of early-stage companies as an advisor on capital raise and business development initiatives. His early professional years were spent in strategy consulting, where he worked with Booz Allen in New York, Dallas and Singapore.

Throughout his career, Steve has supported global development activities including aquaculture in the USA and Africa; financial inclusion in Indonesia, Mexico and Poland; distributed energy in Africa and the Middle East; water access in Mumbai; off-grid lighting with Light a Billion Lives in India; and malaria mitigation technologies with the Fund for the Global Good.

In his new role at GKI, Steve seeks novel ways to leverage private capital to scale and sustain GKI’s systems-informed innovation platforms which need to balance global goals and solutions with locally determined strategy, priority and implementation.

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