The Stanford Energy Seminar: "Lessons from a climate career in food and industrial decarbonization" Akshai Baskaran

 Talk title: Lessons from a climate career in food and industrial decarbonization

Abstract: Akshai Baskaran will share learnings of his journey from studying at Stanford (BS Chemical Engineering ‘15, CISAC Honors Program) to management consulting at Bain & Company and finally making his mark at climate companies, including Impossible Foods (plant-based meat), Brimstone (carbon-negative cement), and Gravity (industrial and commercial carbon measurement and decarbonization). The talk will provide his perspective on challenges with consumer climate companies, scaling hard tech companies, and opportunities in industrial decarbonization.

Speaker Bio: Akshai Baskaran is a business development and strategy professional in the climate tech and industrial decarbonization sectors. Serving as the VP of Commercial at Gravity, he leads customer engagements to simplify carbon measurement and deliver decarbonization services to commercial and industrial clients. In his previous role at Brimstone, a cement decarbonization company, Akshai led finance and business development. He was involved in key commercial negotiations and played a significant role in developing early operational and financial capabilities. At Impossible Foods, Akshai helped mature the manufacturing capabilities, oversaw new product introduction, implemented pricing strategies, designed forecasting processes, and defined the long-term strategy. Before moving to startups, Akshai worked at Bain & Company in San Francisco and consulted for private equity, technology, pharmaceutical and utility companies. As an undergrad at Stanford, Akshai studied Chemical Engineering with an honors degree from CISAC.