Sanjay Wagle

Co-Founder and Managing Director - The Lightsmith Group

Sanjay Wagle is co-founder and Managing Director of Lightsmith Group, a private equity firm investing in growth-stage technology companies, with a focus on climate change adaptation and resilience. He has over 25 years of experience in investing, government policy, and international development in energy, water, agriculture, transportation, and climate change. During the Obama Administration, Mr. Wagle served as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy, overseeing the implementation of $15 billion in programs for clean energy and climate solutions, and he served as the first Associate Director for Commercialization at ARPA-E, the advanced research agency for breakthrough energy technologies. Previously, Mr. Wagle was the first Principal in the Cleantech Group at VantagePoint Capital Partners, which invested $1 billion in 25 cleantech companies (most notably Tesla Motors), and earlier he served as an Investment Officer in the International Finance Corporation’s Infrastructure Department, financing private sector water, transport, and power projects in developing countries.

Mr. Wagle serves as a Board Director for Solinftec, a Brazil-based precision agriculture company, and for the Woodwell Climate Research Center, a research institute focused on the science of climate change and science-based solutions for the economy, communities, and nature. He holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.