Tom Steyer is the co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a multi-strategy climate investment firm designed to unlock the generational opportunity of the energy transition. Central to the firm’s thesis is the belief of an absolute, unequivocal need to win in the marketplace with clean products and services that are cheaper, faster, and better.
In 1986, he founded Farallon Capital Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund that pioneered the multi-strategy approach to investing. At the time of its founding as a risk arbitrage firm, Farallon had less than $10M in assets. Under Tom’s leadership, the firm expanded into multiple new strategies and geographies and grew to $36B in assets. During this time, Tom also served as a partner and member of the Executive Committee at Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. In 2012, Tom left both roles in order to give his time, money, and energy to fight for climate issues.
Before California firmly established itself as a leader in climate policy, Tom worked to help make it the largest jurisdiction in the world with a 100% clean energy law and prevented the oil and gas industry’s effort to roll back the state’s climate protections. Around that time, he also cofounded Beneficial State Bank, a triple bottom line community development bank dedicated to economic justice and environmental sustainability.
In 2013, he founded NextGen America (formerly NextGen Climate), the largest youth voter engagement organization in American history, which has registered over 1.5 million young voters over the last 10 years. NextGen is credited with not only helping to drive record numbers of young voters to the polls in the 2020 US presidential election, but also for its influence in making climate a significant issue on ballots. Tom is also the founder of NextGen Policy, a California-based policy organization focused on climate, environmental, social, and economic legislative advocacy and civic engagement. In 2022, the organization helped navigate 26 bills through the legislative process that were signed into law. Over the last two years, the organization has helped to secure nearly $60 billion in the state budget to support organizational priorities.
Most recently, Tom was a Democratic candidate in the 2020 presidential election. Later that year, he served as co-chair for California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force. In addition, he co-chaired Vice President Biden’s Climate Engagement Advisory Council to help mobilize climate voters.
