Sarah Kearney

Biography

Sarah Kearney is the Founder and Executive Director of PRIME Coalition, a public charity based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that partners with philanthropists to place catalytic capital into market-based solutions to climate change. PRIME works closely with foundation grantmakers, DAFs, corporate donors, and individuals/family offices to facilitate investments into early-stage investment opportunities that are optimized for climate impact, attractiveness for commercial co- or follow-on investment, and fitness for philanthropic capital.

Before PRIME, Sarah served as Executive Director and Trustee of the Chesonis Family Foundation, a grantmaking organization that supports transformational energy research, development and deployment. Based on her work, Sarah has been inducted into the Raven Society at the University of Virginia, and awarded the 2012 MIT Ronald Heller Entrepreneurship Award, 2014 Caltech Resonate Award, 2014 Echoing Green Fellowship, the MIT Technology Review’s 2014 35 Innovators Under 35, and the 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30.

Sarah holds a B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia and an M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. In 2015, she co-founded the Aligned Intermediary, a public benefit corporation that serves long-term investors – sovereign funds, pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies – to deploy capital directly into large-scale climate infrastructure projects.