Aina Abiodun

Aina is a Nigerian-American immigrant who found her calling as a systems interventionist and has built her multi-faceted career on making innovation more just and impactful. Aina is currently the President and Executive Director of VertueLab, a Pacific Northwest center for developing and deploying climate tech with a justice-first lens. In her previous work as a social impact strategist, Aina worked with historically marginalized communities across the globe to ensure real impact in health, tech and finance outcomes on projects by clients ranging from Meta, Logitech, Merck and Novartis to The Obama Foundation.

When a further pivot into software put Aina in the roles of founder and CEO in both health and climate tech, Aina notably became the first Black woman to run a venture-backed company in Germany. And as a person displaced from her homeland by the ruthless hand of fossil fuel extractivists, Aina believes there is no greater and more sacred privilege than supporting a just transition, especially for Black and Indigenous people. When discussing her passion for climate justice, Aina shared, “In my pursuit of a just transition, I have embraced the sacred privilege of working at the intersection of innovation and the wisdoms of long-silenced communities and cultures.”