Sanjay Wagle

Co-founder and Managing Director Lightsmith Group

Sanjay Wagle is co-founder and Managing Director of The Lightsmith Group, a private equity firm investing in growth-stage technology companies, with a current focus on climate change adaptation and resilience. He has over 20 years of experience in investing, technology company management, and government focused on clean energy, water, food and agriculture, transportation, and climate change.

In the first three years of the Obama Administration, Sanjay served as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 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, Sanjay was the first Principal in the CleanTech Group at VantagePoint Capital Partners, which invested over $1 billion in 25 cleantech companies (most notably Tesla Motors), and earlier he served as an Investment Officer at the International Finance Corporation, leading financings of private sector transport, power, and water infrastructure projects in developing countries.