Donnel Baird

Why you should listen

Donnel Baird and BlocPower green buildings across the United States by replacing unhealthy fossil-fueled heating and cooling units with the latest sustainable systems, focusing on disadvantaged communities with aging infrastructure. The start-up uses advanced technologies to monitor energy consumption, digitally simulate impactful green energy solutions and dramatically lower the cost of construction and installation. BlocPower has partnerships with cities like Ithaca, New York, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Jose, California to decarbonize buildings with energy-efficient equipment. By hiring from within impacted communities, the company creates jobs for qualified local low-income workers (often from neighborhoods at a high risk of gun violence) and delivers energy savings to building owners — all while reducing carbon emissions and asthma rates.

Baird is a board member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s Second District, the Climate Reality Project and the Coalition For Green Capital, and he is member of the SEC’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. He was named Columbia Business School’s "Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2021, the National Venture Capital Association’s "Startup Innovator of the Year" in 2022 and TIME's inaugural "Dreamer of the Year" in 2022.