Varun Sivaram is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John F. Kerry. A physicist and clean energy technology expert, he has worked in the corporate, academic, and policy sectors. He has previously served as Chief Technology Officer of ReNew Power, a multibillion-dollar renewable-energy firm that is India's largest, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University's SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy, Director of the energy and climate program at the Council on Foreign Relations, Senior Energy Advisor to the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Governor of New York, Professor at Georgetown University, Director at Peridot Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: PDAC), and Consultant at McKinsey & Co. He has served as a board member for Stanford University's Energy and Environment Institutes, as a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council for the Energy Transition, and as one of the 25 advisors to the UN COP26 climate conference in 2021. His books include Energizing America, and Digital Decarbonization. He was named one of the TIME 100 Next Hundred Most Influential People in the World.