Jared Blumenfeld

Jared Blumenfeld is a climate leader who makes big, bold ideas happen. As President of Waverley Street Foundation, a $3.5 billion climate foundation founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, he’s leading a global push to support grassroots solutions that cut carbon and build resilience from the ground up. Jared believes the future belongs to local leaders, and Waverley is here to help them lead.

His path to philanthropy was shaped by decades in public service. As California’s Secretary for Environmental Protection, he helped ban toxic pesticides, led wildfire cleanup efforts, and worked with Governor Gavin Newsom to mandate that all new cars sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035. He also launched California’s first safe and affordable drinking water program and secured major pollution enforcement settlements.

Before that, Jared was appointed by President Obama to lead the U.S. EPA in the Pacific Southwest, where he directed billions in climate and water investments, visited more than 130 tribal communities, and modernized the agency’s approach to environmental justice.

Earlier, as Director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment, Jared helped make the city a global leader in sustainability—pioneering composting, banning plastic bags, and launching energy-efficiency programs that saved small businesses tens of millions of dollars. Under his leadership, San Francisco was named the Greenest City in North America and hosted the first United Nations World Environment Day in the U.S.

Globally, Jared helped protect more than 8 million acres of wildlife habitat. He led the successful campaign to stop Mitsubishi from building a salt factory in Baja California’s Laguna San Ignacio—hailed by Cox News as “the most significant environmental victory of our generation.”

Today, Jared is focused on unlocking climate breakthroughs from the bottom up—from turning cultural centers into resilience hubs to exploring how ancient rice genes could help secure future food supplies. He holds law degrees from UC Berkeley and the University of London, and lives in Marin, California, where he still spends as much time outdoors as possible.