Our Team
Anna Menke
Chief of Staff to the COO
Anna is Chief of Staff at Elemental Impact, where she leads internal strategic planning, goal setting, and board management while partnering across teams to strengthen execution, alignment, and organizational impact.
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As Chief of Staff, Anna sits at the intersection of strategy, operations, and mission delivery. She works closely with Elemental’s leadership team and board to translate long-term vision into clear priorities, decision frameworks, and measurable goals. Her role spans internal strategic planning, organizational health, and cross-functional initiatives that enable Elemental to deploy catalytic capital, mobilize investors, and support entrepreneurs with rigor and care.
Drawing on a background that bridges policy, investing, and climate innovation, Anna brings a systems-level perspective to problem solving. She helps the organization navigate complexity, manage tradeoffs, and stay accountable to both impact and execution. A common throughline in Anna’s work is building first-of-their-kind programs and translating emerging policy and market opportunities into practical pathways for climate solutions to scale.
Prior to Elemental
Before returning to Elemental as Chief of Staff, Anna served as Senior Hydrogen Hubs Manager at Clean Air Task Force, where she led national engagement on U.S. clean hydrogen hubs. She managed a team of regional staff working alongside hub developers, community stakeholders, government agencies, and policymakers to maximize climate and community benefits in early-stage infrastructure development.
Earlier in her career, Anna was part of the Elemental team, where she launched and led Elemental’s Policy Lab. In that role, she designed policy coaching services for portfolio companies, built Elemental’s federal advocacy strategy, and created the Policy Fellowship program, placing experienced public-sector leaders from cities, states, and nonprofits into year-long fellowships to help climate startups navigate and shape emerging policy at the local, state, and federal levels.
Anna also brings an impact investing lens from her time at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, where she led sourcing and due diligence across the foundation’s education, racial justice, gender equity, income inequality, health, and climate portfolios. She began her career at the Environmental Defense Fund, helping organize a coalition of Fortune 500 CEOs to advocate for federal and state-level climate and clean energy policies.
Anna holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies from Princeton University where she was awarded the Peter W. Stroh ‘51 Environmental Senior Thesis Prize in 2016, a recognition given to the best thesis written on an environmental topic across departments.
Outside of the Office
Based in Southern California, Anna is happiest in or near the ocean and spends her free time surfing gentle waves with friends. If she’s not in the ocean or on a beach run, you can find Anna cozying up at home with a novel, trying a new scone recipe, writing in her journal, or traveling to see her family and friends who are scattered across the United States from San Diego to Maine.