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News

Elemental Excelerator Strengthens Team with Two Key Hires

January 25, 2024

· 4 min read
The Elemental Team

Mark Chambers joins as VP of Elemental Excelerator’s Partnership Team, while Amir Chireh Mehr takes on Senior Role for Investments.

Elemental Excelerator, a nonprofit investor focused on scaling climate technology with deep community impact, welcomes two new hires – Mark Chambers as Vice President of Partnerships and Amir Chireh Mehr as Senior Investment Director. These hires build on Elemental’s growth in 2023, a year in which Elemental invested in more projects and convened more investors than ever before, and will help the organization accelerate its impact.

Mark will lead Elemental’s public finance and co-investment strategy and innovation challenges. He also will oversee the corporate partnerships team, which matches corporations with growth-stage climate technology startups to accelerate innovation.

Amir will be responsible for managing all aspects of transactions over the investment lifecycle at Elemental, from investment strategy formulation, to origination, execution and asset management.

“We’re excited to have Mark and Amir join our Elemental team, bringing their valuable expertise to help us achieve our 2024 goals when the stakes feel higher than ever,” Elemental Founder & CEO Dawn Lippert said. “Mark enhances our co-investor initiatives and supercharges our public and private partnerships work. Amir’s extensive financial and impact experience will be vital as we fund even more projects across the U.S. and beyond. Together, Mark and Amir’s leadership will be instrumental as Elemental scales its investments and support to last mile projects across the country.”

Mark recently served the Biden-Harris Administration in a Presidential appointment as the first Senior Director for Building Emissions and Community Resilience at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he led the Administration’s climate policy development for the built environment. Mark was previously the Director of Sustainability for both New York City and the District of Columbia, where he led efforts to accelerate climate policy implementation in America’s largest city and the Nation’s capital.

“Elemental is uniquely positioned to connect the dots between innovative climate technologies and the frontline communities that can benefit the most from powerful solutions,” Mark said. “I’m excited to lead real life initiatives that blend public and private funds to help deliver impactful, replicable projects that collectively scale our response to a changing climate.”

Amir brings over a decade of experience in private equity, reverse merger and project finance transactions in clean energy across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, having raised more than $1B in direct equity capital commitments for solar, wind and electric vehicle charging companies. He previously led mergers and acquisitions and developer partnerships at Radial Power, a developer-owner-operator of solar, battery and electric vehicle charging assets.

“Addressing climate change is simultaneously the greatest moral imperative and economic opportunity of our time. The private sector must play a crucial role if we are to meet our climate goals, and I am eager to contribute to Elemental’s work in mobilizing capital from all stakeholders toward that end. In my new role, I look forward to facilitating investments in innovative startups that not only address climate-related challenges but also drive positive impact within communities. As we expand into larger and later-stage investments, I am committed to best-in-class due diligence to ensure our investment dollars are funneled to those opportunities and partners that best align with our mission of making a meaningful difference,” Amir said.

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About Elemental Excelerator

Elemental is a nonprofit investor in climate technologies with deep community impact. We bring more than a decade of experience across the climate sector, with an active and maturing portfolio of 150+ companies. Elemental fills two gaps fundamental to addressing climate change: funding projects for climate technologies in communities, and embedding equity and access into climate solutions. We invest in transformative technologies to create a systems change for a more resilient, equitable future.