Our Team
Christian Rasnake
Growth Manager
Christian supports Elemental’s Development function, cultivating relationships with new philanthropic partners through in-person and virtual engagements and best-in-class stewardship that help mobilize resources for Elemental’s mission.
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As Growth Manager, Christian supports the frontline fundraising team by leading high-volume donor prospecting, funder intelligence, and relationship-driven cultivation strategies. Her work is essential to maintaining efficient development operations and enabling the team to build, deepen, and sustain relationships with major donors whose funding supports exceptional entrepreneurs.
Based in New York City, Christian is passionate about leveraging her expertise in relationship management, project coordination, and problem-solving to secure and mobilize catalytic capital that accelerates first commercial deployments of technologies addressing society’s most urgent challenges.
Prior to joining the Development team, Christian co-designed and managed innovation programs with Elemental’s corporate partners. Working closely with sustainability teams, she built and executed programs that helped corporations connect with startups and meet their innovation mandates, driving both investment and commercial opportunities.
Prior to Elemental
Before Elemental, Christian launched and led the sustainability program at CTA Architects, developing the firm’s sustainability strategy and emissions-reduction roadmap while working with clients to lower building footprints and improve operational efficiency and affordability. Earlier in her career, she led business development efforts for B2B climate tech companies and corporate end-users, managing full-cycle sales and long-term client relationships. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Environmental Studies (Sustainability) and City and Regional Planning.
Outside of the office
Outside of work, Christian enjoys running outdoors, curating and hosting dinner parties, and experimenting with new recipes. On weekends, she can often be found exploring new neighborhoods in search of the best pastry on the block.