Our Team
Dani Chen
Director of Commercial Partnerships
Dani’s role centers on Elemental’s Data Center Innovation Initiative, leading partnerships with the corporate and investor ecosystems to accelerate commercial adoption and capital formation for data center-related climate technologies.
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As Director of Commercial Partnerships at Elemental Impact, Dani facilitates offtake and investment outcomes with the commercial stakeholders surrounding Elemental’s Data Center Innovation Initiative and wider portfolio, including large tech companies, industrials, utilities, and investors.
Together with these partners, she looks for opportunities to narrow the “scale gap” for the emerging energy, water, and materials technologies by deploying them within data center environments. She works closely with technology companies to understand their sustainability priorities and translates them into offtake opportunities for Elemental’s pipeline and portfolio. She remains engaged throughout the diligence and portfolio processes to help structure offtake agreements between startups and corporates, tapping into prior experience with first-of-a-kind projects and novel commercial structures.
Dani builds for long-term scale: she also spearheads investor relations with investors of all stages, creating a continuum of capital availability and future offtake opportunities for the climate tech companies in Elemental’s ecosystem.
Prior to Elemental Impact
Dani brings nearly a decade of experience at the intersection of data centers, sustainability, and finance. Prior to Elemental, she drove data center investment strategy at Google, shaping data center siting, cloud expansion, and capital expenditure decisions. Previously, she spent 7 years at Microsoft and played a key role in launching their $1B Climate Innovation Fund (CIF) from inception to a portfolio of 70+ investments. Dani has led climate tech deals across first-of-a-kind project finance, venture capital, and fund investments. She also developed Microsoft CIF’s portfolio management strategy and served as a board observer and advisor to numerous portfolio companies of ranging maturities. She later spearheaded new technology offtake and pilot evaluation for Microsoft’s data center energy team, working across energy storage, VPPs, and grid technologies.
Dani holds a B.A. in Economics from UCLA and is a candidate for an M.S. in Sustainability Management from Columbia University.
Outside of the Office
Dani is based in New York City. Outside of work, you can find her wandering around Central Park, ranking dessert shops, attending theatre and musical productions, and daydreaming about her next travels.