Simon Sylvester-Chaudhuri is the Executive Director of CIV:LAB, a Global NGO dedicated to scaling community-centered climate solutions. Simon was instrumental in building the world’s largest climate tech innovation ecosystem in New York. In 2019, in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Simon spearheaded the creation of The Grid, the City of New York’s first official urban innovation collaborative of over 130 organizations. Following the Grid’s success, in 2020 Simon built Detroit Urban Solutions with Wayne State University and the City of Detroit, continuing his work advancing place-based climate innovation in cities. CIV:LAB now grants millions of dollars for the advancement of place-based climate innovation in New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

Recently, Simon was named the Founding Research Fellow at University College London’s Centre for Sustainable Business, where he supports research on sustainable business practices and urban innovation. In addition, he serves as an Adjunct Professor at UCL’s School of Management and NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, where he created and continues to teach the Global Entrepreneurship course, now in its tenth year. As a Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School, Simon lectures on the Future of Cities. In 2015, Simon Co-Founded the Urban Tech Summit, held annually at Cornell Tech.

From 2016-2017 he served as a Strategic Advisor to the US Department of Commerce and the International Trade Administration under Secretary Pritzker during the Obama Administration. In 2017, as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s long term response to Hurricane Sandy, he was part of the founding team of NYC’s first climate tech incubator, the Urban Future Lab. Simon has an MS in Global Affairs from NYU where he was the O’Mara Energy Fellow. His active philanthropic endeavors include Chairing the Board of visionary environmental architecture firm Terreform One and Vice Chairing the Board of climate NGO, Energy Vision.