Rob García-Gradoville is a sustainability strategist and climate systems integrator who has spent 15 years bridging the gap between breakthrough innovations and the communities and institutions that need them most — from smallholder farmers in the Andes to Fortune 500 supply chains.

Rob began his career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic, designing water and sanitation infrastructure for rural farming communities — an early grounding in how solutions must adapt to cultural and economic realities to take root. That lens has shaped everything since: as a Global Technical Advisor at Water.org, he helped scale clean water access beyond the first 1 million people towards the current 80 million + people across Africa, Latin America, and India, managing $15M in grants and building replicable program frameworks for microfinance institutions. As a Senior Portfolio Manager at IDEO.org, he oversaw a $7M innovation fund across 50 social enterprises in 14 countries, developing evaluation frameworks and supporting the launch of their Nairobi, Kenya studio. At Cargill, he led agricultural climate mitigation programs for North America's beef supply chain — evaluating carbon mitigation practices and rancher adoption pathways in partnership with companies like Walmart, Nestlé, and Sysco. He has also consulted on circular food systems with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and has conducted Fulbright-funded climate adaptation research in Peru.

Rob currently works as an independent sustainability strategist and serves as an analyst for the Keeling Curve Methane Prize and an Expert Advisory Panel member for the Earthshot Prize. He is based in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he can usually be found running along the banks of the Mississippi and mentally planning the next family Boundary Waters paddling trip.