Unreasonable Mentors
Cyrus Wadia
Product Sustainability at Amazon; Former White House & Nike
Cyrus is an Unreasonable Mentor. Cyrus has participated in 3 programs, including Unreasonable Impact Americas 2021, and has advised over 38 Unreasonable companies.
Dr. Cyrus Wadia the CEO of Activate, empowering the next generation of science leaders to tackle society's greatest challenges through the transformative lens of entrepreneurship. He is the former Director of WW Product Sustainability at Amazon. He led a mission to offer customers product choice that is more-sustainable, affordable, and business accretive. His team embedded sustainability into core retail decision making, and launched Climate Pledge Friendly, Amazon’s flagship sustainable shopping program setting higher product standards for all products in Amazon’s catalog. Prior to Amazon, Cyrus was Vice President, Sustainable Business & Innovation at Nike where he was responsible for Nike’s integration of sustainability in new product development, advancing Nike’s efforts in carbon, enterprise risk management, and the modernization of Nike’s brand and consumer engagement strategy. Cyrus served as Assistant Director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy between 2010 and 2015. There he advised the Obama administration and led new budgetary and legislative initiatives in energy, climate, advanced materials, manufacturing, and critical minerals. In this role, Cyrus was responsible for the creation and expansion of more than $1 billion in new budgetary initiatives and led the development of the nation’s first policy framework and strategy on critical minerals. Between 1996 and 2010, Cyrus held many leadership roles as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a senior program officer at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the founding member and Co-Director of the Haas School of Business Cleantech to Market initiative. Cyrus holds a Ph.D. in Energy & Resources from U.C. Berkeley, and an M.S. and S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.