Strategic Director/Advisor

Lucia Gallardo is a seasoned entrepreneur and MIT Innovator under 35, awarded for her role in pioneering impact innovation experiments. As the Founder & CEO of Emerge, Lucia leads an impact innovation lab focused on the convergence of sustainable development, technological innovation, and financial re-imagination.

In her capacity as Co-Founder of The Æternals, Lucia designs unique approaches to rewarding impact-forward user loyalty for partner brands. Additionally, she co-founded Dona un Libro, Cambia una Mente, a non-profit committed to crafting original children's education content to gently address pressing social issues plaguing Central America.

Lucia actively contributes to organisations as a board member or strategic advisor, including serving on the boards of Blerify, FinRamp, Rainforest Partnership and WE Global Studio. Lucia lends a unique perspective to her leadership, developed over the course of diverse experiences such as having worked across diplomatic missions, early-stage innovation investment advocacy, as well as neurotechnology and artificial intelligence prior to her entrepreneurial ventures.

Engaged in policy work in an effort to develop collective knowledge bases, Lucía regularly contributes to working groups across the World Economic Forum, such as the groups on Stablecoins, DAOs, Digital Identity, and crypto's sustainability, as well as roundtables for the UNDP, government advisory, and more. Lucía is also an experienced public speaker, having presented on global stages at the WEF Sustainable Development Impact Summit, Money 20/20 (where she is the only person to ever simultaneously be an inaugural winner of their Rise Up and Amplify Fellowship Cohorts), Bloomberg, Consensus, and more.

Lucia offers a valuable blend of experience and vision, poised to make meaningful contributions to forward-thinking organisations ready to transition into a business and innovation strategy that embeds impact objectives into their core competencies, in line with growing demand for ESG-compliance and growing consumer interest in responsible companies and investment practices.