Kayla Economou

Kayla supports the Portfolio Team across sectors and functions to assist with portfolio engagement, due diligence, contracting, and operations for Elemental portfolio companies. She works closely with the Director of Accelerator Operations, the Directors of Innovation, and the Pipeline and Partnerships teams to help drive processes forward to better support entrepreneurs and companies.

Kayla is from Kahuku, Hawaiʻi with roots in Western Samoa. Prior to Elemental, Kayla was an Energy Access Schneider Fellow at the United Nations Foundation, Legislative Aide at the Hawaiʻi State Senate, and Intern at the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Water Power Technologies Office. In the past she has experimentally tested rhetoric used by island nations in UN climate change negotiations, used systems thinking principles to develop financing platforms for clean energy, and conducted due diligence research to encourage private-public partnerships. Kayla is passionate about climate justice, navigating equitable transitions to renewable energy, and integrating traditional knowledge into policy and practice. She dedicates her life’s work to help ensure Pacific Islanders can continue to live and thrive on the islands their ancestors have called home for generations.

Kayla holds a Masters in Sustainability Science and Practice and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Political Science from Stanford University.

Kayla loves 7-11 runs, long drives down windward, and talking story with family over a hot cup of koko Samoa. She enjoys baking and hopes to one day master her favorite desserts from childhood: pani popo, poʻe, kūlolo, and fa’ausi.