Karthik Balakrishnan

Karthik Balakrishnan is the President and Cofounder of Actual, the Capital Planning Software that allows enterprise CFOs to greenlight the investments which allow them to meet their sustainability goals. With over a decade of experience working at the intersection of asset transformation and supply chain, Karthik has established himself as a sought-after leader, speaking at various events on sustainable development, government policy and global implementation. Karthik holds a PhD and MS from Stanford and a BS from UC San Diego all in Aerospace Engineering.

Karthik began his career in academia, receiving a BS from UC San Diego and both an MS and PhD from Stanford in Aeronautics and Astronautics. During this time, he performed fundamental cross-disciplinary research at the intersection of aerospace, physics, and materials science. Prior to co-founding Actual, Karthik founded Altiscope (now Airbus UTM), to develop the next generation digital air traffic management system. There, he worked extensively with international regulators, seeing firsthand the challenges of transforming our built environment and the infrastructure that makes our world work.

He also co-founded and served as CTO at Coin (acquired by Fitbit), a consumer electronics and FinTech company. At Coin, he spent significant time in Taiwan and China setting up a complicated supply chain from the ground up, providing him with the opportunity to see the challenges of modern manufacturing and industrial transformation. This experience would lead to the creation of Actual, a Sustainability Transformation Platform that allows large enterprises to plan and greenlight the capital investments and programs which allow them to meet their ESG goals.