Jonah Goldman has spent over twenty years moving capital, policy, and public narratives toward coordinated outcomes in roles that rarely exist inside one career.

 

He began as a civil rights lawyer, building and leading Election Protection, the largest voter protection effort since Freedom Summer.  The program organized over 20,000 lawyers from solo practitioners to partners in the country’s largest law firms to help millions of voters cast a ballot that counts. In addition to building and organizing a year round program to provide direct services to voters, Jonah expanded impact through policy development, advocacy, litigation, and organizing.

 

At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation he helped guide one of the world's largest philanthropy’s public affairs and advocacy strategies to expand overseas development assistance for the poorest countries in the world and educational opportunities for students across the United States. At Gates Ventures, where he oversaw an integrated policy and political operation, he advised Bill Gates on strategy across climate, health, economics, and innovation. 

 

In 2015 he co-founded Breakthrough Energy with Gates.  At BE he built, designed, and led fundraising, initial investment strategy and governance for a multi-billion-dollar platform spanning venture funds, infrastructure investment vehicles, philanthropy, and policy advocacy. Breakthrough Energy redefined the role of innovation in the climate debate.  During Jonah’s tenure, it grew to the largest early stage private investment vehicle commercializing climate technology, the largest philanthropic and political funder of climate advocacy, and the only platform to organize individual investors, multinational corporations, capital managers, and industrial giants toward a common goal by aggregating and deploying capital in a coordinated way across multiple asset classes.  

 

Jonah has advised some of the largest political donors and institutions both individually and through the Democracy Alliance, counseled corporations and causes at the Glover Park Group, and led teams focused on energy innovation at Boston Consulting Group. Most recently he served as Chief Strategy Officer at Generate Capital, one of the leading sustainable infrastructure investors in the United States, where he shaped the firm’s approach across an integrated platform of operating assets, project finance, and private credit. He continues to serve Generate as a Senior Advisor.

 

Jonah has raised, allocated, and managed capital across every form it takes: charitable dollars, political contributions, concessional finance, venture and infrastructure investment, and public funding. North Cascades Strategies is the practice built on that range.

 

He lives in Seattle with his rockstar wife and two fantastic kids. He believes that this is the season the Buffalo Bills will finally win it all and that his true calling was to be a rock star.

 

The Name

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North Cascades Strategies takes its name from the mountain range east of Puget Sound, and its mark from Mount Shuksan, photographed by Jonah from Picture Lake. The mountain's signature "hanging glacier" represents the precariousness upon which the most powerful forces are built and the potential for awe when those forces come together to accomplish something beautiful. It's a reminder that amazing things can happen when the environment is right and working in concert. 

 

North in the name is a common reference point that everyone can use to make sure we are moving in the same direction, together.  Cascades represent the broad impact such a coordinated approach will lead to if we all focus on a single point of change. 

 

That is what NCS is focused on: building outcomes with foundations strong enough to last.