Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
KR Sridhar is a visionary engineer, professor, and entrepreneur. In 2001, he co-founded Ion America, which later became Bloom Energy, a solid oxide energy platform company with a mission to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone on earth. Prior to founding Bloom Energy, KR was Director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the University of Arizona where he was also a professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Under his leadership, STL won several nationally competitive contracts to conduct research and development for Mars exploration and for flight experiments to Mars. KR has served as an advisor to NASA and has led major consortia of industry, academia, and national labs. His work for the NASA Mars program to convert Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support was recognized by Fortune Magazine, where he was cited as “one of the top five futurists inventing tomorrow, today.” KR serves on the Board of Directors for C3.ai, Inc., the External Advisory Board at Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute, and the Board of Visitors at the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Additionally, he has served as a strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and as a special advisor to New Enterprise Associates. An early pioneer in green tech, KR has also served on many technical committees, panels, and advisory boards and has several publications and patents. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honors from the University of Madras (now called NIT, Trichy), India, as well as his master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.