Kirk Hourdajian

Kirk leads Climate Lead’s impact-first investing practice, helping family offices and investors deploy catalytic capital towards a climate-safe future. His work expands Climate Lead’s longstanding philanthropic efforts by using impact-first investment strategies to prove new models, unlock markets, and accelerate capital investment toward high impact climate solutions. 

Kirk has spent more than two decades working across engineering, climate strategy, venture capital, private equity, and philanthropy. He has specialized in building impact investing capabilities within leading organizations, identifying opportunities where mission and long-term value creation reinforce one another.

Prior to joining Climate Lead, Kirk was partner and head of venture at Montauk Capital, where he led the firm’s venture investing strategy and fundraising efforts, backing early-growth companies across energy, industrial technology, AI, and critical infrastructure. Previously, he served as head of climate and impact at Vista Equity Partners, where he built the firm’s climate and sustainability platform across private equity, private credit, and public markets. Earlier in his career, he helped launch TPG’s Rise Fund, co-led PwC’s climate strategy practice, worked with leading corporations through Environmental Defense Fund’s corporate partnerships program, and began his career designing the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle fleet for Nissan. 

Kirk holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a master’s degree in business administration from MIT Sloan School of Management. He serves as Chairman of the Board of ACT College, which is advancing education and entrepreneurship initiatives in Armenia.