Excited to share that our co-founder, Leia, was named one of the most ambitious and bold entrepreneurs in commercial real estate. We couldn't agree more! Read her profile from BI below or see the full article on Business Insider here.
Profile on Leia de Guzman
De Guzman says that it started with the challenge to build a solar-powered house with net-zero emissions. As part of the US Department of Energy's solar decathlon, the Stanford MBA served as business manager for a team constructing a prototype house of the future. She led the effort to raise $1 million and helped the team win a prize for best engineering.
From there, de Guzman tells Insider that she was hooked on the future of sustainability and making "buildings and cities that we live, work, and play in tread more lightly on the environment."
After graduating in 2013, de Guzman spent seven years with Oxford Properties Group, where she worked on deal teams that sold some
of the largest buildings in Europe, including the Leadenhall Building in London and the Sony Center in Germany.
With some experience under her belt, she enrolled at Stanford Business School, where she was assigned a roommate, Stephanie Grayson, who also worked in real estate and was passionate about the future of sustainability.
The two went on to cofound Cambio, a startup that provides carbon-emissions analytics and decarbonization recommendations for commercial buildings, like spotting which HVAC units can be retrofitted.
"We need to retrofit 85% of the world's buildings to meet the United Nations' 2050 climate goals," de Guzman says about the current challenge at hand for updating and improving the existing structures "We can't simply knock down these buildings."
