Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is the new Global energy & climate innovation editor, covering the energy and utility industries, the clean energy transition, climate innovations and low carbon technologies. He leads our coverage of America’s climate and green infrastructure efforts, and keeps a watchful eye on ESG trends and corporate pledges of net-zero emissions for signs of promise as well as greenwashing.

An award-winning senior journalist, he previously served as both US Business Editor and China Business Editor. He also serves as chairman of The Economist Innovation Summit, a provocative series of global conferences on innovation.

He joined the editorial staff in 1992 as its London-based Latin America correspondent, and opened the magazine’s first regional bureau in Mexico City. From 1998 to 2006, he covered the politics, economics, business and technology of energy and the environment. From 2007 to 2011 his portfolio encompassed innovation, global health, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

His latest book, published by Harper Collins, is “Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World’s Most Wicked Problems”. Amazon named it a Book of the Month and Kirkus Reviews called it “the perfect primer for the postindustrial age.” In reviewing the book, the Financial Times declared that “Vaitheeswaran is a writer to whom it is worth paying attention.” It has been translated into Chinese and several other languages. His second book, “ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future,” co-authored with Iain Carson, was named a Book of the Year by the Financial Times.

Vijay is a life member at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an advisor on sustainability and innovation to the World Economic Forum at Davos, and his commentaries have appeared on NPR and the BBC, in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He has addressed groups ranging from the US National Governors’ Association and the UN General Assembly to the Technology, Entertainment & Design (TED), Aspen Ideas and AAAS conferences.