Brendon Steele is Director of Stakeholder Engagement at Future 500, leading its climate and energy stakeholder engagement work. Steele endeavors to create unlikely allies between the environmental community, the oil and gas sector, and Republicans, with an eye toward building support for a federal price on carbon. He joined Future 500 after brief stints with Oxfam America and the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) at Columbia University. Prior to that, he spent five years working in the environmental chemistry field.

Brendon grew up with one foot in the progressive culture of the Bay Area and the other in a conservative oil family, preparing him well for his future straddling the boundaries between NGOs, corporations, and bureaucrats. He holds an M.A. in Climate & Society from Columbia University and a B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from UC Davis.