Chief Executive Officer, President, LACI-the Network for Global Innovation (NGIN)
Mr. Walti is an expert in creating innovation ecosystems that drive economic development. Currently, he is the CEO of the Network for Global Innovation (NGIN: www.ngin.org ), a new nonprofit that connects scientists, entrepreneurs and investors with customers, policy makers, and other ecosystem stakeholders. NGIN’s mission is to slow climate change and build economic wealth at the same time — globally, in real time, and at scale. NGIN will reduce the friction that slows innovation flowing into markets that will embrace them and benefit from their adoption.
Previously, Mr. Walti was the Co-Founder and for a period of six years served as the Founding CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), combining experience as an entrepreneur with his passion for clean technology. Mr. Walti built LACI from a start-up in a bus repair garage into a statewide commercialization ecosystem with an international footprint. LACI is now recognized as one of the premier cleantech commercialization programs in the world: ranked as a Top Ten Global Incubator by the UBI Index of 1200 incubators for three years in a row; selected by the Department of Energy (DoE) as one of their three national incubators; and chosen by the California Energy Commission (CEC) to establish a Los Angeles Energy Innovation Cluster through a $5 million CEC grant.
Under Mr. Walti’s leadership, LACI has helped 115+ companies raise $160 million in funding, thus creating 1,700 jobs, and delivering more than $380 million in long term economic value for the City of Los Angeles. In 2016, LACI celebrated the grand opening of the La Kretz Innovation Campus which is the recipient of numerous recognitions, including the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.
Mr. Walti has been involved — either as a founder, consultant, principal, or investor — in the startup of several-dozen technology companies. He was named included at Techweek100 as one of the most impactful technology leaders in 2014.
Mr. Walti speaks often on subjects that include creating high-performance innovation ecosystems that drive economic development; the new mega city revitalization concept “The City as a Start-up”; how to a region’s strengths to build a large green economy, entrepreneurship, the role of innovation in creating jobs, and public/private partnerships.
Example: http://breakthrough.unglobalcompact.org/briefs/fred-walti-los-angelescleantech- incubator/