Nancy Pfund is the founder of DBL Partners. A pioneer in impact investing, DBL has helped demonstrate how venture capital can drive social and environmental outcomes. Nancy writes and speaks widely on impact investing, sustainable agriculture and nature-based climate solutions. She sponsors or serves on boards of companies including Chestnut Carbon, Bellwether Coffee, and Spatial, and previously served on the boards of Tesla Motors, SolarCity and Pandora prior to their IPOs. At SolarCity (2008–2016), she served on the audit and compensation committees and chaired corporate governance through its 2012 IPO and 2016 acquisition by Tesla. Before founding DBL, Nancy was a managing director in Venture Capital at JPMorgan and began her investment career at Hambrecht & Quist (1984). Earlier roles include Intel, the State of California, Stanford University and the Sierra Club.

Honors include the 2024 Impact Leadership Award from Impact Capital Managers; Forbes Women 50 Over 50: Investment (2023); and the San Francisco Business Times’ Bay Area 100 Most Influential Business Leaders (2023). She was named Financial Woman of the Year by Financial Women of San Francisco (2022) and recognized on the Forbes Impact 50 (2020). Earlier honors include The Commonwealth Club Distinguished Citizen Award and the Earth Day Network Climate Visionary Award (both 2018), and Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business (2016).

Nancy serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society and is a member and former chapter chair of the Silicon Valley Women Corporate Directors Foundation. She also serves as an advisor to Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West and the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency, and co-chairs the Yale School of Management Program on Entrepreneurship.

She has lectured in management at Stanford GSB and Yale SOM and served as a C3E Ambassador to the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Program (U.S. Department of Energy). She was a founding officer and director of ABC2 (to accelerate a cure for brain cancer), a founding member of the California Clean Energy Fund, and served on advisory boards for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Cyclotron Road.

Nancy earned a BA and MA in anthropology from Stanford University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.