Dawn James leads the Global IoT Strategy for Energy & Sustainability. She leverages her subject matter expertise to foster industry alignment and new business development, helping customers leverage Microsoft technology to accelerate their sustainability journey. Dawn leads a wide range of initiatives in energy transition, sustainability, environmental science, and innovation. Dawn has over 24 years of industry experience as a geoscientist and systems leader. She is a certified naturalist, formerly serving as Director, US Sustainability & Environmental Science at Microsoft as well as Research Hydrogeologist with the U.S. Department of the Interior (USGS). Dawn’s expertise not only includes results-driven leadership, market incubation and ecosystem innovation but she also articulates value at the convergence of industry and technology. Dawn holds an MSc in geoscience from California State University and a professional certification in big data and predictive analytics from MIT. She is a member of the Board of Directors at Greentown Labs (the largest clean tech incubator in the US), a 2022 Women in Smart Energy Award winner, a Distinguished Speaker on “The Business of Sustainability” at the Nazarian School for Business & Economics (CSUN). She has been recognized as a DEI Champion (2021) by the National Diversity Council. In her spare time, Dawn enjoys playing the reading and spending time with her daughters.