Getting to know Persefoni: Meet Angie Kong

1. And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?" (Tell us your journey?)

I was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, where I was essentially bred to be a steward of the environment by default of being surrounded by a very environmentally conscious and progressive community. Growing up in an immigrant household, however, my parents didn’t necessarily embody the same values about conservation and environmental protection, and they certainly did not see this as a career path for their kids. As green of a city as San Francisco was, I didn’t have much exposure to nature in my childhood and my understanding of sustainability was mostly through an urban lens.

I was lucky enough in high school that some of my teachers put together an Outdoors Club and rallied for funding from the school board to get us out to the Sierra Mountains for weekend backpacking trips. These immersions outdoors opened my eyes to the natural environment outside of city limits and became very formative experiences for my interest in environmental sustainability. When it came time to choose a major in college, I thought about some of my academic curiosities and reflected on my passions – I loved science and nature, and environmental science integrated both in a practical manner that allowed me to make an impact.

It's been a bit of an evolution throughout my career as I transitioned into various environmental roles. I started as an Environmental Engineer working in the aluminum industry (at Alcoa), but felt that regulatory compliance at the time just wasn’t enough to make a material difference. After completing a Master's degree in Sustainability, I found myself working for a small startup developing a supply chain sustainability solution for the hospitality industry, where I became fascinated with the complex world of supply chains. This further led me into an in-house sustainability role in the apparel sector (at Eileen Fisher), where I was able to drive environmental practices into their sourcing strategy, help develop their first carbon footprint and Science-Based Target, and create tools for tracking environmental metrics. As a climate consultant, I supported numerous companies in their decarbonization journey, including carbon accounting, setting SBTs, reporting to CDP, LCAs, aligning to TCFD – the whole alphabet soup of frameworks for tackling climate change. Having seen the challenges in carbon accounting and decarbonization from multiple angles, I really liked what Persefoni was doing to ease the hurdle for companies, and saw an opportunity to really help companies start to take action.

2. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. (What do you do at Persefoni?)

I work in the Climate Analytics team within Product, where I get to interact with some of the brightest and most talented climate nerds on the daily! 😊 Our team works closely with product managers to research product specs and features that go into the Persefoni platform. We are constantly engaging with multiple stakeholders – Data Science, Engineering, Design, Customer Success, Climate Solutions, etc. – to understand what our customer needs are and how to feasibly build them out into our platform. Since joining the Climate Analytics team, I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to touch upon several areas of our product, including CTM, Benchmarking, Calculations, Data Transformation, and Financial Services.

3. And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?" (What are your hopes for your time at Persefoni?

I want to help continue extending our platform beyond carbon accounting and design additional solutions that help companies realize more reduction opportunities and navigate a pathway beyond net zero. My hope is to make carbon accounting easy and accessible to companies of any size so that they are armed with the resources to measure their impact and start moving towards a low carbon economy.

4. And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?" (Why is Persefoni a great home for you?)

This is my first experience working for a tech company, and it’s been a really fun ride so far. Persefoni has great talent density and it excites me to learn new things from my colleagues every day – anything from carbon accounting and climate topics, engineering challenges, data architecture, UI/UX design, etc. I also love working with data to identify creative insights and analyses that help tell a story and being able to work with data in parts of our product has sparked joy for me (such as CDP, the founder of which is a Persefoni Sustainability Advisory Board member!). My role at Persefoni feels like an extension of everything I’ve done in the past, but now I get to apply my knowledge to building a suite of products! Having been in various environmental roles in different industries throughout my career, I would say that Persefoni has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences so far.

5. And you may find yourself in another part of the world... (Tell us about your life/hobbies away from work?)

When I am not sitting in front of my computer during work hours, I am rather footloose. I enjoy movement and activities, particularly outdoors and in the mountains. Depending on the season, I might be skiing or snowboarding, exploring new crags to climb on, seeking out epic views to hike/backpack to, and am trying to cycle more this summer. When I can’t make it out of the city, I enjoy running, local hikes, park hangs, and salsa dancing.

“Once in a Lifetime" is a series of articles designed to help our customers and partners learn more about Persefoni's truly passionate team. We're not just building award-winning software ... together, we're helping to decarbonize our planet.