Maren Costa is an influential climate justice and workers’ rights advocate and tech industry leader, currently serving as the U.S. Advisor at WorkForClimate.org, where she empowers tech employees to build collective power as a critical counterforce against the rising influence of the big tech oligarchs. Maren is also a frequent speaker on tech and climate issues, reaching audiences via conferences, universities, companies, podcasts, press, and film.With over 20 years of experience in leadership roles at tech giants like Adobe, Amazon, and Microsoft, Maren has advanced inclusivity, sustainability, and human-centered design across the industry. As Amazon’s first Principal User Experience Designer, she led transformative design projects across multiple business units, earning 16 patents. Driven by her commitment to equity and climate action, she co-founded Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), a worker-powered organization credited with landmark achievements, including Amazon’s Climate Pledge and Jeff Bezos’s $10 billion Earth Fund.In 2020, Maren was controversially and wrongfully terminated from Amazon for advocating for climate justice and warehouse workers’ safety during the Covid-19 pandemic—a termination that drew national attention, with U.S. Senators and Attorneys General publicly contesting Amazon’s actions. The National Labor Relations Board filed suit, and Maren ultimately won a settlement. Following this, she joined Microsoft, where she led a global team of designers and researchers focused on ethical consumer products and organized efforts for a sustainable 401(k) plan for employees.In 2023, Maren ran for Seattle City Council on a platform of climate justice and workers’ rights, achieving a sweeping victory in the primary, but losing the general election due to significant dark money and disinformation. These experiences across Big Tech, climate justice, worker organizing, media, policy, and politics shape Maren’s theory of change: that our most complex and existential challenges—climate crisis, ecological collapse, global inequity, reproductive freedom, etc.—stem from exploitative socio-economic-political systems, and those who hold power within them, and the single most effective force for radical systems change is collective, organized, strategic grassroots action. Maren is committed to driving systemic change toward a sustainable and equitable future, and dedicated to leveraging her expertise and platform to drive meaningful, lasting impact.