About Marshall Kirkpatrick

Hi, I'm Marshall Kirkpatrick, Earth Catalyst Principal Consultant and Founder. This page is intended to provide some context on who I am and how I work.

Startup Experience

I’ve been a leader on teams with wins at every stage of the startup journey. I've been one of the top tech journalists in the world, a founder with global customers and an exit, a B2B exec from $100M to $400M ARR through IPO, and worked in global VC.  Setting up market intelligence, competitive intelligence, and thought leadership systems is my specialty.

Over the years, I've been cited in the Wall St. Journal (12X), BBC (3X), NPR (3X), PBS (3X), New York Times (2X), ABC, CBS, MSNBC, the United Nations and the American Medical Association.

I would be delighted to connect with you on LinkedIn here.

Sustainability Experience

I am fundamentally mission driven and have extensive experience in both the private and nonprofit sectors.

I've worked in support of groups ranging from Extinction Rebellion to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In 2022, I wrote the green tech section of the internationally influential newsletter Exponential View.

In 2025, I was honored to be subject of a Community Member Profile at Cultural Survival, an incredible 50+ year old global Indigenous land and language rights organization.

My Theory of Change

My current thinking is that the world needs a 2-speed strategy of change:

• First, we need to take actions that tap into the profit motive and our universal need for livelihood, to drive rapid economic transformation and avert the very worst impacts of climate change.

• But in parallel, I believe we need to do deeper, slower, cultural change to transform humanity's relationship with the rest of the Earth: away from alienation and exploitation, toward connection and emergence.

I work with organizations doing both types of work.

I believe that the most high-leverage work I can do is to build capacity in your organization. Most of the time I do that using tools and data, my network of connections, and systems to share lessons learned.

I started Earth Catalyst in 2024. Want to talk about working together? You can email me at marshall@earthcatalyst.co