page_title: Phil Radford
section_title: Leading Greenpeace USA
hierarchical_section_title: Phil Radford / Career / Leading Greenpeace USA
caption_attribution_description: English: Two activists hanging a banner across the street from the Department of State in protest of government inaction on climate change during a Major Emitters Forum meeting.
context_page_description: Philip David Radford is an American activist who served as the executive director of Greenpeace USA. He is the founder and President of Progressive Power Lab, an organization that incubates companies and non-profits that build capacity for progressive organizations, including the Progressive Multiplier Fund and Membership Drive. Radford is a co-founder of the Democracy Initiative, was founder and executive director of Power Shift, and is a board member of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. He has a background in grassroots organizing, corporate social responsibility, climate change, and clean energy.
  Radford's theory of change shifted from viewing governments as arbitrators between public and private interests on environmental issues, to finding that most governments are captured by industry. Rather than fighting first for new laws, which could be blocked by industries, he has focused on pressuring large companies to change their practices and enlisted them as allies in pushing for strong environmental protections.
context_section_description: In 2009, at the age of 33, Radford was selected as the youngest ever executive director of Greenpeace. Radford's tenure at Greenpeace USA is best known for convincing over 100 corporations to change their environmental practices; exposing the anti-environmental influence of the Koch Brothers, making them a household name; increasing the organization's net income by 80%; launching the organization's grassroots organizing and significantly growing the canvass programs; and serving as a founder of the Democracy Initiative, a national coalition of major unions, environmental groups, civil rights and government reform organizations working for universal voter registration, to get money out of politics, and to reform Senate rules. In September 2013, Radford announced that he would step down on April 30, 2014, once he had completed five years of service as executive director.
  New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin referred to a Greenpeace campaign during Radford's tenure as "Activism at Its Best."
  Ben Jealous, former president and chief executive officer of the NAACP as well as co-founder of the Democracy Initiative with Radford, described Radford at the helm of Greenpeace as "a modern movement building giant. He has built powerful diverse coalitions to bolster the fights for the environment and voting rights. In the process he has shown himself to be unmatched in mobilizing everyday people to fund their movements directly." Environmental leader Bill McKibben stated: "During Radford's tenure, Greenpeace has been helping the whole environmental movement shift back towards its roots: local, connected, tough."
  Before becoming executive director of Greenpeace USA, Radford served as the director of the organization's Grassroots Program. In that capacity, he directed and significantly grew the organization's street canvass and launched and directed the door-to-door canvasses, online-to-offline organizing team, social media team, the Greenpeace Student Network, and the Greenpeace Semester. Under Radford, the street and door-to-door canvassing programs grew to include nearly 400 canvassers in almost 20 cities across the country and was responsible for doubling the organization's budget.
caption: On his first day as Greenpeace executive director, Radford participated in a protest of government inaction on climate change at the State Department.
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