Climate Cardinals Names Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa as First Full-Time Executive Director to Lead Global Climate Accessibility Efforts

Climate Cardinals, one of the world’s largest youth-led climate organizations, has appointed Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa as its first full-time Executive Director. Hayakawa is a founding director of the organization, which strives to expand access to climate education globally.

Hayakawa is a 23 year-old Guyanese and Japanese American climate justice activist from the New York Metropolitan Area. He has been with Climate Cardinals for four years, starting as a founding Partnerships Director in 2020 before taking on the role of Vice President and Deputy Executive Director in 2023. During his tenure, he established Climate Cardinals’ translation program, secured 30 partnerships, including with Translators Without Borders and Google Cloud, and managed over two million words of climate information translations. He also fundraised half a million USD and mentored 30 Directors. 

Hayakawa led all of this work as a full-time student at Williams College and a visiting student at Exeter College at the University of Oxford, where he studied History and Environmental Studies with a focus on the global Indigenous rights movement. 

In response to this announcement, Climate Cardinals Founder Sophia Kianni shared, “I’m excited to welcome Hikaru as our first full-time Executive Director. For those of you who know our work, this is not a surprise. I have consulted Hikaru as part of my decision-making processes since the beginning of Climate Cardinals, when he joined my founding team.”

Kianni is the founder of Climate Cardinals and was its first Executive Director, volunteering in this role since the organization’s formation in May 2020. Climate Cardinals was born out of Kianni’s realization that there is a lack of valuable climate information, especially scientific research, available in languages other than English. Kianni will remain President of Climate Cardinals.

“I’m excited to lead this organization in our aim to become one of the first youth-led and justice-focused environmental legacy organizations,” said Hayakawa.

Since 2020, Climate Cardinals has been a trailblazer in expanding climate accessibility, translating over three million words of climate information into 105 languages for organizations like Yale, UNESCO, and UNICEF. Over the past few years, Hayakawa has defined Climate Cardinals’ impact, and with his transition to this full-time role, he is set to accelerate the organization’s growth.

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