Phil Radford

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.

In 2014, deforestation in Indonesia, which accounts for 0.1% of the world's surface, caused 4% of global warming pollution. One of the major drivers of deforestation was clearing the forest to grow palm oil plantations. Under Radford, the Greenpeace USA team persuaded Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Mondelez, and other major companies to demand sustainably grown palm oil.

From 2010 to 2013, Radford managed the Greenpeace team that persuaded major U.S. companies to cancel their contracts with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) – the world's third largest paper company – to push APP to stop destroying ancient forests. Greenpeace and its allies succeeded in convincing more than 100 corporate customers of APP to sever their ties with the company, including Mattel, Hasbro, Lego, Kmart, IGA, Kroger, Food Lion, National Geographic, and Xerox. The campaign against APP cut nearly 80% of APP's U.S. market. On February 5, 2013, Asia Pulp and Paper announced a deforestation policy protecting Indonesian rainforests. Referring to the victory, New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin heralded the campaign with a piece titled: "Activism at Its Best: Greenpeace's Push to Stop the Pulping of Rainforests".

On April 21, 2011, Greenpeace released a report highlighting data centers, which consumed up to 2% of all global electricity and this amount was projected to increase. Radford stated "we are concerned that this new explosion in electricity use could lock us into old, polluting energy sources instead of the clean energy available today." Business Insider reported that after Greenpeace USA campaigns, "tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Salesforce have promised to power their data centers with renewable energy, a pledge that led Duke Energy, the nation's largest power utility and one of the most flagrant emitters of CO2, to begin providing clean energy to win their business."

Radford oversaw the grassroots mobilization efforts on the Kleercut Campaign in the United States and, later, the entire U.S. component of the global campaign when he became Greenpeace's executive director, targeting Kimberly-Clark for sourcing 22% of its paper pulp from Canadian boreal forests containing 200-year-old trees. The campaign included intervening in Kleenex commercial shoots, convincing twenty-two universities and colleges to take action such as cancelling contracts, recruiting 500 companies to boycott Kimberly-Clark, over 1,000 protests of the company, and more. On August 5, 2009, Kimberly-Clark announced that it would source 40% of its paper fiber from recycled content or other sustainable sources – a 71% increase from 2007 levels. The demand created by Kimberly-Clark for sustainably logged fiber was greater than the supply, enabling the company to convince logging companies to change their practices.

In 2001, Radford founded Power Shift, a non-governmental organization dedicated to driving clean energy market breakthroughs and building the grassroots base to stop global warming.

In 2001, while running Power Shift, Radford launched a campaign to push Citibank to offer and promote Energy Efficient Mortgages (EEMs). Citi was "missing the opportunity to help stop global warming by phasing out fossil fuel investments and promoting clean energy now," Radford said. "The irony is that if Citi financed solar for people's homes, solar energy could be made immediately affordable for millions of Americans today." In 2004, Citigroup agreed to offer and promote EEMs for residential wind, energy efficiency, and solar installations that would make clean energy affordable for millions of Americans.

From 1999 to 2001 Radford was field director for Ozone Action, an organization dedicated to working on the atmospheric threats of global warming and ozone depletion. As field director, Radford planned and executed a number of grassroots campaigns, including a campaign during the 2000 presidential primaries, which was the initial impetus for Senator John McCain sponsoring the Climate Stewardship Act.

His first job as a grassroots organizer came as a canvasser for Illinois PIRG. While studying political science and business at Washington University in St. Louis, he directed campaign and canvass offices during summers for the Fund for Public Interest Research for clients including the Human Rights Campaign, PIRGIM, and Ohio PIRG and worked part-time during school for the Sierra Club.After graduating college in 1998, Radford became a lead organizer at Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing.

Radford received his B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998.

Philip David Radford (born January 2, 1976) 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.