Onyeka
Obiocha

Onyeka Obiocha has spent more than a decade, building accelerators, funds, and public institutions that determine which ideas reach the market and who gets to build them.

He is Director of the Global GreenChem Innovation and Network Program (GGINP) at Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering, a joint initiative with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). He oversees the program's ecosystem strategy across six markets: Peru, Serbia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Uganda, and Jordan. In each, he established a national accelerator with a local institutional partner and built the sourcing and selection process that fills it. The program has supported more than one hundred ventures to date, connecting them to investors, corporate partners, and policymakers, and he has assembled the base of capital providers and entrepreneur support organizations that sustains them.

Prior to GGINP, he served as Executive Director of CTNext, Connecticut's innovation office, where he led the state's strategy for the innovation economy, directed public capital into early-stage companies, and worked with the legislature and the investment community to widen access to that capital. Prior to that appointment, as Director of Integrated Capital and Learning at the Heron Foundation, he oversaw deployment of a $350 million endowment, aligned investment practice with the foundation's mandate, and constructed the partnerships that carried it into new markets.

His work at Yale began at the Center for Public Service and Social Justice, the oldest and largest student-led university-affiliated service organization in the country, where he served as inaugural Director of Innovation and founded the Social Innovation Lab, the university's first incubator open to students and community members. As Managing Director of the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking, he deployed capital, built the program portfolio, and raised institutional resources for student ventures across the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. He served on the advisory council of the College Street Innovation Fund, a $3.75 million vehicle investing up to $100,000 in qualifying Yale startups.

As an operator, he co-founded Sharelogical, an e-commerce platform directing affiliate marketing revenue to charitable giving, and Breakfast Lunch & Dinner, a community venture-building studio in Hartford. He co-founded and exited A Happy Life Coffee, which became the platform for a legislative campaign he organized to establish Benefit Corporations in Connecticut statute. The General Assembly recognized the effort with an official citation.

He has advised entrepreneur support organizations in New York, Budapest, and Beijing, served as a finalist judge for the Echoing Green Fellowship, and moderated public conversations with figures including Arlan Hamilton and Michael Seibel. His work has been recognized by Connecticut Magazine's 40 Under 40, the Next City Vanguard, the National Retail Federation, and the 100 Men of Color awards. He is certified in Inclusive and Sustainable Cluster Development by UNIDO, the methodology underlying the GreenChem program's design, and completed the Summer Institute in Inclusive Economies for a Just and Sustainable Planet at Universidad de Los Andes.

He is the founder of Palm Wine, a natural wine social club convening communal dinners across Europe and the United States. He lives in Paris.