Sol Salinas

Sol is a corporate sustainability expert and digital transformation global thought leader with 30 years of experience in all aspects of sustainability and digital transformation. Sol was one of the founders of US EPA’s ENERGY STAR program and served as its Director of Strategic Planning and Brand Czar from 1991 to 2005. After leaving ENERGY STAR, he was appointed Assistant Office Director at EPA's Office of International Affairs where he led various US-led multilateral partnerships related to global climate change, clean air, water and sanitation, and solid and nuclear waste. His ESG and sustainability and digital expertise and background spans multiple industries. It includes all aspects of enterprise digital transformation, as well as circular economy, strategic energy management, ENERGY STAR and LEED green buildings, green IT, renewable energy, carbon foot-printing, environmental metrics and reporting, and environmental marketing and branding. Prior to joining Capgemini, Sol was a Global Managing Director at Accenture and global lead of digital infrastructure and global client account lead for The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. While at Accenture, Sol conceived, launched and led a $300M global smart infrastructure and smart cities practice. Sol was also a member of Accenture's sustainability services North America senior leadership team. His global industry and client experience includes: public service, health and life sciences, retail, consumer goods, light industrial, telecommunications and high-tech, energy and utilities, and the US federal government.

Sol is a staunch advocate of human-centered design. He has presented frequently on re-purposing Maslow’s ’Hierarchy of Needs’ to prioritize, monetize, and deploy digitally-enabled use cases in ‘smart’ communities – a unique concept he first introduced while leading the city of Chicago’s smart city efforts and which was eventually showcased on the international stage by Smart Dubai’s wholesale adoption of ‘Happiness’ as the underlying tenet of its work.

Sol is originally from Managua, Nicaragua and immigrated to the US at the age of 9. He now lives in Arlington VA with his wife Heather and 3 remaining school-aged children. He has an MA/MBA joint degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BS and BA from George Mason University, where he was scholarship athlete on the soccer team. In 2023, he was honored to deliver the GMU keynote commencement address, was included in the 2022 class of distinguished alumni, and for his distinguished career on sustainability and global climate change, he was officially inducted into the GMU alumni Hall of Fame. Sol was also recently named a 2024 Top Climate Exec to Watch by WashingtonExec magazine, a Top 250 Global Sustainability Leader by Sustainability Magazine in 2026, and a HITEC Global Top 100 Technology Executive. He is a long-distance runner and avid cyclist.