Vikrum Aiyer
Head of Global Public Policy & External Affairs, Heirloom
climate policy, government affairs, public policy, technology regulation, political communications
Vikrum Aiyer is Head of Global Public Policy at Heirloom, where his team works to align climate policy, workforce development strategies, and legislative affairs to accelerate carbon mineralization sciences that can remove greenhouse gasses from the air, in support of our global net-zero goals.
He previously held roles in the Obama Administration including as senior policy advisor in the White House National Economic Council, and as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. In these capacities, he served as the principal political and policy advisor to the undersecretary of commerce and coordinated a $3.2B budget, in support of 13,000 employees, to execute the daily operations, priorities, and global communications of the President’s intellectual property & STEM agenda. In 2016 Aiyer led a U.S. delegation to Cuba to reset relations between the two nations patent offices, and served on Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Task Force, to accelerate progress towards a cure by fast tracking immunology patenting. Aiyer also helped steer investments in several advanced manufacturing technologies including smart fabrics, autonomous vehicles, high performance computing, and next generation semiconductors through the National Network of Manufacturing Hubs.
Aiyer also served as the global vice president of the start-up Postmates, where he oversaw the public policy & communications team, through their acquisition by Uber. Aiyer was also a Deputy Division Director in the ACLU’s national political team where his team managed the political response to the attacks on transgender rights and the reversal of abortion rights in America.
Aiyer has also served on the communications team of Senator Ed Markey (D-MA); Mayor Adrian Fenty (D-Washington, D.C.); and the Democratic National Conventions in 2012, 2016, and 2024. In 2015, Forbes Magazine named Aiyer to the 30 Under 30 list for Law & Policy. In 2017 Aiyer was named a Public Policy Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. And in 2021, the San Francisco Business Times named him to their annual 40 under 40 in business list.
Amy Pitelka
Managing Partner, Barker Pitelka PLLC
M&A, technology law, regulatory compliance, corporate governance, government tech
Amy Pitelka is a legal and policy advisor with deep experience in emerging technologies, converging regulatory environments, commercial transactions, and product and program development. With more than 15 years of legal experience, Pitelka’s practice focuses on sustainability growth and public benefit technology, helping organizations navigate overlapping regulatory regimes, draft and negotiate complex commercial agreements, quickly launch new products and features in uncertain legal environments, and build and manage ongoing legal advisory teams.
Prior to restarting her own practice, Pitelka was the Head of Legal at an employee benefits fintech. There she managed the legal, compliance, and people teams, and helped to navigate the company through health, insurance, payments, banking, ERISA, GDPR, and other regulatory regimes. Previously, Pitelka was the Chief Legal Officer of Nightingale Open Science based in the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business’s Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence. At Nightingale Open Science Pitelka helped to create a secure, open data hub that brings together health systems and research communities from across the world, enabling researchers to push the boundaries of medical science.
From 2016-2017 Pitelka was the lead Counsel (and briefly Acting Deputy Administrator) for the United States Digital Service at the White House, where she focused on identifying, combating, and removing key legal and policy hurdles to the USDS’s ongoing efforts to revolutionize the federal government’s use of technology in delivering services to the American people. Relatedly, Pitelka served as the technology liaison to the United States Department of Agriculture in the Biden/Harris 2020 transition team, focusing on efforts to modernize the delivery of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in the context of the COVID epidemic.
Pitelka has also worked at Dropbox, Google, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP. She graduated from Harvard Law School.