Alec Saunders

Alec Saunders joined Carbon Measures in April 2026 after a 40-year career building the markets, ecosystems, and standards that enable large-scale industry transformation. He brings fluency across technology, sustainability, and coalition-building, with deep expertise in shaping the conditions under which new frameworks take hold. At Carbon Measures, Alec leads global membership strategy, growth, and engagement across priority sectors, working to ensure the organization's coalition represents the full breadth of industries where consistent, credible carbon accounting must take root.

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Alec spent 18 cumulative years at Microsoft, where he contributed to some of the company's most consequential foundational efforts, including Windows 95, and the first versions of Internet Explorer. His work then expanded into television and mobile initiatives before leading the  Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) initiative, a global interoperability standard that helped shape and grow the market for connected devices. In subsequent roles, he worked on early AI initiatives, helping to build markets for technologies that predate today’s Microsoft Copilot. He most recently served as Worldwide Sustainability Partner Strategy Leader, developing Microsoft’s strategies for sustainability across industries.

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Saunder's career has been defined by a foundational conviction: durable markets are built on clear standards and the broad participation of those who must ultimately adopt them. He co-founded iotum Inc., where as CEO he led the company's growth as a developer of real-time communications technology. He later served as Vice President of Ecosystem and Developer Relations at BlackBerry, where he drove platform strategy and engagement with the global developer community.

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He has served on eight boards across his career, including his current role as Board Director at Martello Technologies Group, and in prior positions with the Consortium for Street Children and its U.S. affiliate, CSC Inc. These commitments reflect a long-standing orientation toward building institutions that create lasting value.

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Alec holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Waterloo. He lives in Monroe where he maintains a small organic hobby farm. He is driven by the conviction that the same discipline required to build great technology ecosystems – clarity of standards, breadth of participation, and trust among stakeholders – is precisely what will unlock the scale of adoption Carbon Measures' framework requires to drive real climate progress.