Leni Peterson Redondo
I look for the patterns shaping the future, then help build the systems that will define it.
I work across engineering, design, strategy, and climate to make complex systems easier to see and possible futures easier to build. My work is guided by a simple belief: the world's hardest problems rarely belong to one discipline, and meaningful change begins when we learn to connect what has been kept separate.
MS/MBA (Engineering Sciences + Business), Harvard · BS Engineering, Stanford · Based in Mexico City.
Engineer. Designer. Founder.
Building solutions for complex systems.
I am a systems thinker, engineer, designer, and founder drawn to problems that sit between disciplines and resist simple answers. I tend to look beyond the visible problem to understand the incentives, relationships, and structures underneath it, then translate that complexity into something people can act on.
Today, I am the Founder and CEO of Celeste, where I work at the intersection of water, finance, and resilient supply chains. My path has taken me from designing adaptable shelters for displaced communities, to helping Fortune 100 leaders anticipate emerging risks, to building new ways for companies to understand and invest in water resilience.
I hold an MBA and an MS in Engineering Sciences from Harvard, as well as a BS in Mechanical Engineering Design from Stanford. Across each of those experiences, the common thread has been a desire to connect rigorous analysis with human understanding, and to build practical solutions for complex systems.
A path through systems.
- 2023 – Present
Founder & CEO · Celeste
Mexico City (Hybrid)
Celeste provides AI-enabled financial services for water resilience. We quantify the cost of inaction, optimize investment opportunities, and unlock capital to scale high-impact solutions, bridging water risk and financial performance to guide smarter capital allocation across priority basins in global supply chains.
Winner, Innodrop Initiative · Winner, Savia Ventures Lotus Award · Winner, Chany Ventures Demo Day.
- 2021 – 2023
MS/MBA (Engineering Sciences + Business) · Harvard
Boston, MA
A joint MS/MBA combining an MS in Engineering Sciences (Harvard SEAS) with an MBA (Harvard Business School). Focused on strategy, supply chain, product management, and entrepreneurship. Active in the Sustainability, LatAm, and Impact Investing Clubs; competed in the Turner MIINT impact-investing competition.
- 2022
Entrepreneurship Fellow, ESG Strategy · Endeavor México
Mexico City (Internship)
Built the foundations of a core "Access to Impact" service to support Endeavor Entrepreneurs' social and environmental strategies and Endeavor Mexico's internal ESG directives.
- 2019 – 2021
Innovation Strategist · Jump Associates
San Francisco Bay Area
Jump works with Fortune 100 companies that don't yet know what question to ask. I combined ethnographic field research, STEEPLE-based scenario planning, and war-gaming to help leadership see around corners, from multi-hour interviews with extreme users to C-suite facilitation, translating weak signals into strategy.
Where water systems, financial systems, and supply chains intersect.
Translating water risk into the language of capital.
At Celeste, we are building the financial intelligence platform for water resilience. Water risk is financial risk. The question is no longer whether to integrate it into financial analysis; it's how fast, and by whom. The gap isn't a lack of interest; it's a lack of fluency on both sides. That translation is the work.
Water & Nature Finance Series (#1–#15)
A 15-part series translating research from the OECD, ECB, NGFS, Moody's, AFD, WWF, and Insurance Europe into financial terms. Water risk is financial risk. Not awareness, translation.
Read on LinkedIn ↗The "bankable" translation problem
Notes from the Global Water Summit: why making a water project bankable is a translation job, not just a finance exercise.
Read on LinkedIn ↗CEOs are talking about water, as risk, strategy, and capital allocation
Moderating the YPO Mexico City panel "The True Value and Business Case of Water."
Read on LinkedIn ↗Teaching at Harvard Business School
A session in the HBS AI & Climate / Adaptation series: "If climate change is a shark, water is its teeth."
Read on LinkedIn ↗Winning Innodrop
Celeste's first-place finish among 91 water startups.
Read on LinkedIn ↗FLII, Latin America's largest impact investment forum
Pitching Celeste and speaking on AI for water security and climate resilience.
Read on LinkedIn ↗Awards, stages, and rooms.
- Winner, Innodrop Initiative (1st place, 91 water startups)
- Winner, Savia Ventures Lotus Award
- Winner, Chany Ventures Demo Day
- Guest lecturer, Harvard Business School, AI & Climate / Adaptation series
- Panel moderator, YPO Mexico City, "The True Value and Business Case of Water"
- Speaker & pitch, FLII (Foro Latinoamericano de Inversión de Impacto)
- Education: MBA & MS Engineering Sciences, Harvard · BS Engineering, Stanford
Top skills
Beyond the balance sheet.
Artist. Diver. Traveler.
When I'm not translating water risk into financial terms, I'm usually near the water, or painting it. Diving taught me to see water systems from the inside; painting is how I process what I see; travel keeps my sense of the world honest.
Painting
Diving
An avid scuba diver.
- · PADI Drysuit Diver (2019)
- · PADI Advanced Open Water Diver (2014)
Travel
Currently based in Mexico City · always mid-trip.
Let's talk.
Founder & CEO, Celeste. Water & financial intelligence for resilient supply chains.