Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa

Executive Director

Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa is a Caribbean and Japanese American climate justice activist, Indigenous Studies researcher, and social entrepreneur.

Hayakawa is the Executive Director and a founding director of Climate Cardinals, one of the world’s largest youth-led climate advocacy organizations with 16,000 volunteers in 134 countries and 100 chapters in 33 countries. Hayakawa established Climate Cardinals’ signature translation program in partnership with Translators Without Borders and Google Cloud. As a full-time student, he expanded Climate Cardinals’ translation capacity to a million words per year, handled translation requests for over two million words of climate information, and fundraised for a six-figure budget, with Climate Cardinals becoming one of the first-ever youth-led organizations to be funded by Google’s philanthropic branch. Now, he works full-time for Climate Cardinals.

Hayakawa also represents Climate Cardinals as part of UNESCO’s Youth Climate Action Network Steering Committee, a network of networks that represents over 10 million youth climate activists, and the WHO Youth Council, together with Climate Cardinals' Research Director. Hayakawa has spoken about his work for the Smithsonian, the UN Development Programme, the Italian Ministry of the Environment, UNESCO, Deloitte, and the U.S. Interagency Group on Climate Literacy. His work has also been featured in Axios, the Guardian, Forbes, and Teen Vogue.

In June 2024, Hayakawa graduated from Williams College magna cum laude with highest honors in Global Studies for a thesis on the global Indigenous rights movement. At Williams, he received the institution’s most distinguished award for campus citizenship. Hayakawa has prior work experience with the UN Environment Programme, the Ecologic Institute, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, a federally-recognized tribe.

Hayakawa has been named to the Global Student Prize Top 50, Grist 50 Class of 2024, the American Councils for International Education 50 Alumni for 50 Years, the Clean Energy for Harris Advisory Board, and the Youth Impact Council, led by the Duchess of York.