Kim Karin Polese (born November 13, 1961) is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and technology executive. She currently serves as Chairwoman of ClearStreet Inc., a social finance startup focused on helping people eliminate debt and achieve long-term financial health.
Polese is also an advocate of public policy to increase America's innovation capacity. In 2011 she was named to President Obama's Innovation Advisory Board which guided the Commerce Department's study of US economic competitiveness, delivering a report with recommendations to Congress in January 2012.
In May 2012, Polese was named to the San Francisco Business Journal's list of "Most Influential Women". Polese is the recipient of the 2010 National Center for Women & Information Technology Innovator Award. Early in her career, in 1997, she made Time Magazine's list of "The 25 Most Influential Americans".
Polese received a BA degree in biophysics in 1984 from the University of California, Berkeley and studied computer science at the University of Washington. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business and Economics from California State University in 2011. She is a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Engineered Innovation.
In addition to serving ClearStreet as Chairman, Polese is an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow and serves on a number of boards, including the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, TechNet, the University of California President's Board on Science and Innovation, UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, the Long Now Foundation, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Global Security Institute. Polese served on the board of Technorati, Inc. from 2004 to 2006. She is an advisor and investor in several early-stage technology companies.