Sarah Gardner

Sarah Gardner is the co-founder and CEO of Heat Initiative, a collective effort of concerned child safety experts and advocates encouraging leading technology companies to detect and eradicate child sexual abuse materials on their platforms. Last year, she launched Heat's multimillion-dollar effort to hold Apple accountable for its inaction in removing child abuse from iCloud. Sarah previously spent 10 years at Thorn, an organization that builds technology to combat online child sexual abuse, where she was integral to its growth from a small, start-up effort to a multi-million dollar nonprofit. As Vice President of External Affairs, she helped develop a plan to eliminate child sexual abuse material from the internet which spurred a $63M investment in the organization through the TED Audacious Prize. Sarah also worked at Free the Slaves, an organization empowering local organizations to end modern forms of slavery. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, three kids, and a bulldog.