Michael Eckhart

Emeritus Board Member

Retired Managing Director, Citigroup, Inc

Michael Eckhart has led Citi’s work in establishing the Green Bond Principles.  He is actively engaged with REN 21, the IEA’s Renewable Advisory Board, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and the Atlantic Council.  He also is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s SIPA graduate school, teaching Environmental Finance.

Prior to Citi, he was founding President of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) which he led for ten years.

Previously, he founded the SolarBank Initiative, establishing some of the original financing of solar energy in Europe, India and Africa.  Previously, he had a 15-year career in power generation with United Power Systems, Aretê Ventures, General Electric and Booz, Allen & Hamilton, where he conducted many of the original studies on the new energy technologies in the 1970s, including the first national assessments of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, cogeneration, storage, fuel cells, and advanced coal technologies for DOE and the Carter White House.

He has received a number of awards including Renewable Energy Man of the Year of India in 1998, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2008, and the International Solar Energy Society’s Global Policy Leadership Award in 2013.

He served in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Harvard Business School