Michael Eckhart

Focus areas: environmental finance and investment, project finance, solar  energy, wind power, other clean energy, and energy efficiency in the US, Europe, India, China and around the world.

Michael Eckhart is an Adjunct Professor in Columbia University''s  School for International and Policy Affairs (SIPA) where he teaches a course on Environmental Finance.

Michael’s full-time work is as a Managing Director and Global Head of Environmental Finance in the Corporate and Investment Banking Division of Citigroup in New York City.  He also is Citi''s representative on the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century (REN 21), The International Energy Agency''s (IEA''s) Renewable Industry Advisory Board, The UN''s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All), and the Energy Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council.

Previously, he was founding President of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), a Washington DC-based nonprofit organization, where he emerged as a national and global leader in the renewable energy field.  Earlier, he developed financing for solar energy under the SolarBank Initiative in Europe, South Africa and India; was Chairman & CEO of United Power Systems developing gas-fired power projects; Vice President of Areté Ventures; a strategic planner of General Electric Company’s power systems sector; and a Principal in the energy practice of Booz, Allen & Hamilton where he conducted many of the original national energy studies in the 1970s.

He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including Renewable Energy Man of the Year of India in 1998, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2008, the Good Deal for All Award in 2009, and the International Solar Energy Society’s Global Policy Leadership Award in 2013. 

He served in the US Navy Submarine Service, and received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1973 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975.

Education

• MBA, Harvard Business School
• BS in Electrical Engineering, Purdue University