Karen Alderman Harbert is president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.
Under Harbert’s leadership, the Energy Institute has evolved into a premier national and increasingly international organization dedicated to advancing a constructive energy agenda and transforming the energy and environmental debate into a widely supported plan of action. During her tenure, she has been instrumental in formulating 88 specific policy recommendations that were presented to President Obama and the members of the 111th Congress.
Ms. Harbert is the former assistant secretary for policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). She was the primary policy advisor to the Secretary and to the department on domestic and international energy issues.
Ms. Harbert was also a member of DOE’s Executive Board as well as the Credit Review Board. She was vice chairman of the 27-nation International Energy Agency and was the deputy assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
In the private sector, Ms. Harbert worked for a developer of international infrastructure and power projects valued at more than $9 billion.
