Aimee Christensen

Aimée Christensen is the founder and CEO of Christensen Global Strategies, advising clients seeking to address the global challenges of climate change, ecosystem degradation, and resource scarcity, and their impacts on conflict and development.  Her clients are wide-ranging, from governments, to non-profits, to corporations, to investors, to emerging technology companies.  They have included the Clinton Global Initiative, Duke Energy, the Elders, the Global Observatory, Ogilvy, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Swiss Re, the United Nations Development Program, the U.S. Department of Energy, Virgin Unite, and Wolfensohn + Co.  She has advised them on corporate and philanthropic strategy, policy and legislative issues, specific transactions, and she has drafted congressional testimony and advised on green economic development programs.

Aimée was a National Co-Chair of Cleantech & Green Business for Obama, and in early 2009 she co-founded the Clean Economy Network, whose collaboration with other business groups, the We Can Lead campaign, brought over 250 business leaders to Capitol Hill in February 2010 and October 2009, to advocate for passage of comprehensive climate change and energy legislation. She serves as a Member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Task Force on Sustainability and Efficiency, advising Secretary Janet Napolitano.  She is also a member of the Advisory Boards of EKO Asset Management Partners, the Sustainable Endowments Institute, Vote Solar, and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.  She is a member of the Board of the American Council on Renewable Energy, the Clean Economy Development Center, ecoAmerica, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, and the National Association of Environmental Law Societies.  She also served as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Climate Change, and is a founder of and pro bono adviser to the Newark Green Future Network and Summit, supporting Newark, NJ Mayor Cory A. Booker.

Trained as an environmental and energy lawyer with deep experience in energy policy in Washington, she brings additional knowledge and perspective from her time developing climate change and sustainability strategy in the corporate, investment, and philanthropic sectors.  From 2006 to 2007, Aimée worked with Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, where she developed strategy, guided early initiatives, and helped build the team working on global warming and its broader relationship to poverty, development, and public health. She developed and incubated the “RechargeIT” plug-in hybrid vehicle-to-grid project, and she advised Google's Greenteam to develop its corporate climate strategy including a commitment to carbon neutrality and adoption of a “shadow price” for carbon.

In 2005, she worked with the Legal Department of the World Bank advising the Bank’s carbon finance business.  In 2003 and 2004, she was Executive Director of Environment2004, informing the American public about the impact of federal environmental policy on health, the economy, and quality of life. Immediately prior, she practiced law with Baker & McKenzie, advising clients on energy and environmental transactions and compliance as well as legislative strategies.  She also worked on trade and environmental issues for the International Centre for Trade & Sustainable Development in Geneva, opening understanding between governments and activists at a time of increasing challenge to the global trading framework and globalization itself. From 1994 to 1998, Aimée developed and executed Latin American energy policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, including negotiating the Summit of the Americas energy agenda and the first bilateral and regional agreements on climate change, and serving as energy advisor for Presidential engagement with Latin America.

Aimée has been awarded a 2010 Aspen Institute Catto Fellowship for her environmental leadership.  In 2008, she was named an “Emerging Leader” by the New Leaders Council, and she spoke on energy issues at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She has appeared on Washington News Channel 8, NPR, Fox News, McLaughlin: One on One, and quoted in U.S. News and World Report, USA Today, Salon.com, and Grist Magazine.  At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aimée was elected to represent “U.S. Youth at Rio”, introducing then Senator Al Gore before the Global Forum, and calling for greater U.S. leadership toward a shared vision of a healthier, safer, more equitable future.  She received her B.A. from Smith College and her J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she wrote and led efforts to obtain the adoption by Stanford’s Board of Trustees of the “Climate Change and Investment Responsibility Policy” that governs Stanford’s investments to this day.