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 at Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Policy Affairs (SIPA), teaching Environmental Finance, and is under contract to write a book to be titled Climate Finance.

He retired in 2019 from Citigroup in New York as Managing Director and Global Head of Environmental Finance, serving clients in renewable energy with corporate banking, investment banking capital market origination, and transaction services.  He traveled regularly to the UK, Europe, Middle East, India, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America. 

He continues to be actively engaged in leadership work with the UN, OECD, IRENA, REN 21, IIF, the Atlantic Council, and other groups.

Prior to Citi, he was founding President of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), a Washington DC-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.  He previously led the SolarBank Initiative in Europe, India and South Africa, and earlier worked in power generation and advanced technology with United Power Systems, Aretê Ventures, General Electric Company and Booz, Allen & Hamilton.  At Booz Allen, he led a three-year series of studies on the business prospects of the new energy technologies for President Jimmy Carter.

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. 

In non-profit work, he is Vice Chairman of the Oyster Recovery Project in Maryland, which is an $8 million/year operation reseeding the Chesapeake Bay with approximately 1 billion oysters per year in sanctuaries and other areas seeking the ecological restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.

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

Education

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