Greentown Labs Board of Directors introduces Greentown Labs’ next Chief Executive Officer

The Greentown Labs Board of Directors to enthusiastically introduce you to Greentown Labs’ next Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Knobloch, effective Sept. 5, 2023. After an extensive, national search process, we are thrilled to welcome Kevin to the Greentown team, community, and climate ecosystem we are so proud to be a part of.

A former Obama Administration appointee, Kevin brings more than 30 years of experience leading and building effective mission-driven organizations in the business, government, and nonprofit sectors with a focus on advancing clean energy and climate change solutions. His extensive knowledge of established and breakthrough energy technologies, clean energy business development, and climate policy will be instrumental in leading Greentown through its next chapter of growth in its regional ecosystems of Boston, MA and Houston, TX, and beyond.

In partnership with the Board of Directors, as CEO, Kevin will set the strategic vision for Greentown’s next era of climate impact. He will oversee a diverse set of stakeholders composed of climatetech startups and business, government, and nonprofit partners and investors from around the world to collaborate toward a shared goal of a decarbonized future.

Not only is Kevin’s experience and expertise impressive and well aligned with this amazing organization, his commitment to and knowledge of deploying clean energy and climate solutions is second to none. We know this will be a tremendous asset for our members as they work to bring their technologies to market.

As Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Energy in President Obama’s second term, working with Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz from June 2013 through January 2017, Kevin managed the federal agency of 110,000+ employees with an annual budget of $30 billion. He led the agency to meet multiple critical missions focused on national energy security and infrastructure, clean energy technology R&D, international leadership on climate change, clean energy and nuclear security, and more.

Throughout his 10-year tenure leading The Union of Concerned Scientists, Kevin provided strategic vision for the national nonprofit, science-based organization combining scientific analysis, policy design, and advocacy to address climate change and clean energy technologies. He quadrupled the organization’s capacity, launched the nonpartisan Center for Science and Democracy to help restore the roles of science and evidence-based knowledge in the U.S. policymaking process, and led the organization’s delegations to the United Nations international climate negotiations in Montreal (2005), Bali (2007), Poznan (2008) and Copenhagen (2009).

Kevin is eager to jump into his new role—as he recently shared, “I’m delighted to be asked by Greentown Labs’ Board of Directors to be the next leader of this highly effective organization—and very excited to get to work. I’ve long admired the critical role Greentown plays in supporting the growth and impact of early-stage climate and energy transition technology companies, as well as the impressive efforts by former longtime CEO Emily Reichert and the talented Board and staff to build Greentown into a national powerhouse and model for other incubators around the world. The climate crisis demands that we accelerate our collective pace of deployment and I look forward to collaborating with our startups, staff, and partners to support that acceleration.”

Kevin joins Greentown following his tenure as Acting Executive Director of the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium, and before that as President of New York OceanGrid LLC, where he led Anbaric’s efforts to develop offshore wind transmission in New York from 2018 to 2020. Prior to that, Kevin was a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Earlier in his career, he was Legislative Director in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.

He serves on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Clean Energy Council and National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium and on the Advisory Board of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center at Stony Brook University. Kevin is a Distinguished Associate at the Energy Futures Initiative.