Kate Gordon

Kate Gordon is an internationally recognized expert on the intersection of clean energy and economic development. She serves as a Partner in the sustainability practice of RIDGE-LANE Limited Partners, a merchant bank and strategic advisory firm founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. In addition, Gordon provides strategic project and policy advice to a variety of foundation, NGO, and corporate clients, including as a Senior Advisor to the Paulson Institute, Tech4America, and Four Twenty-Seven;  and as a non-resident Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Gordon is perhaps best known for her work as the founder and director of the “Risky Business Project,” co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, and Tom Steyer, and focused on the economic risks the U.S. faces from unmitigated climate change; she continues to represent the project in public and private forums across the U.S. and internationally. A prolific writer, Gordon is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal as one of the paper’s “Energy Experts,” and is currently working on a book focused on climate risk in fossil fuel extraction communities. Earlier in her career, Gordon served as Senior Vice President at the Center for the Next Generation; Vice President for Energy and Environment at the Center for American Progress; and Co-Executive Director of the national Apollo Alliance (now part of the Blue Green Alliance). Gordon serves on several boards, including Brown Advisory, Duke University’s Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment, and the American Jobs Project. She earned a joint degree in Law and City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley (where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law), and an undergraduate degree in American Studies from Wesleyan University.