Jason Bordoff joined the Columbia faculty after serving until January 2013 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Energy and Climate Change on the Staff of the National Security Council, and, prior to that, holding senior policy positions on the White House’s National Economic Council and Council on Environmental Quality. One of the world’s top energy policy experts, he joined the Administration in April 2009. At Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Bordoff is a professor of professional practice and serves as founding Director of Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Bordoff’s research and policy interests lie at the intersection of economics, energy, environment, and national security. He is a frequent commentator on TV and radio, including NPR, Bloomberg, CNBC and BBC, has appeared on the Colbert Report, and has published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and other leading news outlets. Prior to joining the White House, Bordoff was the Policy Director of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative housed at the Brookings Institution. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Petroleum Council, and serves on the boards of Winrock International (a leading nonprofit organization that works to empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity, and sustain natural resources) and the New York Energy Forum. During the Clinton Administration, Bordoff served as an advisor to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department. He was also a consultant with McKinsey & Company, one of the leading global strategy consultancies. Bordoff graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, where he was treasurer and an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He also holds an MLitt degree from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University.

James Bowen is the co-founder of Energetic Insurance, an early stage startup focused on developing innovative risk management solutions for the commercial solar markets. Prior to Energetic, James was the co-founder and Partner of Vertex Energía México, a developer and investor in 200 MW of renewable energy projects in Latin America. He is also a Lecturer at the Olin College of Engineering where he teaches entrepreneurship to engineering students.

Previously, he was the Director of Business Development at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) where he helped direct the government agency’s activities to open new markets and create business opportunities for the state’s 5,000 clean energy companies. Prior to MassCEC, Mr. Bowen founded a company that imported fresh produce from Mexico, worked as a researcher on environmental issues at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and was an M&A due diligence consultant for large-scale private equity acquisitions at Stax, Inc.

He received a B.A. in Economics from The George Washington University and a JD from Suffolk University Law School. He is also a graduate of the Clean Energy Ventures Executive Education Program at the MIT Sloan School of Management.