Ian Bowles
Ian Bowles is a Senior Director of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, where he advises clients on energy, environmental, natural resource and sustainability issues. Based in Boston, Mr. Bowles is also Managing Director of Rhumb Line Energy LLC, an advisory and project development firm focused on clean energy development. In addition, he serves as advisor to several leading clean energy technology firms.
Mr. Bowles has more than 20 years of experience in energy, environmental and sustainability matters at the international, federal and state level. He has served three times in government positions. From 2007 to 2011, he served as Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where he oversaw a landmark restructuring of six agencies with more than 3,000 staff to focus on clean energy commercialization, greenhouse gas reduction and environmental quality. He also oversaw the enactment and implementation of seven new state laws. Mr. Bowles pioneered the model of combining energy and environmental agencies, which is now being followed by other states and jurisdictions; and set new nation-leading standards in greenhouse gas reduction, building codes, energy efficiency investment, renewable power incentives, ocean planning, land conservation and advanced biofuels. He also played an active role in the development of federal initiatives on clean energy and environmental protection. He was the founding Chairman of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and also served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and Energy Facilities Sitting Board.
Mr. Bowles also served from 1999 to 2001 as Senior Director of Global Environmental Affairs at the National Security Council and as Associate Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In these positions, he played a key role in the Kyoto Protocol process; trade and environmental negotiations; clean energy development and participated in Presidential travel to India, New Zealand and the G-8 Summit in Okinawa. Earlier in his career, he served as a Legislative Assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mr. Bowles has also held leadership positions at Conservation International, where he worked on land conservation in more than 20 developing countries and brokered the creation of numerous new protected areas, including a four million acre national park in Suriname, and at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, where he oversaw the largest U.S. foundation grant given for environmental protection. His academic career included posts as Senior Research Fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and as adjunct member of the teaching faculty at Oxford University.
Mr. Bowles co-edited Footprints in the Jungle (2001) and has written broadly on energy, environment, conservation and sustainability in both professional journals such as Science and in the popular media such as the New York Times.
Mr. Bowles earned his A.B. cum laude from Harvard College and a Masters degree from Oxford University. He has an honorary doctorate from Emerson College.