Andy Karsner

Alexander (Andy) Karsner is a long-time technology and energy development executive and policymaker. He serves on the Board of Directors of ExxonMobil and as Senior Strategist at X, the innovation lab of Alphabet Inc. He is also Executive Chairman of Elemental Labs, which pursues market transformation through nature-based solutions, and, since 2008, has been a director of Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), a global company that provides manufacturing equipment, services and software to the semiconductor, display and related industries. He served as Managing Partner of Emerson Collective, Founder and CEO of Manifest Energy Inc., Founder and Managing Director of Enercorp, and Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Karsner has also worked with Tondu Energy Systems of Texas, Wartsila Power Development of Finland and other multi-national energy firms and developers.

He is a Precourt Energy Scholar at Stanford University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and serves on Advisory Boards of MIT Medialab, and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Mr. Karsner served on the boards of Codexis, Inc. as well as Argonne National Laboratory, and was previously an Associate of the Harvard Kennedy School. He presently is on the board of Conservation International and director emeritus of the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation. He is a Life Member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, Distinguished Fellow of the Council on Competitiveness and a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. Mr. Karsner was decorated as “Royal Commander of the Polar Star” by King Gustav of Sweden. He received his MA from Hong Kong University and the Hugh Scott Cameron Award from Rice University, where he received his BA with honors.

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