New WRI Board Members Highlight Importance of China, Energy Investment

The World Resources Institute’s (WRI) board of directors welcomed two new members last month by electing Chen Jining, a professor and executive vice president at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Daniel Weiss, co-founder and manager of the Angeleno Group, an energy-focused private equity firm.

“These newest board members bring valuable expertise to WRI as the world can expect a growing role for China in facing environmental challenges, and an approaching surge in renewable energy investments,” said Jonathan Lash, president of WRI.

Professor Chen Jining is an executive vice president at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and was formerly chairman of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering. His research areas include environmental systems analysis, water resources and environmental policy, integrated river basin planning and management, non-point sources pollution control, and sustainable cities.

Professor Chen serves as a specialist member of the International Task Force in Forecasting Environmental Change and director of the Environmental Technology Branch of the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. He is also a member of the International Water Association.

In 2005, he won the First-Grade Huaxia Science-Tech Prize awarded by the Ministry of Construction for his distinguished work.

Daniel Weiss is co-founder and managing partner of the Angeleno Group (AG), a private equity firm focused on high-growth investments in the energy sector. Mr. Weiss oversees AG’s investment activities in the areas of emissions reduction, transmission and distribution infrastructure and power quality and reliability.

Prior to the formation of AG, Mr. Weiss was an attorney at O’Melveny and Myers in Los Angeles, working in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions, international and high technology practice groups. He represented multiple Global 1000 clients, including utilities and energy related companies, in a wide array of private equity and corporate finance transactions.

Mr. Weiss also has a significant history of involvement in government, regulatory and public policy entities that deal with the energy sector including work experience in the White House and the United States Congress. He serves on Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee. Additionally, Mr. Weiss has taught, lectured and published articles on the topics of law, business and public policy. He has lectured at Stanford University, Stanford Law School and U.C.L.A.

Mr. Weiss holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. with high honors from U.C. Berkeley.

These two members join a board that includes: Chairman James A. Harmon, Vice Chair Harriet (Hattie) Babbitt, Chairman Emeritus William D. Ruckelshaus, Vice-Chair Emeritus Alice (Tish) F. Emerson, Roberto Artavia, Gay Barclay, Frances Beinecke, Afsaneh Beschloss, Antony Burgmans, Fernando Henrique Carsdoso, Jessica Catto, Leslie Dach, Jamshyd N. Godrej, Al Gore, Denis Hayes, Aditi Kapoor, Jonathan Lash, Preston R. Miller, Jr., Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, James W. Owens, Michael Polsky, C.K. Prahalad, Qian Yi, Theodore Roosevelt IV, Stephen M. Ross, Alison Sander, José Sarukhan, James Gustave Speth, Ralph Taylor, Lee M. Thomas, Todd S. Thomson, and Diana H. Wall.