Jennifer Layke is Global Director, Energy, at World Resources Institute. Jennifer leads a team of over 100 energy specialists around the world deploying energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy access solutions.

Prior to this, Jennifer led the Johnson Controls “Institute for Building Efficiency” bringing the energy efficiency practitioners perspective to policymakers and the global community. This global initiative provided information and analyses on the technologies, policies, and practices to deliver high performance buildings. In 2014, WRI and Johnson Controls launched the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) as part of the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All.  That work now continues with the Zero Carbon Buildings for All Accelerator.

Jennifer was a pioneer in renewable energy market expansion. In 2001, she founded the Green Power Market Development Group with 10 leading US corporate buyers. That partnership led the way to a major global procurement movement. Her pioneering work on renewable energy includes several recent partnership reports “Unlocking a renewable energy future: how government action can drive private investment” with Danish energy company Orsted, and the “Solar Investment Action Agenda: mobilizing $1 trillion in solar investment” with the International Solar Alliance and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Jennifer’s international experience also includes consulting for the World Bank and the U.S. EPA on technology transfer for ozone layer protection under the Montreal Protocol. In 1990, she was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship for a year of sociology research on women’s issues in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.

She majored in Asian Studies/Political Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, and spent a semester at Nanjing University, China. She holds an M.S. and MBA from the University of Michigan. Jennifer serves on the Board of Directors at the World Green Building Council, The Clean Energy Buyers Alliance, and the Board of Friends at the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College.