Karen Weigert- Senior Fellow Global Cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Karen focuses on climate, energy and sustainability. Her writing has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Greenbiz and Real Clear World and her media appearances include CBS This Morning, WBEZ and Chicago Tonight. 

Weigert served as the first chief sustainability officer for the City of Chicago from 2011 to 2016. As chief sustainability officer Weigert worked to guide the city’s sustainability strategy and implementation, bringing innovative, practical solutions throughout the work of the city.

Specific examples of her work with the city include: developing and delivering the Sustainable Chicago 2015 Action Agenda; launching the Greencorps Chicago Youth Program; introducing, passing and implementing Energy Benchmarking legislation; leading Chicago Solar Express and Solar Chicago; launching Retrofit Chicago and creating partnerships to deliver. Chicago was selected as the “Earth Hour Capital of the US” by WWF; Citi/Economist ranked Chicago #1 in US for environmental governance and risk; and Chicago was selected as the “Most Sustainable Large Community” by Siemens and the US Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center.

Prior to her appointment she served as senior vice president of ShoreBank (later Urban Partnership Bank) where she built a national consumer group that generated deposits to support environmental sustainability and community development in low to moderate income urban neighborhoods. Before her work in community banking, Weigert was a strategy consultant at McKinsey where she served clients on topics including transportation, finance, energy, and land use. She began her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and later served as an appointee in the Clinton administration focused on global environmental issues and agriculture.

Weigert is a producer and writer for the documentary film Carbon Nation which is focused on solutions to climate change. She is also a former board member of CNT, Foresight Design Initiative, and Earth School Educational Foundation. Weigert graduated from the University of Notre Dame (Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard Business School. @KarenRWeigert