Amber Leonard

Amber Leonard is the executive director of the Initiative on Closing the Investment Gap in Sustainable Infrastructure (the CIG Initiative), which is hosted at the Center for Global Sustainability (CGS). Amber is also the managing director of MEG LLC (1989 to present). She has worked at the intersection of energy, environment, and development for more than 30 years. Amber has worked extensively on issues related to capacity building, technology transfer, and the design of the market mechanisms implemented under the UNFCCC. She was a founder and co-convenor of the innovative Consortium for North-South Dialog and Partnership on Climate Change, an NGO network of senior climate analysts and advocates on five continents (1989-2002).  

Amber co-edited, along with Irving Mintzer, of Confronting Climate Change: Risks, Implications, and Responses (Oxford University Press 1992) and Negotiating Climate Change: The inside story of the Rio Convention (Oxford University Press, 1995). She was the managing editor of the journal, Global Change, published by the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. For five years, Amber acted as a senior advisor to the Deputy Director, Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence in USDoE, focusing on the intersection of environment with issues of human, national, and global security. Amber holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a MBA in International Business from California State University, San Francisco.