Kathleen Theoharides
Greentown Labs Board Member
President and CEO of The Trustees of Reservations | Former Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Katie Theoharides brings over two decades of environmental leadership, expertise in conservation policy and climate change solutions, and a love of connecting people to nature and community to her new role as President and CEO of the Trustees of Reservations.
Katie joins The Trustees following her work as Head of US Offshore East for RWE, the second largest global offshore wind developer, which recently expanded to the US. During her time with RWE, she oversaw the expanding US Offshore Wind project development portfolio from the Gulf of Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, while helping to set the organization’s culture, vision, and values through rapid growth in the U.S. market.
From 2016-2022 Katie served at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) and was appointed cabinet secretary to Governor Baker in 2019. In this role, she oversaw more than 3,000 staff, a budget of $600 million, and six energy and environmental agencies – one of the largest and most diverse such portfolios in the country during a period marked by a global pandemic.
As Secretary, Theoharides advanced critical climate, energy, and environmental priorities for the Commonwealth that protected open space, advanced municipal preparedness in the face of climate change, set aggressive goals for reducing carbon emissions and achieving net zero emissions by 2050, shaped and supported the deployment of equitable clean-energy strategies, kept people engaged in the outdoors during Covid-19, and helped enshrine environmental justice protections in state law.
Trained as a field biologist, Theoharides began her policy career working in Washington, D.C. at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and Defenders of Wildlife. During her time in D.C., Theoharides worked on the federal farm bill and conservation policy, and she helped establish a national program that partnered with federal and state agencies and land trusts to incorporate biodiversity protection and climate change adaptation into policy, budgets, and planning.
After returning to Massachusetts, Katie served as the Executive Director of the Hilltown Land Trust and founded Theoharides Consulting, which provided climate and environmental policy analysis, strategic planning, and facilitation to universities, government agencies, and nonprofits.
Theoharides received a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College and a Master of Science in Ecology and Environmental Biology from the University of Massachusetts-Boston.