NECEC President Peter Rothstein to Step Down

After more than a decade of building NECEC into a world-class organization, our President, Peter Rothstein, has decided to step down. Our entire industry and community have been fortunate to have Peter at the helm of NECEC as a key leader in advancing the role that clean energy policy and climate tech innovation must play in meeting the economic, climate, and social challenges of our time.

Peter will be leaving NECEC at a time of rapid growth and opportunity within the clean energy industry, but with much work remaining. NECEC’s mission is vital to addressing critical issues of energy equity, environmental justice and diversity in the industry, and we intend to move quickly to find a successor who can continue driving NECEC forward.

Peter came to NECEC as President in 2010 and has since grown the organization from a staff of two to a team of 10. He helped expand the organization's innovation, policy, and strategic communication work to make NECEC a leading voice of the Northeast clean energy industry and cleantech ecosystem. Under Peter’s leadership, NECEC has driven groundbreaking clean energy legislation and growth across seven Northeast states, and expanded its role as a connector for the Northeast’s cleantech innovation cluster and the region’s clean energy sectors. In 2014, NECEC partnered with the global Cleantech Open organization to become the home for the Cleantech Open Northeast startup accelerator, which has welcomed more than 200 startups to its program under NECEC’s management. NECEC also launched Cleantech Navigate in 2016, a connector program to help portfolio startups from NECEC’s innovation partners reach their next stage of growth.

Peter has also been instrumental in growing the organization’s market development role in the region, leading a delegation of clean energy company executives to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in 2015, and playing a prominent role in developing the National Academy of Sciences’ “The Power of Change,” a report focused on determinants of market adoption of energy efficiency and clean energy technologies.

The NECEC Board has formed a President Search Committee consisting of NECEC Board and Executive Committee members that is co-chaired by Board Members Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs, and Greg King, Managing Director at TSK Energy Solutions. Peter has committed to continue on at NECEC through the search and transition process, and within the next few weeks, Search Committee members will launch an outreach effort to colleagues in the clean energy community and beyond as we seek to identify exceptional candidates from diverse backgrounds for what we believe is an outstanding leadership opportunity.

For more information about NECEC’s president search, please refer to the leadership profile posted here. Thank you for being a strong collaborator with NECEC as we undertake this critically important transition for the organization and the Northeast’s clean energy industry.