Danielle Deane
Director
Energy and Environment Program

Danielle Deane is the first Director of the Joint Center’s Energy and Environment Program. The Program will build on the work of the Joint Center’s Commission to Engage African Americans on Energy, Climate Change and the Environment (formerly Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change).

Ms. Deane guides the program’s strategic direction and operations and manages the activities of the Commission to Engage African Americans on Energy, Climate Change and the Environment. The Commission, a national panel of leading experts from government, industry, academia, labor, consumer protection and environmental interests, was established by the Joint Center four years ago with support from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Its goal is to help enhance African Americans’ awareness and understanding of climate change and to advance their perspectives in critical policy forums. Ms. Deane began her new duties at the Joint Center on March 8, 2012.

Formerly, Ms. Deane completed the full eight-year term as an Environment Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in California. During her tenure, she was responsible for investing over $20 million to broaden and strengthen the environmental movement in California. She designed and implemented the “New Constituencies for the Environment” initiative that expanded the engagement and impact on environmental issues of a range of multicultural, medical, faith-based, labor, and industry partners.  The collaborative work supported by the initiative was a key driver of large-scale clean air and climate policy advancements in California that are expected to save billions of dollars in health care costs. Ms. Deane also served on the board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.

She was selected to be a Fellow of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and was a 2007-2008 Connecting Leaders Fellow of the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE).

Earlier in her career, Ms. Deane was a financial analyst and broker at Guy Carpenter and Company, the international reinsurance brokerage arm of Marsh and McLennan Companies.   She also conducted research at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Ms. Deane is a native of Trinidad and Tobago. She holds a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in Environment and Development, and a B.A. from Williams College in Political Economy with an Environmental Studies Concentration.