Kellee James
Economist and Senior Fellow
Energy and Environment Program

Kellee James is a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Joint Center's Energy and Environment Program, specializing on the links between the environmental and economic issues.

Ms. James is the founder and President of the Organic Futures Group, which designs pricing and risk management tools for environmental commodities.  She has previously worked for the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which is North America's largest and longest-running greenhouse gas emission reduction program.

Appointed by President Obama as a 2009-2010 White House Fellow, Ms. James worked on the development of environmental markets such as tradable fishing quotas (catch shares), water quality trading programs and other natural resource valuation techniques. She has also worked for the World Bank’s technology group and the Inter-American Foundation where she evaluated agriculture, tourism and microfinance projects in Brazil, Mexico and Honduras.

Named by Crain's Chicago Business magazine in 2009 as a “40 Under 40” rising leader, Ms. James has worked in Latin America with Afro-descendant communities, coffee-growing communities and on other economic development projects. She is a co-founder and former board member of Levantamos, a non-profit organization that works to develop partnerships between Americans and Afro-Brazilians. She also served on the board of Net Impact, a membership organization of more than 12,000 MBA professionals committed to sustainability through corporate responsibility.

Ms. James is an Aspen Institute Catto Environmental Fellow and a member of the Truman Project National Security project, a leadership training institute. She received her MBA and MA in International Development from American University in Washington, DC and completed a BA in Spanish from the University of Kentucky.

Ms. James is also a Joint Center subject matter expert. Details on her areas of expertise can be found here.