The energy and environmental sectors, like all too many other parts of the business world, have a dearth of women in leadership positions. But a new networking group dedicated to changing that situation is launching officially tomorrow in Boston. Called New England Women in Energy & the Environment (NEWIEE), the group’s goals are to foster networking and collaboration between women interested in energy and environmental issues, provide educational opportunities, highlight women’s achievements in the sectors, and recruit more young women into energy and environmental enterprises.
The group’s founder and executive director, Judy Chang, says she created NEWIEE late last year because “I realized that women were thinly spread throughout the energy and environmental sectors and wanted to bring them together in the form of an open, aware and dynamic organization,” according to a statement the group circulated this week. Chang is a principal at the Brattle Group, a Cambridge, MA, firm that specializes in consulting and expert testimony on economics, finance, and regulatory issues.
The group plans to organize educational panel discussions in areas such as new cleantech and green-energy technologies. One event held in January focused on financing energy and brownfield projects amidst the economic downturn; speakers included Charlotte Kim, a partner at Choate, Hall and Stewart in Boston, and Beth Barton, a partner at Day Pitney in Hartford, CT.
NEWIEE will celebrate its launch on Thursday with an afternoon reception at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. The reception is being sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, which is running a conference at the World Trade Center this week called Building Energy 2009.
