New Fellows Named to Geopolitics of Energy Project

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Two veteran energy industry executives who also served in senior U.S. government positions are joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Geopolitics of Energy Projects in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Holly H. Morrow, former senior adviser for the Asia Pacific at ExxonMobil, has been appointed a resident fellow with the Belfer Center, and Andy Karsner, Executive Chairman of Manifest Energy, will be a non-resident associate with the Geopolitics of Energy Project.

The appointments were announced by Meghan O’Sullivan, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, who is director of the Geopolitics of Energy Project.

O’Sullivan welcomes Morrow as someone who “can make important contributions to the policy and academic debates based on years of real world experience.” She said Morrow will conduct research on Asia and energy, with a particular focus on Asian gas and Indonesia.  As both an important consuming and producing region, Asia’s energy future will shape the global future of energy. For ExxonMobil, Morrow was responsible for providing intelligence and analysis on Asian political and economic affairs, and guidance on impact to ExxonMobil business in the short and long term. Morrow also has served as adviser to Vice President Cheney and the national security adviser on Southeast Asia, with back-up responsibilities for China. In this capacity, she was responsible for integrating information flow from multiple classified and unclassified sources into briefings for the president and senior policy-makers.

O’Sullivan said Karsner’s project will involve research on the geopolitics of energy technology and what it means to the competition for global security, political, and economic advantage among nations.  Karsner will focus not only on dislocations from proven conventional technologies – such as hydraulic fracturing – but will also look at the prospective impact of rapidly evolving and future technologies.

Karsner leads Manifest Energy, an energy investment, development and finance company, and previously served as U.S. Assistant Energy Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.  He has 25 years experience in the energy industry, most of which has been as an international independent power project developer and financier.  He has developed projects on five continents and a wide array of energy sources including: coal, oil, gas, biomass, wind and solar projects.  In his government role, Karsner had responsibility for passing and implementing the only two energy laws in the last twenty years and was a lead US climate negotiator, helping architect the “Bali Roadmap.”

The project on Asian gas use is supported by the Pertamina Corporate University.

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For further information, contact:

James F. Smith, Communications Director
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Email: james_smith@hks.harvard.edu
Phone: 617-495-7831, Cell: 617-750-5584