This Year's Keynote Speaker
Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality
Brenda Mallory is the 12th Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the first African American to serve in this position. As Chair, she advises the President on environmental and natural resources policies that improve, preserve, and protect public health and the environment for America’s communities. She is focused particularly on addressing the environmental justice and climate challenges the nation faces while advancing opportunities for job growth and economic development. Chair Mallory has decades of experience in both the private and public sector, including spending nearly 20 years at the Environmental Protection Agency and CEQ, serving in a number of senior roles. In Chair Mallory’s first stint at CEQ as the General Counsel, she helped shape many of President Obama’s signature environmental and natural resource policy successes.
Now, as Chair, she is advancing President Biden’s ambitious climate and environmental justice agenda. Chair Mallory was the first in her family to attend college, graduating from Yale with a double major in history and sociology and then from Columbia Law School as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Read Brenda Mallory's full bio here.