Rose McKinney-James

Managing Principal, Energy Works LLC; McKinney-James & Associates

2024 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Rose McKinney-James is a clean energy advocate, small business leader, and independent corporate director. She is the former President and Chief Executive Officer for the Corporation for Solar Technology and Renewable Resources (CSTRR) and Commissioner with the Nevada Public Service Commission. During her tenure with the Nevada Commission, she was appointed Nevada’s first Director of the Department of Business and Industry and was elected to serve as Second Vice President of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).

Building strategic partnerships has provided her the opportunity to leverage her extensive experience as a business, corporate, and community leader. Working with a diverse group of advocates, McKinney-James spearheaded the effort to facilitate the passage of the first Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard in Nevada. She has helped to shape much of the state’s energy policy framework.

McKinney-James serves on the Board of Directors for MGM Resorts International, Ioneer, Toyota Financial Savings Bank, and Pacific Premier Bancorp. She is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, and previously served as Board Chair, for the U.S. Energy Foundation and the American Association for Blacks in Energy. McKinney-James has been honored with the inaugural GreenBiz Verge VANGUARD Award and the DirectWomen Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Board excellence and was recognized as a National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Director 100. In addition, she is a co-author of The Energy Within Us, which showcases women executives who helped shatter the glass ceiling and the black ceiling in the nation’s energy industry.

McKinney-James is a graduate of the Antioch School of Law in Washington, DC, and received her BA from Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan.