Carlos St. James

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Carlos St. James (born Chicago, Illinois, USA) is a leader in the renewable energy and sustainability industries and considered one of the founders of these sectors in Latin America. He founded Argentina's renewable energy industry association, founded another organization that creates a bridge for investment capital and technology transfer from the Middle Eastern gulf region into Latin America's energy sector, and is the recipient of the 2021 Latin American Clean Energy & Sustainability award for his work in promoting and developing the industry. His award acceptance speech can be seen here.
St. James was elected the first President of the Latin American & Caribbean Council on Renewable Energy ("LAC-CORE") of Washington, D.C., serving on its board 2010-2021; he now chairs their Advisory Committee. He was elected to the board of directors of CleanTX of Austin, Texas in 2019. He founded and was publisher of a Spanish language magazine on clean energy use in South America.
As industry thought leader, he has spoken at energy conferences in more than three dozen countries across five continents to promote investment and visibility to the region.
St. James spent his high school years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He returned to the United States to study international economics at DePaul University, graduating with the class of 1989. He then worked in international energy finance in the United States, Australia and Mexico, participating in the last nuclear energy construction boom of the United States. In 2004 St. James received a master's degree in international relations from the Fletcher School] at Tufts University and was elected class president.
In 2006 he returned to Argentina, where he began his work developing the clean energy sector. He co-founded and became the first president of the Argentine Renewable Energies Chamber (known by its Spanish initials as CADER), a non-profit industry trade association. With CADER's support, Argentina began rising in world biodiesel production rankings, peaking as second largest producer in 2011; the organization also worked alongside the federal government in structuring one of the region's first renewable energy auctions - known as GENREN — in 2009. In 2011 he stepped down as president of CADER to become the first president of LAC-CORE, ending his term in 2014 while remaining on the board. During this period investment in renewable energy across Latin America and the Caribbean has increased dramatically to over $200 billion.
His private sector experience began in project finance for the construction of nuclear power plants. He later developed, built and sold numerous solar, wind and biofuels installations across Latin America. He co-founded and was publisher of Clean Energy magazine, a Spanish language publication that was distributed across the region and was sold in 2011; founder of Santiago & Sinclair, LLC, an energy consultancy focused on emerging markets; co-founder and board member of VOLA Investments Ltd., a private investment firm based in London, UK, and founder and publisher of the Latin American Energy Review, an English language online periodical written by industry leaders for the marketplace.
He is the author of more than two dozen published studies on the state of the renewable energy industry in Latin America, and his first Spanish language book, The State of Argentina's Renewable Energy Industry, has been translated into English and German. He has been interviewed on television to discuss renewable energy topics in Latin America such as CNN, is a regular speaker at industry events, and is oft-quoted by the media, including a program on energy for the History Channel and the Wall Street Journal. In May 2009 he was the subject of a profile on Recharge News, a European industry publication., as well as in Clean Energy magazine in 2011. and was interviewed for the Bigger than Us podcast by NEXUS Productions in 2019.

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