Biography of Karin Burns
Karin Burns is a three-time chief executive, operator-investor, and enterprise builder in the energy transition, bringing two decades of experience that ties together capital, strategy, technology, and hands-on execution. Her professional path blends operating leadership with substantial investment and corporate finance work across energy and climate markets, and throughout it she has founded, grown, and reshaped organizations while producing measurable financial and operational results.
Karin served as Chief Executive Officer of San Diego Community Power from April 2022 through September 2026 and continues as Executive Advisor, supporting the leadership transition. San Diego Community Power is a public agency (Joint Powers Authority and community choice aggregator) and one of California’s largest community choice clean-energy providers, serving nearly 1 million customer accounts throughout the San Diego region. During her tenure, annual revenue climbed from about $385 million (FY2022) to more than $1 billion, and reserves rose from approximately $42 million (June 2022) to more than $500 million. She grew the team from fewer than 20 employees to nearly 100 while keeping turnover remarkably low and reinforcing the financial, operational, governance, and organizational foundations a fast-expanding enterprise depends on. Karin has also set San Diego Community Power up for the next stage of the energy transition. She championed a long-range plan to reach 100% clean and renewable power by 2035 and guided the buildout of a power portfolio backed by more than 1 GW of renewable power purchase agreements and 1.5 GW of battery storage agreements. Her focus extended beyond procurement into newer areas of the distributed energy economy, including residential battery incentives, flexible load management, demand response, distributed energy resources, and virtual power plant development. Navigating the intersection of energy markets, public policy, technology, finance, and customer needs, she worked with elected officials, regulators, utilities, community stakeholders, developers, and industry allies to turn clean-energy ambitions into real results. Before this role, Karin Burns was Chief Executive Officer of Build It Green, an organization dedicated to reshaping the residential building sector. She led a full turnaround that returned the organization to profitability for four straight years, doubled revenue to $22 million, reduced employee turnover by 30%, and trimmed operating costs by roughly 20%. She went on to negotiate the sale of most of Build It Green’s assets to Franklin Energy, then joined Franklin Energy herself, where she broadened her operating role across six states, managing a regional budget above $30 million, a staff of more than 60, and over 20 programs and contracts centered on energy efficiency, electrification, demand response, and grid optimization. She was then tapped to lead efforts within corporate development and mergers & acquisitions at the national level. Her climate work has also extended to forest conservation and carbon markets. Serving as Executive Director and Board Member of Code REDD, Karin led strategy, operations, fundraising, and partnerships tied to forest protection and market-driven climate mitigation. She launched the Stand for Trees campaign, a successful online marketing and sales platform that catalyzed sales of voluntary REDD+ credits to the broader public. That chapter widened her view to include natural climate solutions, carbon markets, and environmental finance as viable ways to deliver measurable climate outcomes.
Karin’s route into climate energy leadership started in global finance. Through positions at JPMorgan Chase, GE Equity, i2i Capital, Gulf Capital, and Ambata Capital Partners, she took on investment banking, private equity, principal investing, and strategic advisory work, leading end-to-end investments and transactions across both mature industries and early-stage climate technologies. Her deal record includes a key execution role in a $1.1 billion cross-border sell-side M&A transaction at JPMorgan Chase, the sale of an electric vehicle company to a Fortune 500 buyer, and Asian investments that returned exits of 3.5x and 2.5x cash-on-cash. Her investing background covers renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, green buildings, and carbon markets. Operating at various stages of company and market maturity gave Karin an investor’s lens on how capital gets put to work, how technologies reach scale, and what separates a compelling idea from a lasting business. That grounding in finance has stayed at the core of her operating career, shaping how she approaches capital allocation, risk, growth, organizational design, partnerships, and long-term enterprise value. Karin is a well-regarded voice on clean energy, climate, and leadership, and she has addressed industry, policy, business, and community audiences on how energy markets are changing and the organizational demands that come with that change. She is especially at home in settings where emerging technologies, shifting regulations, and competing stakeholder interests converge, whether the task is launching a new enterprise, turning around an existing one, sizing up an investment, or readying an institution for its next stage of growth. She has also led enterprise AI adoption and governance (AI committee, AI policy, Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout) and is hands-on with ChatGPT and Claude. Karin earned a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and an MBA in International Finance from Edinburgh Business School. She has pursued further executive and certificate coursework at Stanford University’s School of Engineering, the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. She holds a BA in International Affairs and History from Duke University and was a Fulbright Fellow in India. Her career has carried an international dimension from the very beginning. Karin has lived and worked in the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, gaining firsthand insight into how capital, policy, culture, and institutions shape markets across the globe. That worldwide vantage point, as well as her proficiency in Spanish and Portuguese, continues to guide her work where energy, infrastructure, investment, innovation, and climate intersect. Karin Burns lives in California with her husband and two sons. A dedicated skier, swimmer, and international traveler, she loves discovering new destinations, cuisines, and cultures with her family whenever the opportunity arises.