Carlos St. James

Carlos St. James (born in Chicago, Illinois, USA) is a leader in the renewable energy industry and is considered one of the founders of the sector 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.

St. James was elected the first President of the Latin American & Caribbean Council on Renewable Energy ("LAC-CORE") of Washington, D.C., and remains on that board. He was elected to the board of directors of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance ("TREIA") of Austin, Texas in 2019. He founded and was the publisher of a Spanish-language magazine on clean energy use in South America.

As an industry thought leader, he has spoken at energy conferences in three dozen countries across five continents to promote investment and visibility in 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 in 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 the 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 $20 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 biofuel 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.