Jonathan Lane

Since beginning his career as an economic development advisor in the Peace Corps, Jonathan has focused on building creative solutions to complex problems, connecting strategies at the topline to the realities at the frontline, and mobilizing people, businesses, and institutions around ambitious goals.

As Deputy Director for Innovation in Third Way’s Climate and Energy Program (CEP), Jonathan guides Third Way’s near-term and big picture policy strategy for expanding and reimagining the US energy innovation ecosystem. In this role, Jonathan partners with subject matter experts across the team to drive America’s global competitiveness in emerging energy technologies, make reliable, domestic energy affordable for all Americans, and catalyze the capital—public, private, and philanthropic—to make it possible. Jonathan also steers and strengthens innovation coalitions, advocates for the strategic role of government in innovation, and identifies ways to rethink, reform, and rebuild the nation’s clean energy programs.

Prior to Third Way, Jonathan was Senior Advisor for Commercialization and Market Development in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), where he worked across EERE’s ten technology offices, National Lab relationships, $3 billion annual budget, and 600+ FTEs to crowd-in private capital, support energy entrepreneurs, and create jobs in future-focused energy industries. This work built on his efforts at New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, where he designed and executed industrial strategies for the green economy and urban innovation in the nation’s largest municipal economy.

Jonathan holds an MBA from MIT, an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BBA in Finance from Southern Methodist University. While his day job focuses on innovation and technology, Jonathan loves to spend as much time as he reasonably can getting off the grid, hiking, camping, and kayaking in West Virginia, the Rocky Mountain West, or the Pacific Crest.