It was 2015 when Chéri Smith first witnessed Native families facing discriminatory energy pricing and unlawful shutoffs, bearing the burden of the nation’s highest energy costs, compounded by the reality that many Native families in the U.S. still lack electricity. As an energy expert and descendant of the Mi’kmaq Nation, she felt she had a responsibility to do something to change this paradigm. Drawing on 25+ years of experience in the clean energy sector, she left her senior role at Tesla to found what is now the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, an Indigenous-led nonprofit that supports Tribal Nations in their self-determined pursuit of energy sovereignty.

The Alliance is 100% philanthropically funded and provides no-cost services to Tribes to help plan, develop, and own clean energy projects aligned with their governance, values, and goals. Under Chéri’s leadership, the Alliance has supported over 120 Tribes, mobilized over $500 million in public and private funding to Tribal communities, and advanced many megawatts of clean energy projects in Indian Country. She stood up the Indigenous Power and Light Fund for Energy Sovereignty, a collaborative giving fund targeting $100 million in investments, deploying emergency clean energy grants and no-to-low interest loans to Tribal communities where strategic projects can dramatically improve quality of life — and even mean the difference between life and death.

Previously, Chéri led workforce strategy for SolarCity and Tesla, coordinating community, academic, and government partners to train over 1,400 employees for Tesla’s 1GW solar manufacturing plant in Buffalo, NY, and thousands more for the Nevada Gigafactory, the largest factory in the world. Earlier, she served as Director of Education and Outreach for the American Council on Renewable Energy, collaborating with governments and NGOs on clean energy best practices, and consulted for IREC, NYSERDA, and the U.S. DOE to build national solar workforce programs.

Chéri is an honored recipient of the Forbes 50-Over-50 award. She serves on the Advisory Committee of Climate United, on the board of the nonprofit organization Atutu, and advises the Yale School of Business and the Environment. She is an MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow and Solver, Cordes Fellow, and Climate Leader trained by Al Gore. She has received the GM Prize for social entrepreneurship and was an Elevate Prize finalist. Chéri is the proud mother of a daughter and two sons, including an Army wounded warrior. She lives on Narragansett homelands, where her husband makes his living as her many of her ancestors did — as a fisherman.