Karen Weigert serves as Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago.  She was appointed in 2011.   As Chief Sustainability Officer Karen works to guide the City’s sustainability strategy and implementation, bringing innovative, practical solutions throughout the work of the City.

Prior to her appointment Karen served as Senior Vice President of ShoreBank (later Urban Partnership Bank) where she built a national consumer group that generated deposits to support environmental sustainability and community development in low to moderate income urban neighborhoods.  Before her work in community banking Karen was a strategy consultant at McKinsey where she served clients on topics including transportation, finance, energy and land use. Karen began her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and later served as an appointee in the Clinton administration focused on global environmental issues and agriculture.

Karen is a producer and writer for the documentary film Carbon Nation which is focused on solutions to climate change.  She is also a former board member of CNT, Foresight Design Initiative and Earth School Educational Foundation.

Karen graduated from the University of Notre Dame (Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard Business School.