April Salas

Chief Operating Officer

April Salas is Chief Operating Officer of the EFI Foundation.

She brings over 20 years of management and board experience in global and domestic capital markets, with expertise in energy, sustainability, and climate.

Before joining EFIF, Salas served as the global director of public policy at Microsoft’s Environmental Sustainability team, where she developed and advanced key global policy and legislative initiatives across the company’s global sustainability commitments of responsible sourcing, zero waste, and becoming water positive and carbon negative by 2030. At Microsoft, she led public policy strategy on AI’s role in advancing a low-carbon energy transition; carbon reduction across the supply chain, including semiconductors, steel, and cement; and advancing access to zero-carbon power, including advanced nuclear. Salas has coauthored Microsoft’s Accelerating Sustainability with AI: A Playbook, engaged policymakers globally, and was a technical reviewer for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency. 

Salas has held leadership positions at Dartmouth College, most recently serving as the inaugural executive director of Dartmouth’s Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society and previously as founding Executive Director of the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability, and Innovation at the Tuck School of Business. In these roles, she led the $180 million interdisciplinary research institute with hubs for research and translation of critical technologies, finance, and policy solutions across climate, energy, and society. In addition to launching multiple high growth and revenue generating programs including Climate and Energy Week, Greenshot Climate Accelerator, and research relationships with universities around the world, Salas led the restructuring of the Institute, including strategy, finance, human capital, and external, board, and donor engagement. 

During her time in New Hampshire (NH), Salas also served as Hanover, NH’s inaugural Chief Sustainability Officer and as founding chair of Community Power Coalition of NH (CPCNH), where she recruited the board and CEO and developed strategic relationships throughout the state and the northeast. CPCNH is the state’s second largest power supplier, generating revenue in excess of $100 million. As Chief Sustainability Officer, April led the city’s portfolio strategy for deploying low-carbon power, thermal, and transportation to help Hanover reach its 2030 and 2050 targets. Under her leadership, Hanover doubled distributed solar penetration, including the state’s largest net metered solar project, and achieved 98% of its municipal renewable energy target eight years ahead of target. In addition to launching CPCNH, she worked on large-scale, multi-party aggregation power purchase agreements for offshore wind. 

She has extensive experience as an entrepreneur and investor, founding a climate tech SaaS startup and advising companies through fundraising and IPO. Additionally, with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Arab-American Frontiers of Science, Engineering and Medicine on Emerging Technologies and Society, Salas was co-PI on a year-long effort assessing scale of real-time pricing and transactive energy platforms. 

Earlier in her career, Salas directed the White House’s Quadrennial Energy Review Task Force Secretariat under President Obama and EFIF Founder and CEO and then-Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz. She has held senior roles at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Offices of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis (EPSA) and Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE), leading both U.S. and global portfolios, including Director of the State Energy Assurance Program, where she led a $50 million recovery act program supporting industry, state, and local energy officials, regulated utility commissioners, and state emergency management directors. In addition, Salas served as Chief of Planning and Analysis for all federal energy emergency responses with FEMA, and formerly worked for the United Nations and UNESCO. 

Salas holds MBAs from Cornell University and Queen’s University; master’s degrees from the American University of Paris and L’Institut Catholique de Paris; and an undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary. She is passionate about volunteering, travel, and snowboarding. She has lived or worked in over 65 countries and speaks Arabic, French, and Spanish. Salas’ husband, Dr. Zachary Salas, is an orthopedic surgeon following a long career in the US Navy as an F/A-18 pilot, and they are proud parents of four children. 

Affiliations

  • Member Board of Trustees, Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (2022-current)
  • Board Member, 3Degrees (2021-current) 
  • Advisory Board Member, Chief Sustainability and Innovation Advisor, Available Power (2020-current)  

Recent Contributions