Michael Dorsey

Dr. Michael K. Dorsey is a recognized expert on global energy, environment, finance and sustainability matters. In 1997, in Glasgow, Scotland, Dorsey was bestowed Rotary International’s highest honor, The Paul Harris Medal for Distinguished Service to Humanity. Dr. Dorsey is a “Full member” of the Club of Rome and in 2013 the National Journal named him one of 200 US “energy and environment expert insiders”. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Yale and the Johns Hopkins University, presently Dr. Dorsey is a limited partner in the Spanish-Japanese solar concern Univergy-CCC.

Dr. Dorsey is a serial organization builder and leader in for-profit, non-profit, scholarly and governmental realms. In the for-profit arena, Dr. Dorsey is an active investor, as well as co-founder and principal of Around the Corner Capital—an energy advisory and impact finance platform. Thru Around the Corner, Dr. Dorsey has co-developed over 3 GW of solar power globally in the past six years.

In non-profit realms, in 2005 Dorsey and a partner co-launched IslandsFirst.org at the urging of the late Ambassador Stuart Beck—Palau’s first permanent representative to the United Nations. Dr. Dorsey sits on a number of non-profit boards. Notably he served 11 years on the national board of the Sierra Club—one of the largest and oldest US environmental organizations. In the scholarly world, for the first decade of the 21^st century Dr. Dorsey was a professor in the environmental studies program at Dartmouth College. He has also been guest faculty at Wesleyan University (USA), the University KwaZuluNatal and the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa); Kungl Tekniska Högskolan (Sweden); and Erasmus University’s Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) Sustainability & Climate Change Research Unit (The Netherlands).

Dr. Dorsey’s significant government engagement began in 1992 as a member of the U.S. State Department Delegation to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, “The Earth Summit.” From 1994-96 Dorsey was a task force member of President William Jefferson Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development. From April 2007 until November 2008 Dorsey was a member of Senator Barack Obama’s energy and environment Presidential campaign team.  In 2010 Lisa Jackson, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) Administrator, appointed Dr. Dorsey to the EPA’s National Advisory Committee (NAC). Jackson reappointed Dr. Dorsey in 2012 and Administrator McCarthy reappointed him again in 2014. Further, in 2014, after more than two decades of collaboration and engagement with the United Nations NGLS—a specialized unit of UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) designated Dorsey advisor on “climate, energy sustainability and SIDS (Small Island Developing States)”.

Dr. Dorsey has published dozens of scholarly and lay articles on a variety of environment, development and sustainable finance matters. In 2016 he became a contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Over decades Dr. Dorsey has been featured or provided his opinions in the world’s leading lay television, radio and print outlets from Al Jazeera, the Associated Press, South Africa’s Business Day, CCTV, CNN, Democracy Now!, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Orlando Sentinel, The Sacramento Bee, The Thom Hartmann Show, US News and World Reports and many other outlets.