We are excited to announce that the Board of Directors of The Trustees of Reservations has appointed Katie Theoharides as President and CEO, effective July 10. Katie joins The Trustees after having served as Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Baker-Polito Administration from 2019-2022 and, most recently, as head of offshore wind operations in the Eastern U.S. for the German energy company RWE.
As President and CEO, Katie will oversee management for The Trustees, which protects and cares for over 120 special places in Massachusetts for the public, including woodlands, farms, beaches, gardens, historic houses, and museums. She will work in partnership with our talented staff to set strategy, advance programmatic goals, and support a culture of diversity, belonging, inclusion, and equity on our properties and throughout the organization.
A native of Western Massachusetts, Katie brings a background in ecology and climate science, key pillars of The Trustees’ mission, to her extensive career in environmental leadership and land conservation.
We are thrilled to have Katie joining us at The Trustees. At her core she is an environmentalist who cares for land conservation and for mobilizing people through a shared reverence for nature. She embraces The Trustees’ mission of connecting people with nature through conservation, recreation, art, and shared history.
During her time as a Massachusetts Cabinet Secretary, Theoharides led partnerships with local communities to build climate resiliency and reduce emissions. She also worked as a lead negotiator on complex environmental and energy issues with governmental, business, and philanthropic leaders. During a period marked by the challenges of a global pandemic, she was responsible for a staff of 3,000, an annual operating and capital budget of $600 million, and six energy and environmental agencies that help provide critical services like clean water, electricity, farms and fisheries, and parks and open space to residents across the state.
Katie said, “The decades ahead will require a deep sense of urgency and dedicated work to bring people together to protect our environment and implement solutions for a changing climate. The Trustees have long understood that by connecting people to nature through culture and belonging we can build a love and passion for stewarding our natural world and, in so doing, improve human health, enhance quality of life, foster social justice, and build resilient communities. I couldn’t be more thrilled to join this mission and to work side-by-side with the dedicated staff, volunteers, and governance of this fantastic organization.”
Katie joins The Trustees following her role as Head of US Offshore East for RWE, the second largest global offshore wind developer, which recently expanded to the US. During her time with RWE, she oversaw the expanding US Offshore Wind project development portfolio from the Gulf of Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, while helping to set the organization’s culture, vision, and values through rapid growth in the U.S. market.
Katie’s career in Massachusetts started at The Trustees in 2010 when she served as the Executive Director of the Hilltown Land Trust, an affiliate of The Trustees. In this role, she worked to increase the pace of land conservation in Western Massachusetts and found inspiration for future environmental leadership and bringing people together to protect precious landscapes.
We are excited to have Katie leading our organization, and we look forward to having her collaborative, service-oriented leadership build upon The Trustees’ enduring legacy.
