Speaker

David Wilhelm’s career has spanned the worlds of energy, finance, politics, academia, and public policy. Today, he is the CEO of Hecate Global, which is a leading American developer of renewable energy projects in global emerging markets. Hecate Global is the internationally-focused subsidiary of Hecate Energy, one of the USA’s largest developers of solar and battery storage projects, responsible for the deployment of 12 percent of all solar panels in the USA. Earlier in his career, Wilhelm led or helped lead the campaigns of some of America’s best-known politicians, including those of William Clinton, Joseph Biden, Richard M. Daley, and the late Paul Simon. After his election in 1992, President-elect Clinton tapped the then 36-year-old Wilhelm to serve as Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Wilhelm was the founder of two social impact funds, bringing badly needed investment capital to underserved parts of the United States—sometimes known as “fly-over America”—which have been largely ignored by Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors. Wilhelm served as the executive director of an organization that was the voice of ordinary Americans on tax policy in Washington. D.C., Citizens for Tax Justice, and as the Director of Public Policy at the AFL-CIO’s Public Employee Department. Wilhelm is a graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and Ohio University. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Ohio University, Wheeling Jesuit University, and the University of Charleston. He has taught or served as a fellow at Harvard, the University of Chicago, DePaul University, and the University of Akron. Wilhelm and his wife, Degee, an attorney, met on Joe Biden’s first campaign for the presidency, and are the proud parents of two young men who are both alums of The Ohio State University. Wilhelm’s father was a refugee from post-World War II Germany, and his mother grew up in a small central Illinois town where his father landed, thanks to the sponsorship of a local farm family and the Brethren Church.