The Hillary Symposium

The Hillary Symposium is put on by The Hillary Institute for International Leadership. Below is a recent press release from the Institute; visit their website to find out more about them.

20 April 2009

The Hillary Institute of International Leadership today announced its 2009 Hillary Laureate, Jeremy Leggett, award-winning social entrepreneur, author, Executive Chairman of leading European solar energy company Solarcentury and a founding director of the world’s first private equity fund for renewables, run by Bank Sarasin (Switzerland).

“Jeremy emerged from a rigorous, global nomination process looking at mid-career leaders in our current 2008-2012 focus area, climate change solutions” said the Institute’s international board (Hillary Summit) Convenor, David Caygill.

‘Our governors are delighted to honour someone of Jeremy’s clearly exceptional leadership calibre as our first annual Laureate”.

Leggett will lead the Institute’s second annual symposium being held in Christchurch, New Zealand on World Environment Day, June 5th, and an equivalent event in his home-city of London later this year.

Jeremy Leggett
2009 Hillary Laureate
Social entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett is founder and Executive Chairman of Solarcentury, a leading European solar energy company, and founder and Chairman of SolarAid, a charity set up with 5% of Solarcentury profits. SolarAid (2006-present) teaches young Africans to make, sell, and use solar lanterns. It has raised several million pounds from individuals and organizations, and its Patrons are Cate Blanchett and Ian McEwan.

Leggett is also a founding director of the world’s first private equity investment fund for renewables, run by Bank Sarasin (New Energies Invest AG, 2000-present). and is an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Unit (1998-present). He was also a member of the UK Government’s Renewables Advisory Board from 2002-6.

He has written several books, including The Carbon War (1999) and Half Gone (2005). In a first career as a geologist, he researched the history of oceans, explored for oil, and worked on oil source rocks funded by BP and Shell among others (1978-89, while on the faculty at Imperial College). Increasingly worried by global warming, he left to become an environmental campaigner (1989-1996, with Greenpeace International), during which time he won the US Climate Institute’s Award for Advancing Understanding.

Coming to the view that successful green businesses were badly needed in the global struggle to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, he set up Solarcentury, which has expanded into the fastest-growing UK private energy company of any sort, according to the 2008 Sunday Times Tech Track 100. The company has won multiple awards for innovation and sustainability, and become a magnet for talent. Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2009 New Energy awards, Leggett has been appointed a CNN “Principal Voice” (2007) and been described in the Observer as “Britain’s most respected green energy boss.” He is convenor of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES), members of which include Virgin, Scottish and Southern, Arup, and Yahoo.

Leggett’s new book ‘The Solar Century’ will be published mid-2009.