Dymphna van der Lans is the senior director for public policy programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States where she is responsible for the strategic direction of the Climate & Energy Program, Economic Policy Program, Immigration & Integration Program, and Urban and Regional Policy Program.

Prior to joining GMF, van der Lans served as the director of global renewables, infrastructure, and energy efficiency at a specialist investment banking firm based in London with an exclusive focus on investment related to environmental sustainability. Before private equity, she worked for seven years at BP International, where her distinguished career in directing various aspects of the corporation’s business strategy culminated with an appointment as BP Alternative Energy’s director of distributed emerging energy markets. In this capacity, she was accountable for BP’s Distributed Energy: Emerging Markets’ portfolio development of biomass gasification capacity at over 20 sites and managed a dispersed team of functional experts.

Van der Lans’ professional endeavors not only attest to a depth of experience paving business strategies for the development and investment of renewable technologies, but also a breadth in terms of international connections. She has held positions at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Beijing, PRC; DSM NV, in Sittard, the Netherlands; Deloitte in Houston, Texas; BP Petrochemicals in Shanghai, PRC; and a notable number of other international postings.

In April 2012, the U.S. Department of Energy selected Dymphna van der Lans as one of its inaugural ambassadors of its Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) initiative. The C3E program aims to advance the careers and leadership of professional women in the field of clean energy. As an ambassador, van der Lans joins a distinguished cohort of senior professionals who share an interest in broadening the recruitment, retention, and advancement of highly qualified women in the field of clean energy and are committed to acting as champions for the goals of C3E.

Her native language is Dutch, and in addition, van der Lans speaks English and Chinese fluently and has conversation ability in both French and German.

Education:

Dymphna van der Lans holds advanced degrees from both Leiden University and the University of Beijing. She earned a Master’s in Business Administration from Rice University and is also a graduate from Dialogos, Leadership for Collective Intelligence, and the Kellogg School of Management’s Sales and Marketing Leadership Program.