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Business Leaders

Roger Sant

Co-Founder at The AES Corporation
Roger  Sant

Roger Sant is Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus of The AES Corporation, a Fortune 200 company that generates and distributes electrical power.  Prior to starting AES in 1981, Mr. Sant was Assistant Administrator for Energy Conservation and the Environment at the Federal Energy Administration.  He was also the Director of the Energy Productivity Center, an energy research organization affiliated with the Mellon Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and a lecturer in Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Mr. Sant is the co-founder and Chairman of The Summit Foundation and The Summit Fund of Washington.  The Summit Foundation provides support for international empowerment of girls, the restoration of the Mesoamerican Reef ecosystem, and radically improving the Sustainability of Cities in the United States. The Summit Fund of Washington focuses its efforts on cleaning up the Anacostia River and reducing the incidence teen pregnancy in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Sant served as a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution from 2001 to 2013 during which he served as its first Board Chair.  He is Vice Chairman of the board of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and is on the board of the World Wildlife Fund-U.S., which he previously chaired (1994-2000) and later co-chaired (2009-2011).  Mr. Sant is a member of the boards of the National Symphony Orchestra and the D.C. College Access Program.  He served on the Marriott International Board of Directors from 1994-2006.

Mr. Sant received a B.S. from Brigham Young University and an MBA with Distinction from the Harvard Business School, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is co-author of Creating Abundance – America’s Least-Cost Energy Strategy (1982).