Jon Creyts is the CEO of RMI. He is an internationally recognized leader on global energy issues and climate change.
Joining the organization in 2012, Jon has managed the strategy and execution of RMI’s global research and collaboration activities in multiple senior positions at the organization, most recently serving as chief program and strategy officer. Under his leadership, RMI has advanced market-based solutions to transform the global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous, and zero-carbon future for all. An independent, nonpartisan nonprofit, RMI works with businesses, communities, governments, and other NGOs to accelerate and scale solutions that drive the cost-effective shift from fossil fuels to renewable and efficient energy use.

Jon served as a senior leader at RMI for nearly a decade before assuming the role of CEO. While chief program officer, he helped grow the institution more than tenfold in size. He has extensive knowledge and practical experience applying market forces like finance, policy, data, and technology to support the rapid decarbonization of infrastructure and industries globally. He oversees and steers all RMI’s global programs and operations and advises the organization’s global network of market affiliates.
Jon helped found RMI’s China Program and set up RMI’s office in Beijing. He has worked on electricity transition issues, helping found e-Lab, researching technology disruption, and stewarding RMI’s Business Renewables Center to eventually spin out and become the Clean Energy Buyer’s Alliance. He conceived and built RMI’s breakthrough technology accelerator, Third Derivative. Between 2017 and 2019, he helped build and spin out the Energy Web Foundation (now Energy Web), a partnership that established the world’s largest consortium focused on using decentralized computing to manage a decentralized grid. Jon is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion across RMI’s staff and champions equity and environmental resilience across RMI’s portfolio of work.
Prior to joining RMI, Jon was a partner with McKinsey & Company where he spent 11 years in the global energy practice. He cofounded McKinsey's sustainability practice and was one of the principal authors of the “McKinsey cost curve” for greenhouse gas abatement. Before that, he was a designer in the energy and aviation industries and is an alumnus of Lockheed Martin’s renowned Skunk Works prototyping facility.
Jon received a doctorate for research focused on creating a circular industrial economy, using thermodynamics to evaluate the material and energy efficiency of processes in the design of closed loop systems. Jon currently serves as the chair of the board of Energy Web, member of the board of the Mission Possible Partnership, member of the distinguished advisory group for the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, trustee for the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, commissioner for the Energy Transitions Commission, and member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on the Future of Responsible Resource Use.
EDUCATION
PhD, Mechanical Engineering, University of California – Berkeley
BS, Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign