Singh, Kartikeya
Kartikeya Singh
Dr. Kartikeya Singh is the Director of Network Leadership at Growald Climate Fund where he manages a community of funders for the organization’s clean global energy initiatives. Before this, he was the Global Electricity Initiative Director at the Climate Imperative Foundation. In this role, he managed a global portfolio to support energy transition efforts. He leverages his extensive experience in or engaging with government, research institutions, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and industries in the sustainable development sector to inform his strategies. Before this role, Dr. Singh was a senior fellow and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He researches energy geopolitics in the era of climate change and has traveled from the Arctic to the Antarctic.
“…there is nothing wrong with being part of legacy institutions that are, for instance, dependent on the fossil fuel value chain. In those instances, take the opportunity to effect change from the inside! The only way true change occurs is when we bring everyone along.” - Kartikeya Singh (from Fu, 2022)
Singh, K. 2017. Financing for whom by whom? Complexities of advancing energy access in India. Center for Global Development, Washington DC.
Swarnakar, P., Zavestoski, S., & Pattnaik, B. K. (Eds.). 2017. ‘Bottom-up’ approaches in governance and adaptation for sustainable development: Case studies from India and Bangladesh. SAGE Publishing India.
Singh, K. 2017. Networks and the diffusion of off-grid solar technologies. Low Carbon Economy, 8(02), 63. 10.4236/lce.2017.82006
Singh, K. 2017. Of sun gods and solar energy. Issues in Science and Technology, 33(2), 48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24891964 Singh, K. 2016. Business innovation and diffusion of off-grid solar technologies in India. Energy for Sustainable Development, 30, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2015.10.011
Dr. Singh was born in Jodhpur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. He grew up in Baroda, Gujarat, until he was about seven years old before his family immigrated to South Bend, Indiana. He attended Clay High School in South Bend, Indiana, and Eastside High School in Greenville, South Carolina. His parents frequently took him to the zoo in India as a child and fed him curiosity about the natural world. For a long time, he was on track to work in the field of wildlife conservation. He used to volunteer at the Greenville, South Carolina Zoo as a docent in high school. During his senior year of high school, he attended a School for Field Studies in Kenya focused on wildlife management.
Dr. Singh earned his bachelor of science degree in ecology & sustainable development from Furman University in 2007. In 2009, Dr. Singh began his master’s degree at the Yale School of Forestry (now Yale School of the Environment). In 2010, he attended COP16 (UN Conference of Parties on climate change) in Cancun, Mexico. At this meeting, his interest in applying to the Ph.D. program at the Fletcher School was encouraged. While at COP16, Dr. Singh met Professor Kelly Sims Gallagher at a plenary session and had the opportunity to attend a reception that The Fletcher School was hosting for diplomats. Dr. Singh found the interdisciplinary nature of The Fletcher School at Tufts University to be the ideal place for him to enhance and deepen his background by exploring environment and climate-related issues through different lenses. Dr. Singh completed his master’s degree in 2011 and started his Ph.D. at Fletcher. In 2016, he completed his doctorate in International Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Dr. Singh developed an impressive background in sustainable development, gaining experience in engaging and advising governments and developing strategies for international healthcare and energy issues while traveling extensively globally for work.
Dr. Singh was a fellow at the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi from 2007 to 2008. He then worked as a consultant for the Environmental Defense Fund until 2009. In 2008, Dr. Singh founded the Indian Youth Climate Network, a nonprofit dedicated to building a national movement to push India to be a leader in the clean energy revolution. Leading this organization fostered his skills in creating networks and fostering cross-sectoral partnerships.
From 2009 to 2012, Dr. Singh was an adviser and negotiator for the Republic of Maldives, providing capacity to the Maldives Mission to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. His focus areas during the 63rd UN General Assembly include human rights and sustainable development. During these years, he served as attaché/negotiator to the government delegation for the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark (2009), Tianjin, China (2010), Cancun, Mexico (2010), and Durban, South Africa (2011). In this role, he trained diplomats and other government officials about climate change negotiation and the deployment of renewable energy technology. Dr. Singh has also served on the external advisory committees on sustainability for major corporations such as Électricité de France and Lafarge Holcim.
While completing his master’s degree at Yale University, Dr. Singh was a research assistant at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. In 2010, Dr. Singh joined UNITAR, the United Nations Institute for Training & Research, as a consultant in their Multilateral Diplomacy Program. He served in this role until 2013. From 2013 to 2014, Dr. Singh was the Managing Director at ENVenture Enterprises. While completing his doctoral degree, Dr. Singh was a Doctoral Fellow with the Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs from 2014 to 2015 and a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for International Environment & Resource Policy from 2011 to 2015.
From 2015 to 2016, Dr. Singh worked for the U.S. Department of Energy as the South Asia Energy Officer. He managed bilateral energy cooperation with India and Pakistan. Through his work, he field-tested and deployed clean energy technologies, including electric vehicles in India and off-grid solar solutions in Uganda.
In 2017, Dr. Singh joined the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) as Deputy Director and Fellow of Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies. In 2019, he became Deputy Director & Senior Fellow of the program. Also, in 2019, he became a Senior Fellow of the Energy and National Security Program. He led the Center’s engaging Indian states initiative. He developed new strategies and created new networks to strengthen public and private sector engagement with Indian states. Specifically, he successfully crafted and led two energy and healthcare engagement initiatives.
From 2019 to 2022, Dr. Singh was the Deputy Program Director at the Sustainability, Equity, and Diversity (SED) Fund, where he managed the portfolio to support energy transition efforts worldwide. While still working as a Senior Associate at CSIS, since 2022, Dr. Singh has led the Climate Imperative Foundation’s Global Energy Futures Initiative. The initiative ensures clean energy drives new electricity infrastructure globally. Dr. Singh leverages his extensive experience with government, research institutions, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and industries in the sustainable development sector to inform his strategies. He has also traveled from the Arctic to the Antarctic to research the challenges of energy geopolitics due to climate change.
More recently, he accepted a new position as the Director of Network Leadership at Growald Climate Fund. He is responsible for overseeing ALFIE, an informal coalition of funders who share a common goal of promoting clean electricity on a global scale. Additionally, Dr. Singh collaborates with the network team to provide grants that assist field-based collective impact networks and regranting organizations.
Dr. Singh received several national awards, including the Morris K. Udall Scholarship, a Switzer Fellowship in 2014, and a Boren Fellowship from the Institute of International Education in 2013. Dr. Singh was a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program in 2012 and a Compton Fellow in 2007 through Furman University.
In 2015, Dr. Singh won the Tom A. Triplitt Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Furman University. In 2012, Dr. Singh was a Breakthrough Generation Fellow, during which he collaborated with the Fletcher School of Law, DiplomacyWorked, and the Consortium on Science Policy Outcomes to create a project on energy access and equity, and in 2006, Dr. Singh was a Morris K. Udall Scholar.
Dr. Singh had many people he considers his mentors. He feels he has learned something from everyone in his career journey. His parents, who decided to become first-generation immigrants and moved their family to the U.S., planted the seed of environmentalism in him. His educators, who allowed him to be creative and design, furthered his learning and motivated his career. This includes a high school biology teacher in South Carolina who supported him in creating an environment-focused student interest group in his high school in South Carolina, to all the professors he had in college who allowed him the space to forge an interdisciplinary academic journey. He also had the fortune of having a significant environmentalist, Sunita Narain, as a “formal” mentor through a fellowship he received called the Compton Mentor Fellowship right out of college. Her work and the institutions were deeply inspirational for him. Sunita Narain is the Executive Director of the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), a notable environmental think tank in India.
From the start of his professional career, Dr. Singh had many mentoring opportunities to help build a youth climate awareness and activism organization called the Indian Youth Climate Network. The whole purpose of the organization was to inspire and motivate young people in India to be interested in the possibilities of working in the sustainability sector. Every week, he provides career or other strategic advice about how people could shape their professional pathways.
“Be bold in your ambitions and be aware of burnout. Think about what gives you fulfillment personally and how you’d like to contribute to society in a meaningful way through your profession. You don’t have to race to the top; you just have to be great at what you’re doing.”
Center for Strategic and International Studies. 2023. Non-resident expert: Kartikeya Singh. https://www.csis.org/people/kartikeya-singh.
Fu, Max. 2022. CIERP Alumni Perspectives: A Conversation with Kartikeya Singh. https://www.climatepolicylab.org/communityvoices/2022/5/23/cierp-alumni-….
Kartikeya Singh. n.d. Home [https://www.linkedin.com/in/singhkartikeya/]. LinkedIn. Retrieved February 21, 2023 from https://www.linkedin.com/in/singhkartikeya/.