Lourdes Melgar

As chair of the audit and finance committee, Lourdes Melgar brings extensive leadership within the energy sector to NRGI’s governing board. A nonresident fellow at the Baker Institute Center for Energy, Melgar is also a research affiliate at the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and holds the title of national researcher for the Mexican Council on Science and Technology. She currently sits on the boards of Smurfit Kappa and Banco Santander Mexico.  

Melgar has previously held various positions in Mexico’s foreign service and Ministry of Energy including simultaneously serving from 2012 to 2014 as the country’s under-secretary for electricity and board member of the Federal Electricity Commission. From 2014 to 2016 she was vice-minister for hydrocarbons and she served as director of Mexico’s energy program in 2019.

Born in Mexico, Melgar received a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College and a doctorate in political science from MIT, where she was subsequently the 2016–17 Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies. In addition to having been a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin, Melgar was founding director of the Center for Sustainability and Business at the Tecnológico de Monterrey’s EGADE Business School, where she worked from 2010 to 2012. She is also a founding counselor of Voz Experta and former president of the International Women’s Forum, Mexico.