Christopher McKey

Prior to co-founding Energy West, Christopher spent 3 years with EDF Trading North America as Head of Business Development building out the physical electricity and environmental attributes business, specifically focused with Jeff in the Pacific Northwest and California.  He also developed trading joint ventures in natural gas in Mexico, and in small-scale LNG in British Columbia.  Prior to EDFT, Christopher co-headed Asian corporate commodity sales for Goldman Sachs in Singapore, where he lived for five years from 2009.  His responsibilities included leading teams in Korea, Japan and Australia in establishing commodity trading and risk management relationships with utilities and corporate clients across Asia.  He joined Goldman Sachs in London in 2004.  As Desk Head, he focused on the physical and financial electricity and natural gas challenges facing the utility and industrial clients of the firm—first in the UK, then across Western Europe.  With the introduction of the European Emissions Trading Scheme in 2005, Christopher had the good fortune to work closely with electricity generators and consumers as they responded to the new risks and opportunities that the introduction of system-wide carbon pricing and renewable energy mandates posed to their businesses.   An important element of this work involved the establishment of market access for distribution companies and large industrial consumers who theretofore had been supplied under long-term sole-supplier contracts by incumbent monopoly utilities.  

Christopher spent three years with American Electric Power in London, optimizing their fleet of European generation assets, ultimately serving as Managing Director prior to joining Goldman.  He spent five years with Enron Europe Ltd, helping utilities transition from single-supplier electricity supply to portfolio sourcing and risk management strategies as they transitioned from purely tariff-based supply offerings to include market-based supply for their large consumers in response to competitive pressures.  His first electricity industry experience was as a cogeneration project developer for Falcon Seaboard, a small Houston-based I.P.P.  Christopher earned his B.S.M.E. from Cornell University, served 5 years in the Atlantic Fleet as Submarine Officer on the U.S.S. Pargo, and earned his MBA from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  Christopher is married with three daughters, and now resides in his hometown of Seattle.