Katie Mehnert, formerly an energy industry executive, is the founder of the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) movement-aligned networking and consultancy company ALLY Energy (formerly known as Pink Petro) and its nonprofit spinoff, Lean In Network | Energy (an affiliate of Lean In, a project of the  Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Foundation), and a Biden administration appointee to the National Petroleum Council and the United States Department of Energy‘s Equity in Energy initiative.

Background

Before becoming involved in activism and policy work, Katie Mehnert was an executive at a variety of corporations in the energy industry or involved in the energy industry, including BP, Shell, Duke Energy, Entergy, and Enron. ¹

ALLY Energy

On March 8, 2015, to coincide with International Women’s Day, Mehnert launched Pink Petro, an online networking, consultancy, and recruitment platform for women in the energy industry. According to the company’s website, its first two customers were energy industry corporations Halliburton and Shell (one of Mehnert’s former employers). During that same year the company also launched a project, then called Lean In Energy, a mentoring and networking program for women in the energy industry. ^{2 3}

Two years later in 2017, Mehnert rebranded the company to its current name, ALLY Energy, and launched a podcast that advocates for the societal transition from natural fuels to weather-dependent energy sources favored by environmentalist activists. In that vein, Mehnert also renamed the company’s Global Council the “ALLY Council.” ^{4 5 6}

Later in 2021, under Mehnert’s leadership ALLY Energy acquired Clean Energy Social, an energy industry jobs platform for professionals working with weather-dependent energy sources favored by environmentalist activists. ⁷

Lean In Network | Energy

In December 2018, Lean in Energy, which Mehnert launched as a project of ALLY Energy, was spun off as an independent tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, affiliated with Lean In, a project of the Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Foundation. The organization, which has since been renamed Lean In Network | Energy (though it remains registered under its original name), offers volunteer-led networking programming for women working in the energy sector. According to its website, the organization sends all its “profits” to Lean in, from which it receives the license to use the latter’s name as part of its own. ^{8 9}

Trump Administration

In August 2020, toward the end of the Trump administration, the United States Department of Energy launched an Ambassadors Program wherein 20 individuals, drawn from private sector, nonprofit, and academic backgrounds, would serve two-year terms as “Ambassadors” of Equity in Energy, a department initiative intended to increase the inclusion of minorities, women, veterans, the formerly incarcerated, and others in the energy sector. Katie Mehnert was selected to serve as part of the Department’s first slate of ambassadors. ¹⁰

During the course of her term, during which Mehnert and other ambassadors were tasked with attending events and engaging in aligned advocacy, Mehnert posted a statement on ALLY Energy’s website regarding a September 2020 memo issued by the Office of Management and Budget at the direction of President Trump calling for federal agencies to identify spending on “anti-racism” employee training sessions, characterizing them as “divisive, anti-American propaganda” as well as a related executive order banning federal contractors from such training. ^{11 12}

In her post, which did not explicitly take issue with directions of the memo or the order, Mehnert cited reporting regarding likely challenges to the constitutional validity of the order, claimed that there were “myriad factors holding back minorities and women” in workplaces, and in that vein advocated for the necessity of “conversations” and “listening sessions.” ¹³

Biden Administration

In 2022, Mehnert announced in a blog post on the ALLY Energy website that the Biden administration had reappointed her to serve another two-year term as an ambassador of the Department of Energy‘s Equity in Energy initiative. ¹⁴

In the same post, Mehnert also announced that the administration had appointed her to serve a one-year term on the National Petroleum Council, a 200-member body founded by President Harry S. Truman tasked with advising the United States Secretary of Energy on matters relating to oil and gas. ¹⁵

1. “Meet the Team.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/meet-the-team
2. “About.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/about
3. “Meet the Team.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/meet-the-team
4. “Lean In Energy.” ProPublica. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824301111.
5. “About.” Lean In Network | Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://leaninenergy.org/about
6. “About.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/about
7. “About.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/about
8. “Lean In Energy.” ProPublica. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824301111
9. “About.” Lean In Network | Energy. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://leaninenergy.org/about
10. “Equity in Energy.” U.S. Department of Energy. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://www.energy.gov/diversity/equity-energytm
11. ” Trump wants ‘white privilege’ and ‘critical race theory’ purged from federal employee training materials.” Market Watch. September 10, 2020. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-wants-white-privilege-and-critical-race-theory-purged-from-federal-employee-training-materials-2020-09-04?mod=article_inline
12. Mehnert, Katie. “Statement from Equity in Energy Ambassador Katie Mehnert following Trump order.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/blog/statement-from-equity-in-energy-ambassador-katie-mehnert-following-trump-order
13. Mehnert, Katie. “Statement from Equity in Energy Ambassador Katie Mehnert following Trump order.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/blog/statement-from-equity-in-energy-ambassador-katie-mehnert-following-trump-order
14.  “Exciting changes for ALLY leadership — and your voice in the energy future.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/blog/exciting-changes-for-ally-leadership-and-your-voice-in-the-energy-future
15. “Exciting changes for ALLY leadership — and your voice in the energy future.” ALLY Energy. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://www.allyenergy.com/blog/exciting-changes-for-ally-leadership-and-your-voice-in-the-energy-future