Sandra Henry

Sandra Henry

Chief Executive Officer

As President and CEO Sandra leads Slipstream on its mission to accelerate climate solutions for everyone. She brings decades of experience working within utilities, nonprofits, and government offices to unite diverse stakeholders and advance a more equitable and just clean-energy future.

Previously Sandra led the implementation of clean energy initiatives as senior director of energy and sustainability at Elevate. Sandra led the charge to advance the City of Chicago towards 100% clean energy when she served as the first Black woman Chief Sustainability Officer. Her actions included signing onto the Sierra Club's Ready for 100 campaign, making commitments transition to 100% renewable energy community-wide by 2035 and to electrify Chicago's bus fleet by 2040, and an effort to build ground-mounted solar systems on underutilized, city-owned land that steered Chicago to a win in the Bloomberg Philanthropies American Cities Climate Challenge.

Sandra is deeply committed to advancing energy efficiency in buildings, as her leadership directing Accelerate Performance—a national initiative that brings performance-based procurement to scale for commercial new construction—shows. She also led the development of a Net Zero summit for private developers in Chicago that now convenes meaningful market transformation conversations.

Sandra is a high-performance leader who has the unique ability to engage stakeholders at multiple levels with market-driven strategies within the green building movement and inspire constituents to embrace sustainable practices. Sandra's extensive knowledge of applied sustainability practices can be measured successfully. She currently sits on Institute for Market Transformation Board of Directors as Board Chair.

Read more conversations with Sandra

Queen of the Slipstream – Brava (March 2023)

Be intentional about the outcomes you want for your career – OffSite Dirt, women in construction series (December 2022)

Building greener from the ground upInventing Tomorrow, University of Minnesota's alumni magazine (December 2022)

Charging Up: A chat with Sandra Henry, president of nonprofit Slipstream  – Canary Media (September 2022)