Founder / CEO Betony Jones is a visionary leader at the intersection of climate, energy, and labor policy, renowned for her ability to translate ambitious climate goals into tangible economic opportunities. With a career spanning government, academia, and consulting, she is celebrated for driving policy and program innovation and building creative partnerships that ensure climate solutions deliver real economic benefits for workers, businesses, and communities.
Jones served in the Biden-Harris Administration as Labor Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy and Director of the Office of Energy Jobs at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In these roles, she was instrumental in aligning federal energy investments with workforce needs, ensuring that climate policies resulted in measurable job creation and economic inclusion. As an architect of the Community Benefits Plans framework, she developed a groundbreaking approach to ensure that communities and workers most affected by energy transitions would receive the benefits of new investments. Collaborating across agencies, labor unions, and industry leaders, she excelled at building creative coalitions to foster innovation and long-term economic resilience.
Prior to founding Inclusive Economics, she held various leadership positions in academia and the non profit sectors as the Associate Director of the Green Economy Program at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center and Vice President of Programs at the Sierra Business Council, where she pioneered new frameworks and programs that integrated economic development, quality jobs, and climate action. Over her career, she has published dozens of cutting-edge reports that have shaped local, state, federal policy making.
Her career is defined by a commitment to getting things done- moving beyond theory to create scalable, high-impact solutions that bridge climate action with economic opportunity. She began her career as a National Security Education Program intern in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Clinton Administration, where she saw the political complexity of climate action as an economic opportunity. She holds a master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan.
Jones is widely recognized for her ability to align diverse stakeholders, break down silos, and design policies and programs that accelerate progress. Her leadership has helped shape a more effective, inclusive, and results-oriented approach to the climate crisis– one that ensures public and private investments drive real change and lasting benefits for workers, communities, and the economy.
