Lee Beck is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and senior director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at Clean Air Task Force (CATF), overseeing CATF’s climate strategy to advance a broad portfolio of solutions in these regions. She is also responsible for advancing CATF’s efforts on the global climate policy stage through overseeing CATF’s presence at the UN Climate Change Conference and related international convenings. Beck is an expert on transatlantic partnerships and international affairs, and she advises a range of organizations, governments, and foundations globally on their strategies. She frequently speaks at and moderates high-level events, including on- and off-the-record CEO- and ministerial-level dialogues around the world. Her thought leadership has been featured in publications such as Bloomberg, Washington Post, Financial Times, and Tagesspiegel. 

Dedicated to optionality and overlooked solutions, Beck recently worked with a multiorganizational team to launch the globally oriented Nuclear Scaling Initiative, focused on scaling nuclear energy in the United States and Central and Eastern Europe. She served as CATF’s global director for carbon capture. She led the team’s expansion in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, while helping launch CATF’s overall European efforts. Under her leadership, the carbon capture team helped secure twelve billion dollars in funding for carbon capture, removal, and storage in the US Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, as well as make improvements to the 45Q tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act.  The team also put forward the vision for a European Strategy for Carbon Capture and Storage.

Beck previously worked at the Global CCS Institute, the Vermont Energy Investment Cooperation, and Eni USA’s Washington DC International Relations Office, and the European Union Delegation to the United States. Before focusing on the energy field, Beck was a journalist reporting for multiple outlets reporting from Germany, Italy, Tanzania, and Hong Kong.

She has a Master of Arts in international affairs and economics with majors in energy, resources, and environment, and political economy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. A German citizen and recently naturalized American who has lived in eight countries, she speaks German, French, and Italian.