Tom Wotka is a 2023-2024 Veterans Advanced Energy fellow and the chief of staff for the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR) at the US Department of State. ENR leads the Department of State’s efforts to develop and execute international energy policy. It focuses on energy security for the United States and its allies and partners, US economic growth, global political stability and prosperity, and a low-emissions future.

Wotka drove department efforts to integrate Ukraine into the European energy grid, building resiliency, reducing dependency on Russia, and persuading stakeholders across the interagency that Ukraine could sustain itself immediately before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Before his time in the State Department, Wotka was a finance professional working in investment banking at Credit Suisse.  

Wotka spent eleven years in the US Marine Corps as an artillery officer and served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. He received a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.