Melanie A. Kenderdine

Cabinet Secretary Designate
New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD)

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Melanie A. Kenderdine as Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) in May 2024.

Before joining EMNRD, Kenderdine was co-founder, Principal and Executive Vice President of the Energy Futures Initiative, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to harnessing the power of technology and policy innovation to accelerate the clean energy transition.

Prior to co-founding the Energy Futures Initiative, Kenderdine held high-level positions at the U.S. Department of Energy in both the Obama and Clinton administrations.

In the Obama administration, Kenderdine helped create Mission Innovation, now a 26-country initiative that supports transformational clean energy research, development, and demonstration; North American grid integration and security; and the modernization of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Kenderdine’s DOE Office led the management and analysis for the Quadrennial Energy Review, a multi-year, 22-agency roadmap for US energy policy.

During the Clinton administration, she was a primary architect of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil exchange of 2000, the creation of the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve, and the return of the Naval Oil Shale Reserve No. 2 to the Ute tribe in Utah, the largest land transfer back to Native Americans in the lower 48 in over 100 years.