Wangari Muchiri, the Kenyan engineer committed to accelerating the ecological transition in Africa

Currently serving as Director of Africa WindPower, Wangari Muchiri is a renewable energy engineer and a specialist in energy planning. She has been running this program initiated by the Global Wind Energy Council to accelerate the development and implementation of wind energy projects in Africa since 2021. She was listed as one of the top 50 African women leaders in the energy and electrical industry in 2025.

With a career spanning more than a decade in sustainable development, climate action, energy transition, and renewable energy, Wangari Muchiri is now one of Africa’s leaders in the electricity sector. At the helm of Africa WindPower since 2021, she works to promote energy transition in Africa through the adoption of renewable energies, creating links between government actors, regulatory bodies, project developers, wind energy companies, and the financial community. The goal is to promote clean and affordable energy sources on the continent and make them a driver of economic growth and a solution to climate change.

She has been a member of the United Nations Energy Transition Engineers Council since 2024 and has also served as the Global Renewables Alliance’s regional manager for Africa. This network was created by the Global Wind Energy Council, the World Solar Energy Council, and the International Hydropower Association, with the aim of accelerating the energy transition and tripling renewable energy production capacity by 2030.

Due to her commitment to promoting renewable energy in Africa, she has won several awards and distinctions, including the Choiseul 100 Africa Leaders Award in 2024 and Insider Top Women in Climate Leadership in 2023.

Wangari Muchiri holds a bachelor’s degree in Renewable Energy Engineering from the University of Wales in Australia, a master’s degree in Energy Planning from the University of Technology Sydney, and an Executive MBA in Business Administration and Management. She began her professional career in 2013 with real estate company JLL, first as a sustainability data analyst, then as a sustainability manager and renewable energy engineer, and finally as a real estate and sustainable development associate. In 2019, she was selected as a leader for the Obama Foundation, a program bringing together 200 leaders from 45 African countries with the aim of exploring new solutions to address the challenges facing their communities and change the world.

In 2021, she was hired at Hivos in Kenya, an international development organization where she worked on climate action, among other things. In 2017, she joined the Kenya Green Building Society as a member of the Board of Directors, an organization that promotes green buildings.

Since 2025, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Nigerian Wind Energy Council.