Kate McMahon is a Principal at Valdos Consulting, an analytic firm specializing in engineering economics, workforce and technology assessment, strategic pricing, and policy analysis for public and private sector clients. She brings to that role over a decade of federal energy and industrial policy experience, with a particular focus on clean energy finance, advanced manufacturing, and critical minerals.
Prior to joining Valdos, Kate served as Chief of Staff of the Underwriting & Structuring Division at the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, where she helped deliver $40 billion in conditional commitments and $57 billion in closed loans to energy infrastructure projects and advanced manufacturers through rapid strategic organizational and operational change.

Earlier at DOE, as a technical expert, Kate played a key role in shaping domestic and international policy on electric vehicles and battery supply chains. Among other initiatives, she led the analysis and the development of a policy architecture for the clean vehicle credit’s (30D) foreign entity of concern (FEOC) provision, managed DOE’s trade portfolio, and represented the agency in White House and USTR-led diplomatic negotiations with the EU and South Korea on IRA tax credit development.

Kate was also a Research Scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, where she analyzed the battery supply chain and supported the development of supply chain disruption modeling capabilities. She currently maintains a public database tracking U.S. critical mineral agreements and project financing at usmineraldeals.com.

Kate brings both breadth and depth across clean energy finance, energy trade policy, and supply chain analytics.