About Mike Sommers, new president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute
Mike Sommers is the 15th chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute since its founding almost a century ago. API is the largest national trade association representing all aspects of America's oil and natural gas industry.
Before being named APl's president and CEO, Sommers led the American Investment Council, a trade association representing many of the nation's leading private equity and growth capital firms and other business partners.
Sommers spent two decades in critical staff leadership roles in the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House, including chief of staff for Speaker of the House John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Special Assistant to President George W. Bush at the National Economic Council.
Sommers has been instrumental in crafting landmark legislation, including leading efforts to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program through Congress, brokering a resolution between the administration and Congress ahead of the fiscal cliff in 2013, leading efforts to pass the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015 and trade promotion authority in 2015.
Sommers is a native of Naperville, Illinois, and a graduate of the honors program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he was awarded the President's Distinguished Service Medal - the highest honor given to a Miami undergraduate. He is married to Jill Sommers, a former Commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). They have three children and live in Alexandria, Virginia.
