Insights and Trends in Corporate Sustainability

Tensie Whelan

Clinical Professor of Business and Society / Founder and Director

NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business

Tensie Whelan, clinical professor for business and society, is the founder and director of NYU Stern School of Business’s Center for Sustainable Business. She brings 25 years of experience working on sustainability issues. As president of the Rainforest Alliance, she built the organization from a USD 4.5 million to USD 50 million budget, transforming business engagement with sustainability and recruiting 5,000 companies in more than 60 countries. Her previous work included serving as executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, vice president of the National Audubon Society, and managing editor of Ambio, a Swedish Academy of Sciences journal. She has served on numerous nonprofit and corporate advisory boards for companies such as Unilever and Nespresso. She currently serves on the advisory boards of ALO Advisors, Buzz on Earth, Giant Ventures, and Inherent Group. She was most recently appointed to the board of Invest Industrial SPAC, is an advisor to the Future Economy Project for Harvard Business Review and is a member of the “Exploring the Future of Sustainable Production and Consumption” Working Group of the Council on Competitiveness. Whelan was awarded the Stern Faculty Excellence Award in 2020.