Tensie Whelan

Tensie Whelan (NYU ‘80), Clinical Professor for Business and Society, is the Director of NYU Stern School of Business’s Center for Sustainable Business, where she is bringing her 25 years of experience working on local, national and international environmental and sustainability issues to engage businesses in proactive and innovative mainstreaming of sustainability. As President of the Rainforest Alliance, she built the organization from a $4.5 million to $50 million budget, transforming the engagement of business with sustainability, recruiting 5,000 companies in more than 60 countries to work with Rainforest Alliance. She transformed the Rainforest Alliance frog into an internationally recognized and credible brand. Her previous work included serving as Executive Director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, Vice President of the National Audubon Society, Managing Editor of Ambio, a journal of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a journalist in Latin America. Tensie has been recognized by Ethisphere as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics, was the Citi Fellow in Leadership and Ethics at NYU Stern in 2015 and was awarded the Stern Faculty Excellence award in 2020. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards and corporate advisory boards such as the Unilever Sustainable Sourcing Advisory Board and the Nespresso Innovation Fund Advisory Board as well as a member of the Board of Directors for Aston Martin and GlobeScan. She is also an Advisor to the Future Economy Project for Harvard Business Review. Tensie holds a B.A. from New York University, an M.A from American University, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Owner President Management (OPM) Program. She was awarded the Stern Faculty Excellence Award in 2020. Tensie Whelan has been featured in the following publications for her work with the Center for Sustainable Business: Harvard Business Review, Stern Social Innovation Review, The Economist, Fortune, Crain’s, Financial Times, Impact Alpha, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal as well as academic journals such as the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance.