NYU Center for Sustainability Business

In a moment when many institutions are drifting, one is staying the course. That’s because one leader had the insight and determination to build it right, including gathering a team and partners with both talent and diverse experience.

I’m in New York this week to honor a special kind of leader. Tomorrow marks the final Advisors meeting for the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) under Founding Director Tensie Whelan.

Without diminishing at all the institutional support from NYU leaders, it’s fair to say that Tensie built the Center from scratch. No small feat in an era when sustainability is too often a slogan rather than a strategy. But Tensie’s always been the real deal. We first met in 2008 (I think), in Bangalore, India, as part of a meeting of the Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council. She was then about halfway through her time as President of the Rainforest Alliance.

When she stepped down in 2015, she invited me to serve on the CSB advisory board and I’ve seen how she and her team have turned a vision into a durable and respected institution—one now poised to continue undertaking first-class research and making the business case for sustainability under its new leader, Amy Skoczlas Cole.

All of this is happening against a darker national backdrop. While some companies retreat, and others reduce their voices to a whisper, the urgency of sustainability only grows.

Sustainability demands vision, commitment, transparency, and accountability. Thanks, Tensie, for all you’ve done and for showing us what leadership looks like.