Why It Matters

📍Cambridge, MA, USA. Eric McNulty is the Director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard where he works to amplify the work of those who lead. While most people end up in leadership positions, very few are trained on how to be a leader. He explains the key attributes and tools of leadership that you can use to accelerate yourself and your organization.

UN Sustainable Development Goal: 4 · Quality Education

📍San Diego, CA, USA. Alisa Valderrama is the Co-founder and CEO of Futureproof, a company building a better way to understand the financial risk that comes with natural disasters. She explains why it matters to properly account for, prepare for, and allocate resources to climate-resilient projects.

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 9 · Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure, 11 · Sustainable Cities & Communities

📍Olympia, WA, USA. As the Director of the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure, Rhys Roth oversees the systems that support our lives, yet we are blind to. There is an expectation that our food will be fresh, our water will be clean, our toilets will flush, and our devices will charge. As users of this system, we can’t feel its ripple effects, but they are starting to be felt by our planet, the place the system lives in. Our future will depend on us being able to develop infrastructure that not only supports us, but supports itself. And Rhys is one of the few pioneering our new system.

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 9 · Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure, 11 · Sustainable Cities & Communities

📍London, UK. Sarah Little believes in the superpower of stories to inspire. Having lived and spent time in villages in Ethiopia, refugee camps in Kenya, and cities in Syria and Afghanistan, she learned the challenges and dreams of girls her age. Some had been forced to uproot their lives due to war and genocide, others had fathers who forced them to marry before starting their periods, several had started business, and many were the first in their family to attend university. The power of these stories not only inspired her, but led to the creation of More to Her Story. Today, it is a platform to unleash the power of girls around the world by amplifying their voices and propelling their ideas. 

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 5 · Gender Equality, 10 · Reduced Inequalities

📍Norfolk, CT, USA. Cheryl Heller believes the design of our relationships is the key to solving our social and environmental problems. In today’s economy, it seems as if these topics are left to a select group of individuals who choose to work on them. The reality, however, is that these individuals are just laying the groundwork for the future of business. Every organization will need to be socially and environmentally conscious if they want to survive. Thankfully, we have people like Cheryl, who is one of the rare individuals with the knowledge to guide us in this new direction. Her book, The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Potential of Social Design, lays out a playbook for those who want to lead with her.

UN Sustainable Development Goal: 4 · Quality Education

📍Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. As a managing director at LymeTimber, Peter Stein and his team answer one of the toughest questions about the climate crisis: how can we continue to build infrastructure that welcomes more people into the modern economy while conserving the natural state of our environment? Their answer is to have a more balanced relationship with the resources that we use to build society. Instead of squeezing the land for every dollar they can get from it, Peter focuses on keeping the forest economically productive while protecting the ecological and biological diversity of the lands.

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 8 · Decent Work & Economic Growth, 11 · Sustainable Cities & Communities, 14 · Life on Land

📍 Portland, Oregon, USA. Dave Chen is dedicated to creating a more sustainable future. An enormous part of that future is dependent on changing the operating system of society on a systemic level. Part of that change is dependent on entrepreneurs and great thinkers to formulate the solutions that will push us forward. Those individuals however need resources behind  them to scale their creations on a local, national, and global scale. That is where Dave and his team at Equilibrium Capital play. By investing in and allocating capital to scale sustainable solutions, they are the ones truly driving systemic change.

UN Sustainable Development Goal: 9 · Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure

📍Kathmandu, Nepal. Bidhi Mandal was born and raised in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Growing up there gave her a unique perspective of how our society functions today. Her community, for example, has a different relationship to water than other communities around the world do. She and her family got access to water two days per week due to the scheduled rotation they were on. This life was normal to her, but as she experienced how people outside of her community were living she began to question the stark differences. Now as a sophomore at Babson College, she is pursuing what she found to be her purpose: being able to create a better world. As Davis Fellow for Peace and a member of the US Embassy Youth Council, a platform for youth leaders from Nepal to provide their input about the future of Nepal, she is creating the world she wants to see.

UN Sustainable Development Goal: 4 · Quality Education

📍 Wellesley, MA, USA. Cheryl Kiser is the woman who plays at intersections. With her father being the first marine to stand up against the war and her mother starting one of the first natural foods stores in New England, she has been on the cutting edge of taking a stand since childhood. Now working at the Lewis Institute at Babson College, she stands at a new intersection, that she created. Cheryl educates and guides a new generation of entrepreneurs who create social and economic value at the same time. This concept, of making money and doing good, is represented by the UN Global Goals, a 12 trillion dollar market opportunity that is forming new economies like the blue and silver economy. While computer-based innovation has been an integral aspect to the development of our society, another dawn is approaching with challenges and opportunities to change the world in a new way.

UN Sustainable Development Goal: 17 · Partnerships

📍Boston, USA. Tim Coffin thinks that if you want to change the world, you need to raise capital. Coming from a background in finance, Tim understands how money incentivizes decision making in society. He works at Breckinridge Capital Advisors, a firm based out of Boston that believes in driving change through capital. They are a bond manager that has integrated environmental, social, and governance research into their investment decision process. This allows them to analyze companies from a perspective that balances financial performance and societal impact. As the director of sustainability, Tim shares his insights about finance being a driving force for good.

UN Sustainable Development Goal: 11 · Sustainable Cities & Communities