Rachel Fleishman is a sustainability professional, scholar, and advisor, active in the fields of corporate sustainability, climate change and climate security. Rachel earned her MBA at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; her MPM at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and her BA in international relations and history at Tufts University.
Rachel’s first professional passion was nuclear arms control. Following studies at Tufts and the University of Maryland she went to work for a consultancy designing arms control options for the US Government; then went in-house full time at the Pentagon. When the Soviet Union dissolved, some in the US defense and diplomatic corps shifted focus to environment, security and technology. Rachel did the same, helping to found and run the International Affairs office for the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Environmental Security). In this role Rachel helped pioneer military environmental collaboration as a tool of soft diplomacy; bring environmental security issues to NATO’s core; and designed and ran the first US environmental, security and intelligence conferences.
Rachel left the Pentagon to get an MBA from Kellogg, and has been working with the private sector ever since. However, Rachel has maintained ties to the defense arena as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security, where she publishes and offers briefings on climate security in Asia Pacific. She has also led nonprofit organizations, including the Climate Change Business Forum and the United Jewish Congregation (both of Hong Kong).
Rachel believes that climate and nature are the defining issues of our time. Humanity’s response today, and in the next few years, will determine whether society endures. Her personal contribution lies in working across organizations and value chains to recalibrate economic processes and relationships in pursuit of a more sustainable future. She has a particular focus on critical interfaces: business, government and social welfare; innovation, product and market; and companies, climate and society.
Over the past 10 years Rachel has helped organizations from startups to multinationals achieve their sustainability goals. She is currently Managing Director, Consumer Sectors and Business Transformation for the global nonprofit Business for Social Responsibility.