Aimée Christensen
CEO & Founder
Planetary Protector
Aimée Christensen is the founder and CEO of Christensen Global, a strategic advisory firm where she leverages deep expertise and a diverse network of relationships to build a just, resilient and thriving world. She develops, accelerates and scales solutions in key impact sectors, including with climate solutions innovators such as Aleph Farms, Hempitecture and RiskThinking.Ai, global impact initiatives including Apparel Impact Institute, Clinton Global Initiative, Global Ocean Commission and Sustainable Energy for All, major corporations such as Duke Energy, FEMSA, Ford Motor Company, Microsoft, Swiss Re and Virgin, and philanthropies including Mastercard Impact Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the United Nations Foundation. She is Senior Adviser for Climate Finance to the Milken Institute and partnered with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth to release at the UN climate talks at COP29 a report and call to action, “Unlocking the Power of Small Business to Deliver Climate-Smart Inclusive Growth.” She is also the founder and curator of the Sun Valley Forum, where she gathers a community of global leaders and innovators to accelerate impact together.
Christensen has three decades of climate leadership in policy, law, investment, philanthropy and business, including at The White House, U.S. Department of Energy, Baker & McKenzie, The World Bank and Google. Christensen drafted and negotiated the first U.S. bilateral and regional climate change agreements (U.S.-Costa Rica, et. al., 1994-1997), drafted the first-ever university endowment climate investment policy (adopted by Stanford University in 1999) and while Climate Maven at Google, guided the company’s early climate strategy including a commitment to carbon neutrality in 2007, lobbying for the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) (2006), and developing Google.org’s first climate project, RechargeIT, advancing the electrification of transportation and vehicle to grid (2006-2007). She advised several of Sir Richard Branson’s initiatives, The Elders, The Carbon War Room and The B Team (2007-2014), guiding the Carbon War Room from conception to launch. In 2012, she was recruited to serve as Senior Adviser to the United Nations Secretary General’s High-level Group on Sustainable Energy For All, mobilizing private sector commitments to energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy access.
Her nonprofit service currently includes serving as a board member of Food + Planet and the National Forest Foundation, as founder and emerita board member of the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience, as well as governing boards of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University.
Christensen is a sought-after speaker, moderator, and curator, including at the Skoll World Forum, the Hillary Innovation Summit, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Milken Institute Global Conference, the World Climate Summit, Confluence Philanthropy, and the Summit. She founded and curated TEDxSunValley (2016-2018), was the Founding Program Chair of the World Climate Summit, and founded and curates the annual Sun Valley Forum (2015-present).
Aimée Christensen’s leadership has been recognized with several honors: the Hillary Institute of International Leadership’s international board named her the third Hillary Institute Laureate for exceptional leadership on climate change (2011), she is an Aspen Institute Catto Fellow (2010) and was named an “emerging leader” by the New Leaders Council at the 2008 Democratic National Convention as well as a 2017 Women in Leadership & Zions Bank laureate, and an Idaho Business Review Woman of the Year (2020). She holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. from Smith College.
