Aimee Christensen

Emeritus Board Member

Chief Executive Officer, Christensen Global Strategies
Executive Director, Sun Valley Institute

Aimée Christensen has three decades’ experience in policy, law, investment, business and philanthropy including with Google, the World Bank, Baker & McKenzie, and the U.S. Department of Energy, where she negotiated the first bilateral and regional agreements on climate change. In 2012 she served as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General’s High-level Group on Sustainable Energy for All and she advised Virgin Unite in shaping three of Sir Richard Branson’s initiatives: The Elders, The Carbon War Room, and The B Team. As “Climate Maven” at Google, she guided the company’s first climate change initiatives including a commitment to carbon neutrality, successfully lobbying for California’s climate change legislation, and launching the first climate project for Google.org, to accelerate the electrification of transportation.

In 2009 she moved home to Sun Valley, Idaho where she founded the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience, the Sun Valley Forum, and leads her global advisory firm. She advises climate solutions innovators such as Aleph Farms, Hempitecture and RiskThinking.Ai, global impact initiatives including the Clinton Global Initiative, The Elders, Global Ocean Commission and Sustainable Energy for All, major corporations including Duke Energy, FEMSA, Ford Motor Company, Microsoft, Swiss Re and Virgin, and philanthropies including Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the United Nations Foundation. She serves on the boards of Confluence Philanthropy, the National Forest Foundation, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute on Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University, the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University and Hempitecture. Aimée is an Idaho Business Review Woman of the Year (2020), a 2017 Women in Leadership & Zions Bank laureate, the 2011 Hillary Institute laureate and an Aspen Institute Catto Fellow (2010). She has a BA from Smith College and a JD from Stanford Law School.