Professor Michael Toffel has been interested in how companies can reduce their environmental impacts since the early 1990s. This led him to Yale University seeking to learn about business management, industrial environmental management, and environmental policy. Soon after graduating Yale with an MBA and a Master’s degree from its environmental school, Toffel became the director of environment, health, and safety at a conglomerate in Southeast Asia. As Faculty Chair of the Business and Environment Initiative, Mike provides the overall vision and strategic direction for the Initiative. Mike is a faculty member in the HBS Technology and Operations Management unit, and his research examines how companies are addressing the environmental impacts of—and working conditions in—their operations and supply chains. The role of BEI Faculty Chair allows Mike to strengthen institutional support for faculty colleagues working on various business and environment topics, and to identify opportunities to increase the impact of their work.

Lynn Schenk is the Director of the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School. In this role, Lynn applies her broad understanding of the intersection of business and climate change. She is a strategic thinker and leads efforts to connect faculty research and case development to practice, integrate climate in the core of the management curriculum, and drive new course development on a range of topics from climate finance to adaptation and resilience, to accelerating climate solutions. She leads an awesome team that convenes and supports students, alumni, faculty and multiple HBS departments and that collaborates across Harvard University to drive climate learning, career path mentorship, and action.

Previously Lynn was a VP in the Infrastructure and Energy group at Citigroup and a Director at the William J. Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Climate Initiative. Lynn has led several successful finance projects that brought together the private and public sectors, large financial institutions, and multilateral organizations. In previous roles at HBS she wrote case studies on impact investing and contributed to the Problem Solving book. She holds a BA from Cornell University and a MALD from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She is an avid hiker, cross-country and downhill skier, still plays lacrosse even though she shouldn’t, and enjoys coaching her kids’ sports.

Elise is the community manager of the Business and Environment Initiative. She manages core activities of the BEI and collaborates with other departments to leverage HBS resources, promote the initiative's mission, and improve processes. Her duties include project management, event coordination, content development for publications and social media, web maintenance, and data management. At HBS, Elise has experience managing MBA courses, coordinating faculty & doctoral recruiting, and overseeing events.  Prior to working at HBS, she taught elementary school in underserved communities in Massachusetts and California.  She has experience developing academic programs, writing curriculum, and mentoring new educators.

Tom Clay is collaborating with Josh Krieger and Jim Matheson on the MBA Elective Curriculum course Tough Tech Ventures, which will include supporting climate related topics.

Spencer Glendon is working with Michael Toffel and Peter Tufano on research projects related to climate change. Spencer is dedicated to making climate science more accessible, useful, and intuitive so that everyone on Earth can build their climate literacy and mindfully prepare for the consequences that climate change is likely to bring. Spencer earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, where he focused on the history of urbanization and industrialization. In 2017, Spencer began collaborating with scientists, business leaders, designers, technologists, and educators to research the effects of climate change and to share those findings publicly. He founded Probable Futures in 2020 to help democratize climate science and build bridges between climate science and many other disciplines.

Reynir Indahl is working with George Serafeim on projects related to climate and sustainability efforts in private equity. Reynir is Partner of Summa Equity, an investment firm focused on companies that address key global challenges. Reynir enjoys everything from being part of the deal teams to driving performance and innovation in Summa’s portfolio. Reynir is committed to being part of the solution to the significant challenges facing our world today.

Philip Kuai is collaborating with Feng Zhu on projects related to tech entrepreneurship, sustainability, and emerging markets, including looking at how digitalization drives sustainability.

Jenn Turliuk is working with Michael Toffel and John Mulliken on topics related to climate change, energy, AI, ethics, and education. Jenn helps mission-driven organizations build, launch, and scale solutions that deliver measurable impact - bringing deep expertise in product, strategy, GTM, and partnerships. Jenn previously served as Practice Leader of Climate and Energy AI at MIT’s entrepreneurship center. She built, taught, and researched AI for climate and energy solutions - and delivered invited talks at Davos, COP29, TEDx, UNPRME, Yale, Harvard, and other global forums. Before MIT, she was Partner at one of the world’s most active funders of climate startups, led and co-taught a pioneering climate tech angel investing education program, and co-founded and exited an edtech company. She began her career in marketing at Procter & Gamble and has served as a board member, consultant, and mentor. She holds an MBA from MIT and a Bachelor’s from Queen’s University, completed executive education at Harvard Kennedy School and Singularity University (at NASA Ames), and was awarded an honorary degree from Humber College.

Richard Vieira is collaborating with Josh Krieger and Jim Matheson on the MBA Elective Curriculum course Tough Tech Ventures, which will include climate related topics.

Carolyn Weinberg is working with Peter Tufano and Lynn Schenk on topics including climate finance and market structure. Carolyn served as Chief Product Innovation Officer of BlackRock, where she drove the product innovation, development, and commercialization of products globally for the world's largest asset manager. Previously at BlackRock, Carolyn was Global Head of Product, iShares and Index Investments and drove the product strategy, development, and commercialization globally for the world's largest ETF provider. In this role, Carolyn was instrumental in driving the firm’s successful growth in fixed income ETFs and sustainable indexing. Before joining BlackRock, Carolyn created structured derivatives solutions for corporations at Citibank, where she was Head of the North America Corporate Solutions Group. Previously, she was Deutsche Bank's Head of Risk Solutions Structuring, a member of Morgan Stanley's Corporate Derivatives Group, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Carolyn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in applied mathematics and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Franziska Hittmair is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard Business School. She recently graduated with a PhD in Management from Nova School of Business and Economics. Her research is in the area of corporate sustainability, with a focus on topics related to corporate environmental pollution and environmental disclosure practices.

Simon Xu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard Business School. He received his PhD in Finance (2023) at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are sustainable finance and corporate social responsibility, with links to financial intermediation, corporate finance, and banking. His current research focuses on the interplay between environmental regulations and firm pollution, and their impact on mutual funds’ portfolio choices, shareholder wealth, and corporate philanthropy.