The Environmental and Energy Management Institute’s webinar series on “Leadership in Our Time” series has drawn large numbers of participants and rave reviews this year so far. The 2021 series opened up on January 8, 2021, with GW President Thomas LeBlanc anchoring the year’s first webinar entitled “Sixty Minutes with Ditte Juul-Jørgensen and András Simonyi.” Ms. Juul-Jørgensen, currently is the Director General for Energy at the European Commission, and Mr. Simonyi, is a former Hungarian Ambassador to the United States. They discussed adoption of the European Green Deal and the EU’s goal to become climate neutral by 2050. A recording of that event is available to view.
That was followed next February 18 event on “Strategies for System Change and Tackling Wicked Problems.” In this webinar, Dr. Bruce Hull, Senior Fellow at the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability, and author of a new book entitled “Leadership for Sustainability,” introduced a toolbox of strategies for tackling sustainability problems. Dr. Hull presented case studies that illustrate several of these tools, discuss the challenges and opportunities of being a systems change agent, and identify resources professionals can use to build their capacities as change agents.
Next up was a February 26, 2021 webinar featuring Mauro Petriccione, Director General for Climate Action for the European Commission. Mr. Petriccione is the Director General for Climate Action, in charge of overseeing the European Green Deal. He is the highest-ranking European Civil Servant dealing with climate. Mr. Petriccione has 33 years of experience at the European Commission, where he has held various positions, which included, trade and commerce.
The next event featured Henrik Hololei, Director General for Mobility and Transport for the EC, conducted on April 23, 2021. A video recording of that event can be seen on the Security and Sustainability Forum Vimeo.
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| Kounalakis Webinar |
Next was California Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who joined us on April 30, 2021. A recording of that event is available here.
For those would like to catch up on last year’s events, here are links to the three events we held last semester:
- September 11, 2020: Reinhardt Bütikofer of the German Alliance 90 / The Greens
- July 22, 2020: Maroš Šefčovič, European Commission Vice President
- June 17, 2020: Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
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| Chertoff Webinar |
The “Leadership in Our Time” series is produced by Dr. Ed Saltzberg, EEMI Director of Professional Education, assisted by Andras Simonyi, former Hungarian Ambassador to the United States and currently an EEMI Visiting Scholar. To date the series has proven to be widely popular, with every event drawing more than 500 participants each.