Sarah Severn is a leading expert on sustainable business, transformation and innovation. She has worked at the cutting edge of advertising and marketing, including 21 years in high profile roles at Nike. Following 13 years in the advertising industry, Sarah joined the Nike brand marketing team in Europe to establish... Read more
Sarah Severn is a leading expert on sustainable business, transformation and innovation. She has worked at the cutting edge of advertising and marketing, including 21 years in high profile roles at Nike.
Following 13 years in the advertising industry, Sarah joined the Nike brand marketing team in Europe to establish their consumer insights department. A passionate advocate for environmental issues enabled her to change track in 1995 and relocate to Nike World Headquarters in Oregon as Global Director of the Environmental Action Team.
From 1995-2000 Sarah championed the introduction of sustainability into the business, from operations and supply chain through to product design and manufacturing. Following this, she had a number of senior roles within the corporate responsibility and sustainable business teams, with a focus on leading environmental stakeholder engagement activity and emerging issues and futures work.
As Senior Director of Stakeholder Partnerships in the Sustainable Business & Innovation (SB&I) team, her final role at Nike Inc., Sarah was responsible for collective action within the Systems Innovation function. As one example in this capacity, Sarah led the development of Nike Inc’s climate change advocacy strategy and initiated the BICEP coalition (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy), and the ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) business coalition.
Sarah is on the Board of Washington Business for Climate Action, a leadership team made up of business people from across Washington State whose mission is to provide opportunities for education, innovation, and advocacy on climate and energy that meet the needs of a diverse range of business sectors.
In 2014, she founded Sarah Severn Consulting which advises organisations on sustainable business, transformation and the environment.
Sarah is on the board of the American Sustainable Business Council and the Advisory board of Forum for the Future US. She is an engaging public speaker, much sought after by organisations and businesses.