As climate change and social inequality demand visionary leadership, Alison Taylor, Clinical Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, outlines four key strategies for emerging sustainability professionals—insights that resonate deeply across Africa’s impact-driven community.
1. Make Sustainability Your ‘Minor’—Whatever Your Major
Taylor advises that sustainability should be more than a sideline—it’s an essential specialization. Whether your background is in finance, engineering, or marketing, embedding sustainability into your primary discipline builds credibility and impact.
2. Treat Your First Decade as Experimentation
Don’t expect a linear career path. Taylor encourages early-career professionals to explore different roles, industries, and functions over the first 10 years in order to discover where their skills and values align most powerfully.
3. Study Power and Influence from Within
To drive real change, sustainability leaders must understand organizational dynamics. Taylor recommends thinking “like an anthropologist”—observing decision-making systems and learning how to influence without formal authority.
4. Choose Your Role in the Ecosystem
Taylor identifies three broad impact roles: insider (effecting change from within organizations), advocate (pushing externally for reform), or hybrid (working between sectors). She urges professionals to select the path that fits their strengths and values.
Why This Matters for Africa
- Integrated skills: With sustainability increasingly embedded across sectors, professionals who combine depth in their field with environmental and social knowledge are in high demand.
- Resilience through flexibility: Africa’s impact sector is evolving rapidly—adaptable career journeys build leadership agility.
- Influence by design: Understanding power structures enables professionals to design solutions that stick.
- Contextual fit: Whether working within government, NGOs, private enterprise, or cross-sector initiatives, clarity of role maximizes impact.
As South Africa and the broader continent strive to build equitable, climate-resilient futures, Taylor’s lessons offer both a roadmap and a mindset: one that values integrated expertise, courageous exploration, strategic influence, and purpose-aligned positioning.
