Shannon is a scientist, environmentalist, and business strategist, who has dedicated her career to creating a more sustainable future for people and planet. As the CEO of Delterra, Shannon spearheads the organization’s vision to have lasting and substantial impact on complex sustainability challenges.
Before joining Delterra, Shannon led McKinsey.org, the private corporate foundation of McKinsey & Company, where she conceived and incubated Rethinking Recycling, now Delterra’s flagship initiative. Over the three years Rethinking Recycling was part of McKinsey.org, it operated in Argentina and Indonesia where it improved the livelihoods of more than 450 waste workers, many of them women, and achieved higher recycling rates than those of most US cities.
A field biologist by training, with a PhD in Natural Resources and the Environment from the University of Michigan, Shannon spent her early career working on wildlife conservation in the Brazilian Pantanal and the Florida Everglades. From there she went on to work at the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company where she was a founder and leader of the firm’s Sustainability Practice, the Cities Special Initiative, and the founding COO of the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment. Over her 15 years with McKinsey & Company, Shannon served a range of public- and private-sector clients on buildings energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and published numerous reports and papers on sustainability.
Raised hopping around the world, Shannon holds dual Brazilian and U.S. citizenship. She now lives in Michigan with her husband and two children. Shannon is never happier than when she is exploring the natural world – whether it be the woods and lakes of Michigan or the coral reefs of South East Asia.
