Beth Tener, Principal
Beth Tener, Principal of New Directions Collaborative, is a facilitator and organization consultant with over 20 years of experience helping organizations implement strategies to improve their environmental and social responsibility performance. She specializes in helping people to collaborate across functions and organizations in pursuit of joint goals. This includes strategic planning and developing the shared commitment, consensus and action plans to implement change. Her work is informed by broad experience in how organizational change happens, systems thinking, and sustainability issues, gained through work with over 100 companies, government agencies, foundations, and non-profits. Her skills in structured writing, graphics, and oral communication help clients to build a compelling argument for change to build buy-in and alignment.
In her previous role as Executive Director of Sustainable Step New England, she trained hundreds of people in principles of sustainability and how to put these into practice in their work. She helped internal “change agents” take leadership within their organzation to adopt green practices . She also convened dialogues between sustainable business leaders and government about how government policies could help advance sustainable practices. She has been invited to give speeches on sustainability, strategy, and catalyzing networks for a wide range of audiences including MIT Sloan Business School, National Environmental Partnership Summit, the National Association of Environmental Trainers, and the NESEA Building Energy conference. Beth has a B.A. in Political Science from Bates College and a M.S. in Environmental Technology from Imperial College in London. She was previously a Senior Consultant at Arthur D. Little.
Her personal efforts to "walk the talk" and adopt sustainable practices in her daily life also inform her work…from building an Energy Star geothermal home to growing a large organic garden. She lives in southern New Hampshire and enjoys hiking, the team collaboration of pick-up basketball, cross-country skiing, yoga, and good conversation where one idea builds on the next.