Member since April 2026
Dr. Tamara Stenn is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Suffolk University, an economist, Fulbright Scholar, and Founder & CEO of the Sustainability Lens Game. She is a globally recognized expert in sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and experiential learning.
Her work focuses on helping organizations shift from viewing sustainability as a compliance requirement to leveraging it as a strategic advantage that drives growth, innovation, and resilience. She is the creator of the Sustainability Lens framework and game—an interactive tool that integrates sustainability into core business strategy through hands-on learning and systems thinking.
A defining moment in Dr. Stenn’s career came while working in rural Bolivia with Indigenous women artisans and quinoa farmers. Despite producing high-value goods for global markets, many remained economically vulnerable. This sparked a lifelong commitment to redesigning how business works—leading her to build Fair Trade enterprises, conduct Fulbright research on sustainability and well-being, and ultimately create the Sustainability Lens Game. Her work today reflects that same mission: helping organizations create systems where prosperity is shared, sustainable, and scalable.
Dr. Stenn’s career spans over four decades across business, academia, and international development. As a Fulbright Scholar, she conducted extensive research on the well-being of women quinoa farmers in Bolivia and co-founded a farmer-run cooperative. Earlier, she founded and led an eco-fashion company applying Fair Trade principles to support Indigenous artisans and build sustainable livelihoods.
She is the author of several influential books and publications on social entrepreneurship and sustainability, including work that introduces practical frameworks for building purpose-driven businesses. Her newest work focuses on helping organizations align profitability with impact—what she calls “The Profitable Good.”
As a speaker, Dr. Stenn is known for her engaging, interactive approach. She combines storytelling, real-world experience, and practical tools to help audiences move from theory to action. Her sessions often incorporate elements of gameplay and experiential learning, making complex concepts accessible and memorable.
She has worked with students, entrepreneurs, corporations, and community organizations worldwide, helping them build ventures that are not only financially successful but also socially and environmentally impactful.
Dr. Tamara Stenn is driven by a lifelong belief that business can—and must—be a force for meaningful change. Her passion comes from working alongside Indigenous women entrepreneurs, students, and communities who are often excluded from traditional economic systems—and helping them build ventures that are both profitable and just.
She doesn’t just teach sustainability—she has lived it, built it, and scaled it.
“The Sweater That Changed Everything”
In her talks, Dr. Stenn shares the story of working with Indigenous knitters in Bolivia—women who created exquisite alpaca garments sold internationally, yet struggled to access fair markets.
She describes:
Sitting in rural villages translating between cultures, markets, and expectations
Watching value get lost between producer and consumer
Realizing that good intentions weren’t enough—systems thinking was required
This story becomes the turning point that leads to:
➡ Fair Trade enterprise creation
➡ Global research on sustainability and well-being
➡ The Sustainability Lens Game
Dr. Stenn’s journey began not in a boardroom—but in the Andes of Bolivia.
As a Peace Corps volunteer and later a Fulbright Scholar, she worked directly with Indigenous women artisans and quinoa farmers. She saw firsthand a contradiction:
These women were producing globally valued goods—yet remained economically marginalized.
That moment changed everything.
She went on to found one of the first Fair Trade alpaca apparel companies in the U.S., working with over 300 Indigenous women artisans and growing it into a successful international business.
But even then, she realized something deeper:
The system itself needed redesign—not just better businesses within it.
That realization led her to academia, research, and ultimately the creation of the Sustainability Lens framework and game—a tool to help others rethink business from the ground up.
What if sustainability stopped being something organizations had to “do” and became a way to discover opportunities they had never seen before?
Communities, entrepreneurs, educators, and organizations are confronting increasingly complex challenges: climate change, affordability, resource constraints, rapidly changing technologies, AI, and growing social and economic uncertainty. Traditional problem-solving approaches often encourage us to isolate these issues. But today's challenges are interconnected—and our solutions need to be as well.
In this interactive talk, Dr. Tamara Stenn draws on decades of experience as an entrepreneur, economist, educator, researcher, and sustainable-development practitioner to demonstrate a different approach: use sustainability as a lens for innovation.
Rather than asking, “How do we solve this problem?” participants learn to ask:
“How might we do well by doing good?”
Using examples from entrepreneurship, community economic development, sustainability education, and her Sustainability Lens Game™, Stenn shows how looking at a challenge through different stakeholders, resources, systems, and impacts can uncover opportunities that conventional planning may miss.
She also explores a rapidly emerging question: Where does AI belong in this process?
Building on her recent Academy of Management work on the ethical and effective use of AI in entrepreneurship education and practice, Stenn examines AI not as a replacement for human creativity and judgment, but as a tool for expanding possibilities, challenging assumptions, exploring tradeoffs, and helping groups make sense of complex problems.
Participants leave with a practical framework they can immediately apply to a business, organization, classroom, or community challenge.
Participants will learn how to:
Reframe complex or “wicked” problems as opportunities for innovation.
Identify overlooked stakeholders, resources, partnerships, and sources of value.
Move beyond the idea that sustainability requires sacrificing economic value.
Use entrepreneurial thinking to build more resilient businesses and communities.
Use AI to expand human thinking rather than replace it.
Ask better questions about tradeoffs, unintended consequences, and who benefits from innovation.
Turn big sustainability ideas into practical next steps.
This talk can be adapted for corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, economic-development organizations, municipalities and community groups, universities, educators, social enterprises, sustainability professionals, innovation conferences, and women's leadership events.
Formats: 20–30 minute keynote | 45–60 minute interactive talk | 60–90 minute workshop
Turn your organization's goals into a shared action plan through an engaging, facilitated workshop led by Dr. Tamara Stenn, creator of the Sustainability Lens Game and DDI-certified global leadership trainer.
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The Sustainability Lens Game Classroom Deck provides everything students need to engage in systems thinking, sustainable innovation, and business model design through hands-on, game-based learning. Included is Sustainability Sam™, our AI assistant.
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Ready to make a real impact while having fun? Sign up for live, 60-90 minute facilitated, in-person game plays with the Sustainability Lens Game creator, Dr. Tamara Stenn - a DDI-certified global leadership trainer and entrepreneurship professor.
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A Bold Playbook for Sustainable Business Growth - with SDGs, Fair Trade, and Sustainable Business Models. Fast-track your impact, revenue, and resilience with practical tools that make doing good the smartest move in business.
Buy Now“The Sweater That Changed Everything”
In her talks, Dr. Stenn shares the story of working with Indigenous knitters in Bolivia—women who created exquisite alpaca garments sold internationally, yet struggled to access fair markets.
She describes:
Sitting in rural villages translating between cultures, markets, and expectations
Watching value get lost between producer and consumer
Realizing that good intentions weren’t enough—systems thinking was required
This story becomes the turning point that leads to:
➡ Fair Trade enterprise creation
➡ Global research on sustainability and well-being
➡ The Sustainability Lens Game
Dr. Stenn’s journey began not in a boardroom—but in the Andes of Bolivia.
As a Peace Corps volunteer and later a Fulbright Scholar, she worked directly with Indigenous women artisans and quinoa farmers. She saw firsthand a contradiction:
These women were producing globally valued goods—yet remained economically marginalized.
That moment changed everything.
She went on to found one of the first Fair Trade alpaca apparel companies in the U.S., working with over 300 Indigenous women artisans and growing it into a successful international business.
But even then, she realized something deeper:
The system itself needed redesign—not just better businesses within it.
That realization led her to academia, research, and ultimately the creation of the Sustainability Lens framework and game—a tool to help others rethink business from the ground up.
What if sustainability stopped being something organizations had to “do” and became a way to discover opportunities they had never seen before?
Communities, entrepreneurs, educators, and organizations are confronting increasingly complex challenges: climate change, affordability, resource constraints, rapidly changing technologies, AI, and growing social and economic uncertainty. Traditional problem-solving approaches often encourage us to isolate these issues. But today's challenges are interconnected—and our solutions need to be as well.
In this interactive talk, Dr. Tamara Stenn draws on decades of experience as an entrepreneur, economist, educator, researcher, and sustainable-development practitioner to demonstrate a different approach: use sustainability as a lens for innovation.
Rather than asking, “How do we solve this problem?” participants learn to ask:
“How might we do well by doing good?”
Using examples from entrepreneurship, community economic development, sustainability education, and her Sustainability Lens Game™, Stenn shows how looking at a challenge through different stakeholders, resources, systems, and impacts can uncover opportunities that conventional planning may miss.
She also explores a rapidly emerging question: Where does AI belong in this process?
Building on her recent Academy of Management work on the ethical and effective use of AI in entrepreneurship education and practice, Stenn examines AI not as a replacement for human creativity and judgment, but as a tool for expanding possibilities, challenging assumptions, exploring tradeoffs, and helping groups make sense of complex problems.
Participants leave with a practical framework they can immediately apply to a business, organization, classroom, or community challenge.
Participants will learn how to:
Reframe complex or “wicked” problems as opportunities for innovation.
Identify overlooked stakeholders, resources, partnerships, and sources of value.
Move beyond the idea that sustainability requires sacrificing economic value.
Use entrepreneurial thinking to build more resilient businesses and communities.
Use AI to expand human thinking rather than replace it.
Ask better questions about tradeoffs, unintended consequences, and who benefits from innovation.
Turn big sustainability ideas into practical next steps.
This talk can be adapted for corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, economic-development organizations, municipalities and community groups, universities, educators, social enterprises, sustainability professionals, innovation conferences, and women's leadership events.
Formats: 20–30 minute keynote | 45–60 minute interactive talk | 60–90 minute workshop