Climate change is increasingly a critical business issue and will be relevant regardless of your industry, function, or career path. This session explores how climate is reshaping markets and creating major risks and opportunities for future business leaders to navigate in the years ahead.

Speaker: Meeta Kothare, Professor of Practice in the McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin

Meeta is Professor of Practice in the McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the Managing Director of the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute at UT and served as the inaugural Managing Director of its predecessor, the Social Innovation Initiative at McCombs.

Kothare has over three decades of academic, business, and social sector experience. Kothare began her career in sales and marketing before pursuing graduate studies in business. After completing her doctorate, she joined the finance faculty at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where she has taught in the MBA, Undergraduate and Executive Education programs. Her research in finance has appeared in leading academic finance journals. Her commitments to philanthropy and community service led her to launch an impact consulting firm and eventually sparked her interest in the role of finance and entrepreneurship in advancing a sustainable future.

In her current role, Kothare is involved in integrating sustainability education at the University of Texas where she teaches impact and sustainable finance, corporate sustainability, and impact entrepreneurship. She serves as the faculty director for the institute’s undergraduate and executive education programs in sustainability leadership, shaping the curriculum and expanding learning opportunities for students and professionals. She is an advisor to several impact startups and oversees student-consulting projects, leveraging her expertise to mentor the next generation of leaders. Beyond academics, she is involved in community and industry engagement, fostering partnerships that strengthen the school’s and university’s sustainability initiatives.

Kothare serves on the steering committee of the Impact and Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium, a global consortium of 500+ faculty members from over 45 countries. She is a member of Impact Austin, a pioneering women’s collective giving organization. In 2019, she was awarded the UT President’s Award for Global Learning for her interdisciplinary research on social determinants of health in underserved communities. Kothare is a frequent speaker on sustainability, impact investing, philanthropy, and purposeful leadership.

Kothare holds a Ph.D. in Finance and an M.S. in Applied Economics from the University of Rochester, and an MBA from the University of Georgia.