The Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future (WNSF) welcomes Dianne Dillon-Ridgley as Executive Director. As a board member of ours for the past years, Dianne has already contributed importantly to the organization for introducing connections, shaping up WNSF’s Annual Leadership Summit and sharing cutting edge visions of business women in sustainability. Therefore, we are pleased to announce Dianne’s new role with WNSF.

Environmentalist and Human Rights Activist, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley has worked for thirty years on issues of the environment and sustainability, gender and CSR, both domestically and internationally. Since 1997 she has been a director at Interface, Inc., global manufacturer of modular carpet and a leader in sustainable design. She was a director at Green Mountain Energy for the first six years and still chairs the Environmental Integrity Committee for the company.

Dianne was appointed by the White House to the U.S. delegation for the Earth Summit in Rio-‘92, UNGASS-‘97 and WSSD-‘02 in South Africa, making her the only person to serve on all three U.S. delegations. She is founding chair, Emerita of PLAINS JUSTICE, an environmental law center for the Great Plains states in the U.S. and is a trustee for CIEL (Center for International Environmental Law); immediate past national chair of Population Connection; and was the first female to chair the River Network Board. She is a past president of ZPG and served as CEO of WEDO (the Women’s Environment and Development Organization) during the 1990’s as well as elected four times to head the Iowa Association of Human Rights Agencies.

Additionally for over a decade Dianne represented the World YWCA (Geneva, Switzerland) at U.N. Headquarters in NY, chairing the 2000 Millennium NGO-DPI Summit for the UN. In 1999 she was appointed to the Oxford University Commission on Sustainable Consumption. During the past twenty years Dianne has served on over fifteen U.S. delegations at UN global meetings and other international conferences. She is chair of the U.S. Partnership-Education for Sustainable Development and sits on other boards of several educational and environmental organizations; appearing often in the main stream media on major networks around the world. Dianne has two adult children, Dasal of Iowa City, and Karima in San Francisco.

“We are so fortunate to have Dianne, with her energy and vision, on our Board. Her experience worldwide and with WNSF is invaluable as she takes on the additional role of Acting ED at WNSF,” said WNSF Board Chair, Kathy Robb. “Under Dianne’s leadership, we expect WNSF to continue to grow in this next year.”