Alison Levine
• Adventurer, Climber. Leadership Principles in Extreme Adventure Military, & Business
Alison Levine is a history-making polar explorer and mountaineer. She not only served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, but she also climbed the highest peak on each continent and skied to both the North and South Poles, which fewer than forty people on the world have achieved. In January 2008, she was the first American to complete a 600-mile traverse from west Antarctica to the South Pole following the route of explorer Reinhold Messner. Her success in extreme environments is noteworthy given she has had three heart surgeries and suffers from Raynaud’s disease, which leaves her at risk for frostbite.
In 2005, Levine founded the Climb High Foundation which is dedicated to improving the lives of jobless women in Africa by training them to be trekking guides and porters in their local mountains, a skill that will help them to earn a sustainable living wage through climbing-related tourism. Her work in Uganda enabled the first group of local women to make history when they climbed Uganda’s highest peak, Mt Stanley, in the Rwenzori Mountains. Her work in Uganda is the subject of the PBS documentary Living Courageously.
Levine was an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point and is a strategic advisor at West Point, in a program that shares West Point leadership best practices with senior-level executives from the public and private sectors.
A sought-after consultant and speaker on the subject of leadership, Levine has addressed audiences ranging from Fortune 500 companies to professional sports teams to the prestigious World Economic Forum at Davos. Levine is the author of the book On the Edge: The Art of High Impact Leadership (January 2014, Grand Central Publishing). In her talk, Levine will tackle the topics of creating cohesive teams, taking responsible risks and developing no-nonsense leaders that can succeed in times of uncertainty. Spoke at Town Hall on April 20, 2016.
