Carolyn Whelan covers climate change, transit, cities and social justice for Drivingchange.org, a site that aims to inspire young people to serve in government. She also manages workflow and a global team as Lead Tutor for The Economist Education's Fintech course. Carolyn's work for a range of sectors helps her quickly understand and adapt to new cultures, build teams, and strategize with peers, agencies, and those she manages on campaigns with clever and compelling messages, stories, data, and visuals, for maximum reach and impact.
Earlier, Carolyn was Senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit where she managed teams and commissioned research programs on topics such as jobs and sustainability. There, Carolyn forged relationships with top foundations including those of the Rockefeller, Citi and UN.
Prior to this, Carolyn contributed articles to Fortune, Newsweek, The IHT and SciAm.com on social justice topics including real estate arbitrage, retirement hot spots, women’s work in Latin America, Brazil’s looming crisis and low-cost therapy in Argentina. She has also covered healthcare for Dow Jones Newswires in Paris, technology for Barron’s Online, and a number of geopolitical topics as a writer for the UN, Columbia Business School, EY and the WWF.
Carolyn earned a Masters in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School and holds degrees in Communications and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. She is a Columbia 2016 Ageboom Fellow and 2006 Knight-Bagehot Fellow.
Carolyn broke into journalism covering the Earth Summit in Rio. Her broad experience and exposure to many issues, countries and sources help her spot unique attention-grabbing angles on well-trodden topics for prescient campaigns, reports and research programs.