Gail Whiteman is Professor and Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University. Prior to this, she was professor of business society management and held the Sustainability and Climate Change chair at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).

Professor Whiteman was a 2011 Global Finalist in the Aspen Institute’s high-profile ranking of Faculty Pioneers in sustainability. Her research aims to help organisations deal more effectively with sustainability challenges, an objective she established during her former career in the private sector.

Professor-Whiteman combines her role at RSM with that of part time Professor in-Residence at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

She is co-founder and Director of ERIM's Centre for Corporate Eco-Transformation, where she collaborates with multinational companies, to examine issues such as the strategic role of companies in their transition towards low carbon, sustainable cities; the impact of natural resource extraction on local sustainability; and the drivers of sustainable innovation.

Her work has been published in the top business and ecology journals including the Academy of Management Journal and Nature and she has over thirty-five academic peer-reviewed academic publications on sustainability. She sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals.