Orlan Boston

Orlan is a senior partner and executive and catalyst, connector and convener deeply committed to bringing people and organizations together for fundamental change and global impact. Currently serving as EY’s Americas Sustainability & ESG Markets Leader, he is responsible for creating and leading the EY Sustainability & ESG practice, go-to-market practices, services, solutions, and offerings. He chairs the EY Americas Sustainability & ESG Leadership Team and serves on EY’s Global Sustainability Executive Committee, EY Americas Markets Leadership team, and EY’s Global Social Equity Task Force. He has spent the past three decades serving in senior leadership and board roles in business, media, politics, public service, nonprofits, and philanthropy as a senior partner and executive at EY and Deloitte, entrepreneur, venture capital investor, awardwinning film producer, author, presidential appointee, public servant, philanthropist, and member of several boards. His consulting career spans corporate and commercial strategy, governance, growth, innovation, digital, technology, human capital, talent, change management, operations, transformation, M&A transaction, and sustainability/ESG advisory services for CEOs, C-Suite executives, and corporate board directors of Fortune 100 companies and private equity and venture capital firms in the healthcare, life sciences, consumer, and technology sectors. In addition, he serves as EY’s Senior Advisory Partner for several major client accounts.

He served as Global Client Service Partner for the Johnson & Johnson account for 7 years as EY’s senior advisor to the J&J Chairman & CEO, Board, and Executive Committee responsible for the global EY and J&J relationship and building one of the most successful and innovative accounts at EY. He served as EY’s Global Accounts Excellence & Innovation Leader in a Chief Commercial and Customer Innovation Officer capacity leading EY’s global commercial and accounts excellence and innovation initiatives for its largest and most important client account portfolio representing over $13B in annual revenues. He served as Founding Chair of the Global Accounts Innovation Advisory Board and member of EY’s Global Markets Leadership Team and Global Accounts Committee. He held various senior Healthcare leadership roles as member of EY’s Global Health Sciences Executive Board, EY Americas Strategy & Transactions Life Sciences Leader and EY Global Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation Leader. He served as East Region G360 Markets Leader representing and leading EY’s largest accounts in the region and member of EY’s East Region Leadership Team responsible. Prior to joining EY in 2012, he held various firm, management, and account leadership roles at Deloitte Consulting including as Senior Partner, Chief Diversity Officer, and US Life Sciences M&A Leader.

He is both an entrepreneur having started technology and real estate ventures and an intrapreneur having founded a number of successful practices, alliances, and service offerings with EY and previously Deloitte. He served on the Big Think Advisory Board and currently serves as an advisor to Max Ventures, a NYC based technology and e-commerce VC firm, and is an active angel investor. He has a long history in ESG and Sustainability efforts across the public and private sectors and in public private partnerships. Partnering with J&J over the years he oversaw an EY team that supported EY’s and J&J’s participation and efforts with the Embankment Project for Inclusive Capitalism in 2018, served as the Executive Sponsor for EY’s multimillion-dollar pro bono program supporting the global development and distribution efforts of J&J’s COVID-19 Vaccine, and orchestrated several creative and successful strategic ESG, sustainability, health equity, and innovation and tech ecosystem partnerships. In 2020, Goldman Sachs appointed him to the Launch With GS Advisory Board, their $1B+ groundbreaking social impact venture fund and accelerator exclusively investing in women, black, and latinx tech founders and VC fund managers. In 2014, he received a Presidential Appointment by President Barack Obama as the fourth Obama White House Political Appointee to the Global Board of Governors of the United Service Organizations, Inc. (USO). He is a member of the Partnership for New York City, the Partnership Innovation Council, and the Partnership Fund’s Healthcare Advisory Board. He is also a David Rockefeller Fellow and member of the Executive Leadership Council and the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).

Orlan is a passionate social entrepreneur having launched various award-winning social change and impact ventures in publishing, documentary and feature filmmaking, civil rights, and philanthropy. He serves on the Board of Directors of The Trevor Project, the world’s leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth and was a member of the NYC LGBTQ Center’s Board of Directors. He was named to the OUTstanding and Financial Times list of the 2016 Top 100 LGBT Leaders. In 2013 he produced HBO’s critically acclaimed The Out List documentary film and book and is currently producing his latest epic feature film, Firebird. He was a co-author of I Am Ecowarrior, a book featuring editorial portraits and interviews with global luminaries in the environmental sustainability movement. In 2020, Orlan co-authored the feature article, The Strategic Side Gig, published in Harvard Business Review Magazine and in 2021 was published in HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Career Resilience book.

He holds a B.S. in Finance and International Business from New York University’s Stern School of Business and has completed a variety of executive education programs at Harvard Business School, University of Oxford, INSEAD, and London Business School.