Kristina (Kristy) Jansen joined the World Business Academy in 2017, and currently serves as its Executive Director (effective January 2021). Prior to her current appointment, Kristy spent 3 years as Chief of Staff as well as producing and co-hosting the Solutions News radio show and the New Business Paradigms podcast. She also leads the editorial efforts of the Optimist Daily, a free positive news-service delivering solutions news your inbox every day!
A strategic and innovative leader with 20 years of progressive experience in entrepreneurial business management, utility-scale solar development, and emergency power deployment, Kristy is passionate about building a better future and communicating the tremendous possibilities available in the world. Always person-focused, she has spent her career building efficient systems to get more done with less, without losing track of the fact that people, and the world we live in, matter as much as the bottom line.
Growing up in a family of sailors, Kristy had the lucky experience of sailing around the world as a child and skipped high-school in favor of the high seas. This led to a life-long love of traveling and exploring different parts of the globe, and she has spent extensive time in India, South America, and Mexico, as well as short travels in other parts of the world. Kristy’s strong drive to learn eventually drew her back to higher education. Despite the lack of a high-school diploma, she holds a master’s degree in Psychological Anthropology from the University of California, San Diego and an undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
When not helping to build the network and manage programs for the Academy, she can be found discussing social science and politics with friends and family, listening to history podcasts, or taking long walks with her husband and their Akita. She also sometimes does yoga. And also, she spends way too much time watching Netflix.