Wendy Abrams

Wendy Abrams is an environmentalist and social activist. She is the founder of Cool Globes, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of climate change that originated as a project stemming from the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006. Designed to utilize the venue of public art and education, the inaugural Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet exhibit opened in Chicago in 2007 and has since traveled to three continents.

In 2015, Cool Globes launched a campus activist initiative, KNOW TOMORROW, with the goal of amplifying the voices of youth speaking out on climate change.

Abrams proudly serves on the Leadership Council for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and has participated in delegations to Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. She also serves as a trustee for Waterkeeper Alliance, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation. In 2011, she helped establish the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. She is currently working with the University of Southern California to design a course on the art of activism, which she will convene as an adjunct professor in 2020.

Abrams is a principal shareholder of Medline Industries, Inc., the largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical supplies in the United States.

Abrams graduated from Brown University and received her MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. She lives in Highland Park, Ill., with her husband, Jim. They raised four wonderful children—undoubtedly, her greatest accomplishment.