Shannon O'Shea

Shannon O’Shea, senior vice president of environmental sustainability, advises clients on effective strategies, communication and advocacy regarding their key stakeholders’ environmental goals, activities and results.

Shannon excels at helping stakeholders contribute toward a greener future and amplifying sustainability’s intersections with food, art, technology, fashion and more. She believes young people will continue to be the drivers of the behavioral and cultural shifts critical to creating a more just, equal and sustainable world for all.

Before joining WE Communications, Shannon spent nearly 21 years working at the United Nations where a highlight of her career was leading UNICEF’s consultation and negotiation processes that created the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. This unprecedented global consultation process brought the voices and views of millions of people from all walks of life to the formal UN negotiations process, ensuring their concerns were considered as the SDGs were developed. During this time, she also created the Group of Friends of Children and the SDGs, a coalition of 70 UN Member States mobilized to represent children’s rights in the negotiations — a group that still exists at the UN.

In her final position with UNICEF, Shannon served as the senior advisor and global team leader of Public Partner Advocacy and the SDGs, advising members on how to bring the child rights agenda and youth voices into key intergovernmental forums and decision-making processes. She also advised UNICEF’s 192 global offices on their strategies to support national-level awareness-building and implementation of the SDGs.

Shannon has a master’s degree in international affairs and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism, both from Syracuse University. She is an avid traveler, with over 40 countries visited and four lived in: Spain, Northern Ireland and Nigeria with her current home being the concrete jungle, New York. She is a proud dog parent and loves going to see live music, especially including anything 80s-rock related.