Alice Tepper Marlin

Alice Tepper Marlin serves as President and CEO of Social Accountability International (SAI), a global standard-setting organization for improving workplaces and communities headquartered in New York City. She is also Citi Distinguished Fellow in Ethics and Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business. SAI is a social standard-setting organization best known for its SA8000 standard for human rights at work Nearly 700,000 people work at over 1400 facilities in 64 countries and 67 industries that are certified for compliance. SAI delivers training for managers, workers and auditors worldwide and carries out public-private partnership programs to build capacity, improve work conditions, and enhance competiveness in Central America, Turkey and China. SAI has local offices in Honduras, China, Vietnam and the Netherlands.

Ms. Tepper Marlin was educated at Wellesley College, where she took a degree in Economics in 1966 and NYU Graduate School of Business Administration. She served as a Securities Analyst and Labor Economist at Burnham and Co., and as the editor of an international tax journal at the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation in the Netherlands. In 1968 she designed and managed the world’s first social-investment portfolio management service. In 1969 she founded the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), where she served as President and CEO for 30 years. CEP pioneered the social investment field and regularly published the best-selling consumer guide, Shopping for a Better World. Ms. Tepper Marlin has been a regular public speaker on corporate accountability for four decades. She has been profiled in Time, the New York Times, People, Madamoiselle, Adweek and Vogue, interviewed on the Today Show, Good Morning America and CNN.

Publications

• Rating America’s Corporate Conscience (Addison-Wesley, 1987)
• Shopping For a Better World (Ballantine Books, SAI, & Sierra Club Books 1988 – 1996)
• The Next Nuclear Gamble, ed.(CEP, 1983)

Honors and Boards

• Citi Distinguished Fellow, Stern School of Business, New York University, 2008
• Founding Member, The Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship, Ashoka Foundation, 2005 to present.
• International Advisory Board Member, Ethos Institute, 2005 to present.
• ISEAL Board member, 2004 to present.
• MFA Forum Executive Committee, 2007
• Winston Foundation for World Peace, Board member
• Alumna Achievement Award, Wellesley College, 1999
• Social Investment Forum 25th Anniversary Award, 1994.
• Right Livelihood Honorary Award, 1990.
• Woman of Year Award, Adweek, 1990.
• Outstanding Woman of the Year, Mademoiselle Magazine, 1970.
• Alumna Achievement Award, The Baldwin School
• National Security Expert Award, Center for Defense Information.

Personal life

Married 1971 to John Tepper Marlin (CityEconomist, Adjunct Professor of Ethics & Marketing at Stern School, NYU; previously Chief Economist for the Comptroller of New York City). Mother of Jay Tepper-Marlin (1974) and Caroline Alice Tepper-Marlin (1977). Born New Jersey, USA, August 10, 1944. The Tepper Marlins live in Manhattan and East Hampton, NY, USA.