Gunhild A. Stordalen is the founder and executive chair of EAT. She is recognised as a driving force linking climate, health and sustainability issues to transform the global food system.
Together with former husband Petter A. Stordalen, Gunhild established the Stordalen Foundation in 2011, under which she later founded the “EAT Initiative” with Professor Johan Rockström and the Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC). In 2016, the Wellcome Trust joined the SRC and the Stordalen Foundation as core partner of EAT and helped grow the initiative to become a global multi-stakeholder platform for transforming the world’s food system.
In 2020, Gunhild was appointed to a leadership position in the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit as the Chair of the Summit’s Action Track 2: Shifting to Healthy and Sustainable Consumption Patterns. In this role, she had a wide mandate to build a broad, multistakeholder coalition around this key challenge and opportunity, leveraging the EAT platform to the full.
Gunhild sits on several boards and advises on the United Nation’s Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Stewardship Board on Food Systems, and REQ Capital Advisory Board. She is a member of the UNICEF’s Advisory Group, the Africa Europe Women Leaders Network, and the international advisory board of the SRC. Gunhild is an ambassador for Friends of Ocean action, a member of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP) for the Blue Economy, A HELENA member, and sits on the International Leadership Committee for a Net Zero NHS.
Gunhild is a published scientist and a renowned public speaker with a distinct, personal voice and a passionate commitment to food system transformation. In 2014, WWF Sweden named her “Environmental Hero of the Year”, and in 2015 she was appointed a Young Global Leader by WEF. She has ranked among the 150 most influential business communicators in Sweden, as named by the news magazine Resumé, and is listed among the 100 most powerful women in Norway according to the financial magazine Kapital, most recently in 2021. She was the recipient of the 2019 UN Foundation “Global Leadership Award” for her groundbreaking work transforming the global food system for people and planet. She was listed among the 25 most influential female leaders shaping the climate agenda in 2019, and was named a top 100 leader influencing Norwegian agriculture by Nationen. In 2022, she was named one of ELLE’s 100 Women Change-Makers Who Are Shaping The World.
Gunhild is a medical doctor from the University of Oslo and holds a PhD in pathology/orthopedic surgery. She is a Norwegian national.