Alison Levine

Last updated
Alison Levine
Alison Levine Antarctica.jpg
Alison Levine at South Pole
Personal information
Born (1966-04-05) April 5, 1966 (age 57)
Career
Famous partnerships Ford Motor Company

Alison Levine (born April 5, 1966) is an American mountain climber, motivational speaker and leadership consultant. [1] She is the author of On the Edge: The Art of High Impact Leadership and the executive producer of a documentary, The Glass Ceiling. She has ascended the highest peaks on every continent and also skied to both the North and South Poles. In 2010, she completed the Adventure Grand Slam by reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

Contents

Early life and education

Levine was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona to Jack and Corinne Levine. Alison earned her bachelor's degree in communication from the University of Arizona in 1987. [2]

Career

Levine worked a series of restaurant jobs throughout high school and college. During her junior year at the University of Arizona she managed to parlay a job at Keaton's Restaurant into a marketing internship at Mattel Toys when a group of Mattel executives came into the restaurant for dinner. After completing her MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 2000, she worked for Goldman Sachs until 2003. She left Goldman Sachs after three years and went on to serve as the deputy finance director for Arnold Schwarzenegger in his successful bid to become Governor of California. [3]

Mountaineering

Levine climbed her first mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, in 1998 at age 35. In August 2001 she was asked to serve as the team captain of the first American Women's Everest Expedition which was slated to go to the mountain in the spring of 2002. She secured funding for this expedition from the Ford Motor Company. Her team turned back a few hundred feet short of Everest's summit in May 2002. Levine finally reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 24, 2010. After 12 years of mountaineering and polar expeditions, she completed the Adventure Grand Slam by climbing the highest peak on each continent and skiing to both the North and South Poles.

Seven summits and polar expeditions

  1. Kilimanjaro (1998)
  2. Elbrus (1998)
  3. Aconcagua (two summits—1999 and 2004)
  4. Carstensz Pyramid (1999)
  5. Denali (2000)
  6. Vinson Massif (2001)
  7. Everest (2002; went as high as 28,750' with the 1st American Women's Everest Expedition)
  8. North Pole (2004)
  9. South Pole (2008; 1st American to traverse to the South Pole via the 600-mile Messner Route)
  10. Everest (2010; in honor of friend Meg Berté Owen)

First ascents

Post-climbing career

Levine is a consultant and a motivational speaker. By drawing parallels between staying alive in the mountains and thriving in the business world, Levine's company, Daredevil Strategies, addresses leadership development and dealing with changing environments. Levine was a board member and a featured speaker at Duke University's Coach K Leadership Conference. In September 2010, CNBC aired "Meeting of the Minds: The Future of Leadership," which featured Levine alongside other leaders including General Wesley K. Clark, Henry Paulson, and Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III. In January 2011, Levine spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.[ citation needed ]

After a climbing trip to the Rwenzori Mountains in 2005, Levine founded a nonprofit organization, the Climb High Foundation, which trains jobless women in western Uganda to work as trekking guides and porters in their local mountains.[ citation needed ]

Levine's book On the Edge was published by Hachette Book Group and was released in January 2014. The book shares anecdotes from Levine's expeditions and from other "extreme environments." On the Edge earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly [9] and is a New York Times [10] and Wall Street Journal bestseller. [11] It was named Best Business Book of the year in the Management/Leadership Category by 800-CEO-READ. [12]

In late 2015, Levine began working as an Executive Producer with film director Nancy Svendsen on the documentary, The Glass Ceiling which chronicles the life and climbing career of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa who was the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest. [13]

Sources

Related Research Articles

The Seven Summits are the highest mountains on each of the seven traditional continents. Reaching the peak of these summits is considered a significant achievement amongst many mountaineers, alongside many other such goals and challenges in the mountaineering community. On 30 April 1985, Richard Bass became the first climber to reach the summit of all seven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Fischer</span> American mountaineer (1955–1996)

Scott Eugene Fischer was an American mountaineer and mountain guide. He was renowned for his ascents of the world's highest mountains made without the use of supplemental oxygen. Fischer and Wally Berg were the first Americans to summit Lhotse, the world's fourth highest peak. Fischer, Charley Mace, and Ed Viesturs summitted K2 without supplemental oxygen. Fischer first climbed Mount Everest in 1994 and later died during the 1996 blizzard on Everest while descending from the peak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Shipton</span> British explorer (1907–1977)

Eric Earle Shipton, CBE, was an English Himalayan mountaineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Mount Everest expeditions</span>

Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at 8,849 metres (29,031.7 ft) above sea level. It is situated in the Himalayan range of Solukhumbu district, Nepal.

Sibusiso Vilane OIB is a South African adventurer, motivational speaker, and author of the book To the Top from Nowhere. An adventurer, marathon runner, mountaineer, and expedition leader, he has also served as the Chief Scout of Scouts South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Explorer's Grand Slam</span> Adventurering goal of Earths Poles and Seven Summits

The Explorer's Grand Slam is an adventurer goal to reach the North Pole and South Pole, as well as climb the Seven Summits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Czerwińska</span> Polish mountaineer (1949–2023)

Anna Czerwińska was a Polish climber. She is known for being the then-oldest woman to summit Mount Everest, doing so at the age of 50. She also published several books about mountaineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garrett Madison</span> American mountaineer and guide (born 1978)

Garrett Madison is an American mountaineer, guide and expedition leader. Madison began guiding professionally in 1999 on Mount Rainier and has reached the summit of Mount Everest 13 times. His company, Madison Mountaineering, specializes in climbs on Mount Everest and other high altitude peaks, operates on the highest peaks on all seven continents, and also provides training programs and summit climbs in Washington State.

Harry Taylor is a British mountaineer, security advisor and former SAS member. He founded ‘High Adventure’ with Loel Guinness, an extreme sports company specifically designed to set records in climbing, paragliding, and skydiving. His team set a world distance flight record for a paraglider at 150.6 km in Namibia. In 1991, with close friend Charles "Nish" Bruce he made a tandem skydive with oxygen from 27,000 feet over Badajoz in Spain. Taylor did a tandem paraglider flight from Cho Oyu 8,201m Tibet and was also the 1st British paraglider pilot to fly from Denali, Alaska.

Samina Khayal Baig is a Pakistani mountaineer who climbed Mount Everest in 2013, all Seven Summits by 2014, and K2 in 2022. She is the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest, K2 and the Seven Summits. She climbed Mt. Everest at the age of 21.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Burch</span> American adventure athlete

Sean Burch is an American explorer, mountaineer, Leadership, Wellness, and Executive Performance Specialist, and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of the book, Hyperfitness: 12 Weeks to Reaching Your Inner Everest and Getting into the Best Shape of Your Life . He holds 8 World Records within fitness and adventure, and was the winner of National Geographic Channel’s Ultimate Survival Alaska TV show. Burch is the creator and founder of Hyperfitness, a wellness program. He was named Goodwill Ambassador to Nepal by the country's government. He resides within the Washington DC area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chhang Dawa Sherpa</span> Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer

Chhang Dawa Sherpa : is a Nepalese mountaineer and the youngest climber till 2019 to summit the 14 highest peaks. Dawa and his brother Mingma Sherpa together hold the world record as "first brothers to summit the 14 highest peaks", a single record shared by the two.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mountain Madness</span> American mountaineering and adventure travel company

Mountain Madness is a Seattle-based mountaineering and trekking company. The company specializes in mountain adventure travel and has a training school for mountain and rock climbing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edita Horrell</span> Lithuanian mountaineer

Edita Horrell, previously known as Edita Nichols, is a Lithuanian-born mountaineer and humanitarian aid worker. She became the first Lithuanian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on 22 May 2013.

Vernon "Vern" Tejas is an American mountain climber and mountain guide. He is the current world record holder in the amount of time taken to summit all of the Seven Summits consecutively, having also previously held the same record. He was also the first person to solo summit several of the world's tallest peaks. Tejas was named one of the top fifty Alaskan athletes of the twentieth century by Sports Illustrated in 2002. In 2012, he was elected to the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. Tejas plays the harmonica and guitar. He currently resides in Greenwich Village, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wang Jing (mountaineer)</span> Mountaineer and co-founder of Toread Holdings Group Co., Ltd

Wang Jing is a Chinese climber, author, entrepreneur and member of The Explorers Club in the United States. Wang is best known for her feat in becoming the fastest woman in the world to complete the Explorers Grand Slam in 143 days and the fastest woman to climb Seven Summits with an assist from helicopters. The Explorers Grand Slam involves reaching the highest peak on every continent plus at a minimum of skiing the last degree (111 km) to the North and South poles. Wang recorded this adventure in her book Silence of the Summit, which was published in English in December 2018.

Rosemary Saal is an American mountaineer who at age 19 was a member of the first all African American climbing team to climb Denali in 2013. At age 25 she was the technical co-leaders for the first all-Black U.S. expedition team to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, in 2018.

Carina Dayondon is a Filipina mountaineer, adventurer, and Philippine Coast Guard officer who was the first Filipina to reach the Seven Summits, the seven tallest mountains in every continent in the world, and the second Filipina to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asma Al Thani</span> Qatari climber

SheikhaAsma Al Thani is a Qatari mountaineer who is the first Qatari woman to summit Mount Everest, Lhotse, and Manaslu, K2 as well as the first Qatari female to climb Ama Dablam. She is also the first Qatari person to ski to the North Pole. On her ascent of Manaslu, she became the first Arab person to summit an eight-thousander without oxygen. She is Director of Marketing and Communications for the Qatar Olympic Committee. She is also a member of the ruling family of Qatar.

References

  1. "This Is How Your Favorite Dirtbags Really Make a Living". Outside Online. 2019-01-28. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  2. "History-Making Adventurer and UArizona Alumna to Deliver Commencement Address". University of Arizona News. 2020-04-23. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  3. Caprino, Kathy. "What Polar Explorer Alison Levine Knows About Leadership That Corporate Managers Don't". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  4. "Hall Peak, South Face and Southeast Ridge - AAC Publications - Search The American Alpine Journal and Accidents". American Alpine Journal. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  5. "First Ascent: Alison Levine Reaches Antarctic Summit - Womens Movement". Womens Movement. Adventure for Women. 27 June 2016.
  6. "First summit on Khang Karpo excites climbers". The Himalayan Times. 13 November 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  7. "Ascents". Himalayan Database. August 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  8. "Khang Karpo (6646m) First Ascent". Dreamers Destination. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  9. "Nonfiction Book Review: On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership by Alison Levine". 7 January 2014.
  10. "Business Books - Best Sellers - Books - Feb. 2, 2014 - the New York Times". The New York Times.
  11. "Best-Selling Books: Week Ended Jan. 12 - WSJ". Wall Street Journal. 16 January 2014.
  12. "Awards — Business Books in Bulk - 800-CEO-READ". 800ceoread.com. Archived from the original on 2015-03-22.
  13. "The Glass Ceiling: A Documentary Film". www.theglassceilingmovie.com. Archived from the original on 2010-09-21.