Skip to main content

Tommy Bledsoe, MBA ’20, Builds a Future in Sustainability

Tommy Bledsoe pursues a career with purpose thanks in part to his Scheller MBA education and concentration in sustainability.
Tommy Bledsoe

Tommy Bledsoe

Tommy Bledsoe’s sustainability journey has been a winding path. Playing outside and camping as a kid was the start. He majored in history, taught English overseas, and worked for a nonprofit – all while trying to figure out his ideal career. It wasn’t until a passion project failed that Tommy realized he wanted to pursue a career in sustainable business. The MBA education Tommy received at Scheller – core competencies, a concentration in sustainable business, and extracurricular activities – helped him thoughtfully weather a graduation at the height of COVID and eventually transition to a sustainability-focused career. Tommy now serves as a senior sustainability specialist at CBRE, where he leads client services delivery for the Eastern U.S. as part of the property management sustainability program. The Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business (Center) is pleased to share a conversation between Tommy and Arianna Robinson, MBA ’18, assistant director of operations.

Arianna Robinson (AR): Thanks for agreeing to share your story with us, Tommy. Would you start by talking about growing up and where your interest in sustainability began?

Tommy Bledsoe (TB): I was born in Tampa but moved up to the Roswell area when I was a kid. I would say that my interest in sustainability goes back to always being outside when I was growing up. Through activities like Boy Scouts and camping, I developed a healthy respect for the environment.

AR: Did that interest continue through your undergraduate years at the University of Georgia?

TB: It was after that. I had a liberal arts background in college, majoring in history and minoring in French. After graduation, I spent several years trying to figure out what my passion was. I bounced through a few different jobs – teaching English in France and working at a nonprofit focused on educational travel. I then spent several years working in project management and client services for multiple software companies. For part of that time, I was also working in the evening with a friend on a passion project to launch a sustainable arts and music venue. Though the project didn’t work out, I discovered that sustainability was where I wanted to focus.

Arianna Robinson interviews Tommy Bledsoe
Arianna Robinson interviews Tommy Bledsoe.

AR: Is that when you started to look into MBA programs?

TB: Yes. I wanted to figure out how to advance sustainability through a business lens. I looked into different business schools around the state. Scheller seemed like a good fit because it offered a concentration on sustainability. It also had analytics and technical courses, which were valuable since I was working in software.

AR: How did you dive into sustainability at Scheller?

TB: It was helpful to know the career change I wanted to make because I could shape the classes and projects I took around that. I took courses like the Sustainable Business Consulting Practicum and Business Strategies for Sustainability and completed the concentration in sustainability. Every semester, I tried to do a sustainability-related project or case competition.

AR: You were involved in a lot of sustainability activities at Scheller. Did any activities really stand out?

TB: The Patagonia Case Competition was a highlight. The Scheller MBA team was selected as a finalist in 2019, and we got to fly out to California to present to executives. That was a really great experience – being in a room with one of the most talented collections of people I’ve ever been around. Second, in the International Practicum, my group worked with Accedo, a Swedish digital services company that was looking to build out a sustainability strategy. We started from the foundation – the company and its value proposition – and married that to the components of sustainability that made sense for them. Third, pursuing an independent study for Drawdown Georgia was helpful. It was cool to help out at the very beginning stages of the project and to see it still moving forward today.

The Georgia Tech MBA team presents at the finals for the Patagonia Case Competition in April 2019, in Berkeley, California
The Georgia Tech MBA team presents at the finals for the Patagonia Case Competition in April 2019, in Berkeley, California.

AR: Can you remind me of the work you did for Drawdown Georgia? 

TB: It was right after the project [to identify high-impact climate solutions for Georgia] was announced and launched. Several working groups were doing the initial research on each of the possible solutions. The Center’s group was focused on “beyond carbon” impacts of those solutions. For instance, if you were to implement a solution, such as renewable energy, what would its impact be on things like equity, the economy, the environment, and public health? My work involved developing a framework for how each solution should be looked at from a “beyond carbon” standpoint. I also did research on some of the solutions.

AR: Do you think that intentionally weaving sustainability into your classes and extracurricular activities made your MBA different from most people’s?

TB: I’m not sure it was radically different because, for one, there was a pretty big group of people like me who were interested in trying to work in sustainability. I became fairly close with a group of people who were in the same types of classes, projects, Net Impact, and things like that. Also, no matter what your concentration is, you still take the same MBA core requirements. Where my experience was different was at the end of the program when I was figuring out my next step. If you’re not too specific about what you want to do, there are a million opportunities for consulting jobs and companies to connect with. I would say my experience was harder because I had a very specific focus.

AR: How were you able to apply your sustainability education toward your career?

TB: I graduated in May 2020, at the peak of COVID. There weren’t a lot of opportunities externally in the market, so I looked at what I could do internally in my company. I moved into a higher management role, and I had a conversation with my director about how I wanted to work on launching our company’s internal strategy sustainability. He was supportive. For the rest of the year after I graduated, I kept going to the next leadership level, presenting strategy, and getting feedback and buy-in. Eventually, I was asked to form a steering committee and to start launching it.

AR: Coalition building, especially around topics like this, can go one of two ways. It sounds like you were very supported. Can you talk a bit about what it took to get buy-in?

TB: I’m a big believer in getting people’s feedback along the way. That is something that we did in the MBA program – like periodic check-ins with clients when working on a project. I think people often don’t want to show work-in-progress because they want it to be perfect. However, if you bring people into the process along the way, it becomes their own as well. We had representatives from every department on the steering committee. Even if people aren’t really knowledgeable about sustainability, they know their program or business area really well. If you start to propose something that isn’t going to jibe with their business unit, they can give you that feedback.

AR: Did your role at the company eventually become sustainability focused?

TB: It was a hybrid. I still had my original responsibilities but was also now running the sustainability program. We were doing carbon emission reporting, EcoVadis annual assessments, internal policy development, etc. Our parent company, which is publicly traded, started to require us to gather sustainability data and report against it. They needed somebody to be a lead for our company’s reporting, so that fell to me as well. I ran that for about three years.

(Left) Tommy Bledsoe and colleagues work on a Habitat for Humanity painting project as a part of CBRE’s Day of Service in September 2024. (Right) Tommy Bledsoe on a backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in September 2024.
(Left) Tommy Bledsoe and colleagues work on a Habitat for Humanity painting project as a part of CBRE’s Day of Service in September 2024. (Right) Tommy Bledsoe on a backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in September 2024.

AR: What are you doing now?

TB: About a year and a half ago, I transitioned to a role at CBRE. I’m on their sustainability services team in property management. CBRE manages thousands of properties on behalf of investor owners in the United States alone. My team supports sustainability services to our property management client base. There are a lot of opportunities in sustainability due to the size of the company and the number of properties that we manage. There are so many aspects of sustainability that come into play, like waste, water, energy, and social aspects of the buildings. It’s an opportunity to learn and work in many aspects of sustainability and to do it on a pretty broad scale since we work with building owners all around the country. That’s exciting to me.

AR: What are the challenges in the role?

TB: For one, being a manager and not an owner of the building means that you don't have final say over everything. You’re trying to influence and build the case for things, but at the end of the day, you don't have total budgetary control. So, that's a challenge. The next challenge isn’t specific to this role or company. But in general, you need to make your case as to why funds should be allocated towards sustainability. You need to tie everything back to the financial impact and ROI.

AR: Would you say that your MBA was helpful in preparing you for that second challenge?

TB: I would say so. At the end of the day, a lot of my work is about thinking about how to handle something strategically. Strategy in general is a big part of what we do. It could be on a macro level, like thinking how to roll out a sustainability service across the country, or on a micro level, like figuring out a specific approach for an individual client on a building. I do think the strategy you learn in the MBA program applies to this kind of work.

AR: What advice would you give students who are interested in careers in sustainability?

TB: I’d recommend finding a niche within sustainability – a specific competency in which you are strong. What helped me get my current role, I think, was that CBRE had a new approach that standardizes how sustainability is supported for clients. The program was going to market, and I think that my experience in building a new sustainability program from the ground up at my last company was appealing. It comes down to finding a role that speaks to your background.

AR: Would you like to talk about your hobbies and personal life? And I’m curious – did you abandon arts and music?

TB: I’m not going to launch an arts and music venue anytime soon. [Laughs.] But I love music and going to concerts with my wife. We live in Eastlake and spend a lot of time outside. I love hiking, fishing, and playing disc golf. My wife and I do a lot of traveling. And we have a cat named Brad – our little sidekick who follows us everywhere.

AR: That’s the best name for a cat I think I’ve ever heard. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us, Tommy.

Tommy Bledsoe with his wife, Kelli, and cat, Brad.
Tommy Bledsoe with his wife, Kelli, and cat, Brad.


As told to Jennifer Holley Lux.

This website uses cookies. For more information review our Cookie Policy

Source