Nick Tilsen

Biography

Nick Tilsen
President & CEO, NDN Collective

Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective Founder, President and CEO, is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. Tilsen has over 17 years of experience working with non-profits and tribal nations on projects that have a social mission. Prior to launching NDN Collective, he was the founding executive director of Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation for 12 years. Working in his home community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Tilsen built place-based innovations that have the ability to inform systems change solutions around climate resiliency, sustainable housing and equitable community development. He sits on the boards of the Indigenous Peoples Power Project, the Water Protector Legal Collective, and helped with on the ground organizing in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock. He continues his community organizing work and firmly believes that we need to both defend Indigenous nations from destructive resource extraction while simultaneously building the sustainable communities of tomorrow. Tilsen received an honorary doctorate from Sinte Gleska College in South Dakota. Nick has received numerous fellowships and awards from Ashoka, Rockefeller Foundation, Bush Foundation and the Social Impact Award from Claremont-Lincoln University.