From Kamehameha to the global stage: ʻAulani Wilhelm’s journey of kuleana

June 2, 2026

It was ʻAulani Wilhelm’s senior year at Kamehameha Schools, and as class president, she came prepared. Alongside her peers, she had organized a meeting with the organization’s trustees to share the students’ concerns and ideas about the school’s future.

They knew the odds. The trustees were busy, important adults, and as the minutes passed, the room began to settle into disappointment.

Until one of them showed up. Myron “Pinky” Thompson walked in with jeans and his signature smile, apologized for being late, and took a seat with the haumāna. He listened to every concern, thanked them for their care, and then gently shifted the conversation.

It was no longer about what they were owed. He challenged them to think about what they could give.

“He reminded us that we had kuleana — that we had to stop thinking about ourselves as the recipients of all the things and start thinking about ourselves as the givers,” Wilhelm said.

It’s a moment that has stayed with Wilhelm long after her years at Ke Kula ʻo Kamehameha. She describes it as a “master class of aloha” that solidified her understanding of ‘ōiwi leadership and altered her perspective from student to servant leader.

Today, that lesson is one of many that guides her work on a global stage, where she brings ʻike Hawaiʻi into conversations about stewardship, innovation and the future of the planet. From leading the establishment and protection of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to advancing Indigenous-led conservation efforts worldwide, her work centers on caring for people and place across generations — efforts that earned her a spot on the 2025 TIME100 Climate List.

Early lessons on the lawn

As a child, Wilhelm remembers sitting on the lawn of ʻIolani Palace with her family, surrounded by kūpuna and kaiāulu restoring the building. They worked slowly and deliberately, removing thick coats of paint from the palace’s ʻōhia wood shutters. As they uncovered what lay beneath every layer, people talked story, and though she didn’t yet have the language for it, she understood enough to know that something wasn’t right.

What left a lasting impression on her was the work itself: the patience it took, the attention to detail and the importance of uncovering what had been lost and doing it with care.

“There was a deep injustice that had been done to us. But … what needs to happen within our community [is], in that fine detail, for us to strip ourselves of the layering of colonization that covered us up — our culture, our essence, our identity, our traditions,” Wilhelm said.

That memory didn’t stay in the past. Over time, it became a way of discerning the work in front of her as kuleana that unfolds over a lifetime.

“When I think about that, it’s the work of a lifetime for each of us … and it’s going to look different for each of us. But it’s that kind of attention that needs to happen if we want that ʻōhia wood to be able to live again,” Wilhelm said.

Holding ground

Today, Wilhelm serves as Nia Tero’s chief executive officer, carrying its mission to support Indigenous Peoples’ guardianship of ancestral land and waters. Her work in conservation might be described as protecting oceans and advancing programming, but in her telling, conservation frameworks and public policy are just some of the tools she has used to safeguard what matters. In Papahānaumokuākea, she said, the designations and protections mattered but they were still only the “veneers” over something deeper.

What mattered was creating space for people to re-remember, to hold ground and to step into places where Hawaiians had not always been invited to lead. For her, the work isn’t about becoming something else. It’s about returning to what is already there and having the confidence to stop kānaka from accepting the continued loss of sacred places in the name of “progress.”

“How old is that well we draw from? In our treasure chest, we got stuff that the rest of the world wants,” Wilhelm said. “We have so many bright lights in our community, and we have to hold that with both pride and humility — to keep going, to serve as many people as we can, and not forget our own people.”

One treasure she points to is fishponds: built long before they were needed and designed to feed communities years down the line. They required patience, observation and a willingness to plan beyond one lifetime. Those kinds of cultural practices shift the focus from what works now to what will continue to sustain.

“What are the metaphorical fishponds that we need to start building now? That’s behaving like an ancestor,” Wilhelm said.

Carrying it forward

Years earlier, she returned home from the continent to care for her father as he neared the end of his life. During that time, he took her hand and told her plainly: There may come a time when there are very few Hawaiians left. Fight for them.

Her father, a Swiss immigrant, was not Hawaiian, but he understood what was at risk and his plea stuck with her. By some estimates, the Native Hawaiian population declined by 96% after Western contact, a reality that anchors how she sees her place in the present.

“We are from the 4% who survived,” Wilhelm said. “That’s miraculous. And we descend from the greatest navigators on earth. Innovation, adaptation and resilience are baked into our DNA.”

Grounded in the ways of her ancestors, she envisions a Hawaiʻi where Hawaiian leadership is not the exception but the rule, and where decisions are made with ʻāina in mind first. The same challenges once faced on the canoe, she sees now in the future of her home.

“We must be comfortable being in the wind. We have to be comfortable adjusting our sails … and be confident in being the navigators of our future,” Wilhelm said.

Wilhelm spoke at the World Economic Forum earlier this year.