Speakers
The speakers we book are Sustainable Business Leaders,Responsible Investors and published authors.
They rock the house. Find out more about each of our speakers and their exciting books and projects below.
UPCOMING SPEAKERS - NYC, LONDON, NAIROBI, LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO!
NYC | FEBRUARY 8th, 2013 | TONYA SURMAN | founder / Executive Director of Center for Social Innovation
Tonya Surman is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Social Innovation in Toronto and New York. Raised by hippies, Tonya Surman has been making peace signs and raising a ruckus since the day she was born. Her most recent ruckus is the Centre for Social Innovation. As founding executive director, Tonya imagines the Centre as space that sparks creativity, connectedness and fun. Before this, she channeled her overzealous optimism into a national coalition of organizations working on children's environmental health, a social enterprise offering e-mail to activists and an edgy online news hub for Canadian progressives. Between these experiments in social entrepreneurship, Tonya has found the time to create a coop daycare, host chaotic street parties and create community gardens. She is also the mother of two wonderful boys which, in the end, is what matters most.
LOS ANGELES | DATE TBD, EARLY SPRING 2013 | GREGORY WENDT | Founder, Green Economy Think Tank, Green Business Networking,
Gregory Wendt is a world recognized thought leader in sustainable and responsible investing, and the founder of the Green Economy Think Tank and Green Business Networking in LA, as well as the Vice President of Sustainable and Responsible Investing for EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. Greg is one of the nation’s leading experts in Sustainable and Responsible Investing, beginning his career as a financial advisor in 1991 working with Smith Barney, Paine Webber and Prudential Securities prior to joining EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. in 2002. Mr. Wendt is the founder and visionary of two non profit initiatives – Green Economy Think Tank which convenes leaders around the country for evolving solutions for Green Economy, and Green Business Networking a non-profit which provides a monthly event as a space and time for the leaders of LA Region’s green economy to connect, network and do deals. Learn more about Greg on his website Gregwendt.com, and his blog Sustainable Wealth,
SAN FRANCISCO | DATE TBD, EARLY SPRING, 2013 | LISA GANSKY | Founder and CEO of The Mesh Networks; Author of The Mesh
Lisa Gansky is a serial entrepreneur and environmentalist. A founder and CEO of several internet companies including GNN (the first web portal sold to AOL) and the largest consumer photo sharing and print service, Ofoto (Kodak Gallery.) Lisa's attention is always on sustainable ventures with positive impact. She is the author of the bestselling book, The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing, currently serves as Chief Instigator of Mesh Studios, and is a director and investor at: Convio, GreenBiz, Instructables, MePlease, New Resource Bank, Nuko Toys, PixelPipe, Squidoo, TaskRabbit, and TasteBook.
PAST SPEAKERS
NAIROBI | JANUARY 4TH, 2013 | TMS RUGE | World Bank Climate Change Project Strategist & Founder, Project Diaspora
TMS Ruge is currently serving as the lead social media strategist for the Connect4Climate campaign at the World Bank. In 2007, he cofounded Project Diaspora, an online platform for mobilizing, engaging and motivating members of Africa Diaspora to engage in matters important to the continent’s development. A technology enthusiast, Ruge writes and speaks extensively on Africa’s current renaissance driven by technology, youth and the Diaspora. He is a frequent contributor to several online publications including CNN, PopTech, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian. He blogs at the projectdiaspora.org. He was born in Masindi, Uganda and grew up in Uganda, Kenya and the United States.
LONDON | DECEMBER 14th, 2012 | ANN PETTIFOR | Founder of Jubilee 2000 and Director of Advocacy International
Ann Pettifor is a globally recognized author, activist and change maker, best known for her leadership of a worldwide campaign to cancel approximately $100 billion of debts owed by 42 of the poorest countries – Jubilee 2000. She is a Director of PRIME Policy Research in Macroeconomics, a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, London and Executive Director of Advocacy International, a consultancy which researches and advises governments and organisations on international finance and sustainable development. She is the author of books on sovereign debt and international finance. In 2003 she predicted the bursting of the credit bubble in a book she edited for the New Economics Foundation, The Real World Economic Outlook. In 2006 she published her book, The Coming First World Debt Crisis and in 2008, she co-authored Green New Deal - a set of policies to deal with threats posed by the Credit Crunch, Peak Oil and Climate Change.
NYC | DECEMBER 7th, 2012 | DANIELLE LANYARD | founder of GREEN BREAKFAST CLUB
Danielle Lanyard's life and work experience blends environmental study, community action, and business development. Her work began as a child and spans two decades and four continents, including early coursework in Environmental Studies at The Evergreen State College and a B.A. in Psychology from UC, Santa Cruz. Rather than enter the workplace, Danielle chose to travel, living out a lifelong dream to see the rest of the world, where she bartered her way around the globe and got the first inklings for the idea of a barter as a business. While abroad, Danielle created and taught Laos's first course in Sustainable Development, served as an Environmental Ed trainee in the Peace Corps in Senegal, and worked in Berlin as the Development Director for the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy. Back in the US, she became a serial social entrepreneur, launching startups,Travelcology and Open Venture Society, small businesses still in business today. She is the founder and CEO of Green Breakfast Club, and the greater Village Green organization launched in spring 2012.
NYC | November 13th, 2012 | GREGORY WENDT | Founder, Green Economy Think Tank, Green Business Networking
Gregory Wendt is a world recognized thought leader in sustainable and responsible investing, and the founder of the Green Economy Think Tank and Green Business Networking in LA, as well as the Vice President of Sustainable and Responsible Investing for EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. Greg is one of the nation’s leading experts in Sustainable and Responsible Investing, beginning his career as a financial advisor in 1991 working with Smith Barney, Paine Webber and Prudential Securities prior to joining EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. in 2002. Mr. Wendt is the founder and visionary of two non profit initiatives – Green Economy Think Tank which convenes leaders around the country for evolving solutions for Green Economy, and Green Business Networking a non-profit which provides a monthly event as a space and time for the leaders of LA Region’s green economy to connect, network and do deals. Learn more about Greg on his website Gregwendt.com, and his blog Sustainable Wealth,
NYC - SEPTEMBER 14th | ARRUN KAPOOR | Managing Director, SJF Ventures New York
Arrun Kapoor is the Managing Director for SJF Ventures’ New York City office and a Ventures Advisor to the SJF Institute. He leads the NYC CleanLinks program and is an Advisory Board Member of NYC ACRE: NYU-Poly and the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission Green Business Accelerator. He is on the Board of FieldView Solutions and a Board Observer to ServiceChannel and Truist. Kapoor was most recently with Bain & Company in London and Delhi where he launched the firm’s internal green practice initiatives. He worked with Bain’s private equity consulting practice and gained experience in a range of cleantech-related industries. Prior to Bain, he was a founding member and Manager with a successful consulting start-up in New York and London. He holds a Master’s in International Political Economics from the London School of Economics and completed a BA from New York University with an economics and business focus.
AUGUST 10th | RON GONEN | Co-Founder, RecycleBank and NYC's Deputy Commissioner of Recycling
Ron Gonen is a nationally known recycling industry leader who was just appointed to the newly created post of NYC Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability. He is the Co-founder and former CEO of RecycleBank from 2004-2010, achieving the ranking by the Wall Street Journal as the #1 Venture Backed Clean Tech Company in 2010. Gonen remains a member of RecycleBank's Board of Directors. Prior to RecycleBank, he was a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting, where he developed CRM applications. Gonen has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School and the Co-Founder/Managing Director of Healthy Planet, an environmental services firm that is helping to green the sports industry by deploying renewable energy in sport stadiums.
NYC | JULY 13th | JAN MORGAN | President, CSRwire
Jan Morgan is President of CSRwire, the Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire. Prior to joining CSRwire, Jan was a consultant and executive for various organizations such as American Express Tax and Business Services, RSM McGladrey, United Nations World Food Program, Media Minds Group, Zink Communications, ABC and NBC Network Television. Jan has a wide range of management and marketing expertise in both the private and nonprofit sectors and is a prominent speaker at wide variety of events and conferences. Her breadth of mission driven work spans the public, private, local and global ecosystem, where she has specialized in strategic and business planning, organizational design, marketing, fundraising and philanthropy, foundation counsel and board development. She Currently serves on two boards, Antioch University Board of Governors and the READ Global Board of Trustees, is on the governing board for the Columbia Business School Social Enterprise Conference, and is a member of the Social Venture Network and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
NYC | JUNE 15th | RICHARD PERL | Chief Administrative Officer, TerraCycle
Richard Perl is currently the Chief Administrative Officer at TerraCycle, a world leader in the collection and recycling of post-consumer non-recyclable waste. A strong sense of mission has guided him throughout most of his life. His vision for a better world crystalized in college, where he went to college in Columbia for law and business school, and helped form and build the Threshold Foundation, a community of people with earned or inherited wealth who share a commitment to the planet. He is one of the founders of Social Venture Network (SVN.org), and has worked with and managed many businesses and non-profits in the US and internationally, most of which were guided by a strong social mission, including serving as the CEO for Deepak Chopra’s businesses in the mid-1990s. He has been involved with diverse fields from clean energy development, carbon credits, real estate, resort development, media, natural products home furnishings and high end chocolate and has worked internationally extensively, having been to Japan over 30 times and worked with projects in India, South America and Europe.
NYC | MAY 11th | MATHIEU SENARD | Cofounder & CEO, AlterEco
Mathieu Senard is the co-founder and CEO of AlterEco – a leading fair trade brand that sources a variety of food products (chocolate, rice, quinoa, sugar, olive oil) from cooperatives of small-scale farmers around the world. Mathieu’s career began at age 18 when, as a volunteer in Cambodia, he ran the Northern orphanage of Krousar Thmey in Siem Reap, a first exposure to the problematic of global poverty that naturally led him to fair trade. Having received an MBA from IEA-Paris and an MA in communication from Cal State, Long Beach helped him create a triple bottom-line business whose mission is to help small-scale farmers bootstrap themselves out of poverty.
NYC | APRIL 13th | JOHN HARTMAN | Founder and CEO, OceanGrown, Inc.
John Hartman is the founder and CEO of the green-field agricultural fertilizer startup, OceanGrown, the award winner for ‘Sustainability Pioneer’ by the global organization Earth Charter. Mr. Hartman’s 30 years of engineering application experience have extended from complex weapons systems to factory automation projects in the aerospace industry and his clients have included the leading Fortune 500 companies in aeronautics and transportation, including Boeing, IBM, and Lockheed Missiles and Space. He brings this wealth of experience into his new initiative to disrupt the agricultural industry with OceanGrown Solutions sustainable alternative.
NYC | MARCH 16th | HAZEL HENDERSON | Author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy, founder of Ethical Markets
Hazel Henderson is a futurist and an economic iconoclast. In recent years she has worked in television, and she is the author of several books including Building A Win-Win World, Beyond Globalization, Planetary Citizenship (with Daisaku Ikeda), and Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy.Hazel Henderson is the founder of Ethical Markets Media, LLC and the creator and co-executive Producer of its TV series. She is a world renowned evolutionary economist, a globally syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, and the author of several award-winning books on the new economy. She has been Regent's Lecturer at the University of California (Santa Barbara) and held the Horace Albright Chair in Conservation at the University of California (Berkeley). She has also been a traveling lecturer and panelist. Recently, she has served on the boards of such publications as Futures Research Quarterly, The State of the Future Report, and E/The Environmental Magazine (US), Resurgence, Foresight and Futures (UK).
NYC | FEBRUARY 10th | CARY KROSINSKY | author of Evolutions in Sustainable Investing, Senior VP for Trucost, Inc.
Cary Krosinsky is Senior Vice President for Trucost Inc. in North America and a member of the Management team. Trucost has become the recognized global leader in providing environmental data and analysis for the Newsweek Green Rankings, as well as supply chain analysis for organizations such as Sprint, Puma and the City of London. Mr. Krosinsky also co-edited and authored the book "Sustainable Investing: the Art of Long Term Performance," and a second book, "Evolutions in Sustainable Investing," is forthcoming in late 2011. He teaches sustainability and investing at Columbia University's Earth Institute, as well as an MBA course at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business. He was a member of the Expert Group that helped create the United Nation's Principles for Responsible Investment, and has a background in management, computer programming and data analysis.
NYC | JANUARY 13th | PETER FUSARO | founder of Wall Street Green Summit
Peter C. Fusaro is a best selling author, keynote speaker and thought leader on emerging energy and environmental financial markets. He is Chairman of Global Change Associates, an energy and environmental consultancy in New York since 1991 and is the best selling author of What Went Wrong at Enron as well as 15 other books on energy and the environmental financial markets. Peter has been on the forefront of energy and environmental change for over 36 years and has worked for over 20 years on climate change issues and with companies worldwide. He holds the annual Wall Street Green Summit each spring and is advisor to 8 cleantech software and hardware companies in the US and UK. In 2009, Peter launched the Global Change Foundation focused on environmental education and projects and held its first Green Jobs Summit in March 2010. The foundation also runs the Green Salon where artists perform and environmental experts speak.
NYC | DECEMBER 16th | DIANA AYTON-SHENKER | founder of Fast Forward Fund
Diana Ayton-Shenker is the founder of the Fast Forward Fund, a Sr. Fellow at Bard College’s Globalization and International Affairs (BGIA) Program, and a professor of “Global Social Entrepreneurship & Strategic Philanthropy” at BGIA. She has previously taught at the American University (Paris), Lewis & Clark Law School, and Hunter College, where she directed the first undergraduate human rights program in the U.S. She is the founder of Global Momenta, an international consulting firm specializing in effective partnerships and leaderships for human rights, sustainable development, art & culture. Ms. Ayton-Shenker holds an LLM from the Univ. of Essex Law School , and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
NYC | NOVEMBER 14th | JOE SIBILIA | author of Street Smart Sustainability, founder of CSRWire and Meadowbrook Lane Capital
Joe Sibilia is founder and CEO of Meadowbrook Lane Capital (MBLC), described by the Wall Street Journal as a "socially responsible investment bank" specializing in turning values into valuation. He is also the CEO of www.CSRwire.com, the social responsibility newswire service that distributes and archives corporate social responsibility/sustainability news to journalists, analysts, investors, activists, academics, public relations and investor relations professionals worldwide. Through MLBC, Joe has worked with a number of Socially Responsible Companies and has been widely recognized for his work in attempting to take Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream private, while successfully preserving many of the founders' social initiatives, and advancing the connection between good corporate citizenship and increased share value. Throughout his career, Joe has purchased and sold nineteen of his own companies.
NYC | OCTOBER 11th | JED EMERSON | author of Impact Investing, founder of Blended Value
Jed Emerson is Executive Vice-President of ImpactAssets, a nonprofit financial services firm creating impact investing products to bridge the asset owner/impact fund market; a Senior Fellow with the Center for Social Investing at Heidelberg University (Germany); and a Senior Advisor to The Sterling Group (a multi-family office based in Hong Kong pursuing a sustainable/impact investing strategy for its clients). He has held faculty appointments at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Business schools. He is internationally recognized as a thought leader, originated the concept of Blended Value and has presented his work at the World Economic Forum, CGI and other events around the world. His various papers/research may be found at www.blendedvalue.org and he has a new book to be released September 2011 entitled, Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference.
NYC | SEPTEMBER 12th | CAROL SANFORD | author of The Responsible Business, founder of Interoctave
Carol Sanford is a published author, consultant and speaker who has been a leader in the sustainability movement for more than 30 years, where she has been spearheading major consulting change efforts in both Fortune 500 and new-economy businesses. Her client list includes long-term relationships with Colgate Europe and Africa and DuPont Canada, US, Asia and Europe. She also works with new-economy companies like Intel, Agilent and leaders of corporate responsibility such as Seventh Generation. Carol has published dozens of works in 10 languages, and is the author of the hot new title, The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success (March 2011), Jossey-Bass, Publisher. Carol holds undergraduate degrees from UC Berkeley in Economics and Public Law and graduate degree from California State University, San Jose in Urban Planning.
NYC | AUGUST 8th | STEFAN DOERING | Founder, Best Coaches, Inc.
Stefan Doering has been innovating in environmental business and sustainability since 1987. Among his long list of business sustainability accomplishments include developing a green intrapreneurship strategy for General Motors that was included in their final bailout plan presented to Congress in December, 2008, providing business coaching with programs that reached almost 2,000 business innovators in 13 countries, teaching landmark courses on green entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship at Columbia University’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation and at the Industrial and Technology Assistance Corporation (ITAC), a leading non-profit in NYC for small business development. He pioneered green retailing in New York City, growing his venture to one of the largest green retail companies in the US, selling over 3,500 different products screening for their environmental impact. He is a Co-founder of Manhattan Chamber of Commerce’s Green Finance Subcommitte, is an advisor to many of New York City's leading sustainability initiatives, and has been spearheading some of New Yorks' first and most impactful green projects for over two decades.
NYC | JULY 11th | DOUG COHEN | co-author of 'The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook'
Douglas Cohen, Chair, National Youth Initiatives, US Partnership, Education for Sustainable Development; and Founder, The Leadership Center, practices Social Architecture focused on sustainability as a driver of large scale change. He is a practitioner of collaborative, cross-sector solution seeking, addressing key social equity and economic justice and spiritual dimensions of the Sustainability Era using the tools of human systems thinking and self-organizing social learning and change processes. Since 2004, Doug has been in a civil society pioneering social change organization, the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development [USPESD]. He is Chair, Resource Council – National Youth Initiatives and co-developer of the Green Jobs for At-Risk Youth Initiative, and serves on the Executive Committee of USPESD. Doug is on the Advisory Council for the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at FDU and the leadership team for the Coalition for One Voice in New York City.
NYC | JUNE 13th | JACQUIE OTTMAN | author of 'The New Rules of Green Marketing', founder of J. Ottman Consulting
Jacquelyn Ottman. Since founding J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. in 1989, Jacquelyn Ottman and her colleagues have helped over 60 Fortune 500 businesses, the Energy Star® label and other organizations learn how to seize opportunities by pro-actively addressing consumers’ environmental concerns. With unmatched experience in the field of green marketing, Ottman has helped clients develop concepts for exciting new products as well as strategies for reaching green consumers with credibility and impact. Jacquelyn’s book, Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation is called “the definitive text on the subject” by the American Marketing Association. She’s a sought-after speaker at conferences in North America, South America, Europe and Asia and at corporate forums run by IBM, 3M, Philips Electronics and GE, to name a few. The principal organizer and driving spirit behind the Design:Green eco-design educational initiative, she sits on the Advisory Boards of the Centre for Sustainable Design (UK), the Center for Small Business and the Environment, and the NYC chapter of O2, of which she is a past co-chairman.
BECOME A GREEN BREAKFAST CLUB SPEAKER
Think your headshot belongs on this page?? Want to lend your voice to support green entrepreneurship? We would love to hear from you. We are booking up our calendar of keynote speakers for 2013 and we hope to bring the most prominent, radical and innovative minds and hearts into our community and out into the world. 2013 is going to be a big year for us and we'd love for you to be a part of it! Contact us today to find out more and to get involved.
We're booking for 2013! Join us in New York City and many new cities this winter and spring.
- May 10th -----> Contact us to book this NYC spot.
- June 14th -----> Contact us to book this NYC spot.
- July 12th -----> Contact us to book this NYC spot.
Contact us to book a speaker for any remaining dates in 2013!