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GreenBiz Innovation Forum 2010 Speakers:
Janine Benyus
Co-founder, Biomimicry Guild
Janine is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes. Since the book’s 1997 release, Janine has consulted to a wide range of companies, including Arup Engineers, General Electric, General Mills, Gensler Architects, Herman Miller, Hewlett Packard, HOK Architects, IDEO, Interface, Kohler, Levi’s, NASA, Nike, Norm Thompson, Novell, Patagonia, Seventh Generation, S.C. Johnson, and Shore Bank Pacific Bank. In addition to her biomimicry work, Janine teaches interpretive writing, lectures at the University of Montana, and works towards restoring and protecting wild lands. She has received several awards including Rachel Carson Environmental Ethics Award and the Lud Browman Award for Science Writing.
Nicole-Anne Boyer
Managing Director, Adaptive Edge
Nicole is a strategist, foresight specialist, and facilitator with a passion for creating “better futures.” For 12 years, she has been on the forefront of foresight, futures thinking and innovation, and is now managing director of Adaptive Edge in San Francisco, CA. Nicole has worked in over a dozen industries and sectors around the world. Her clients are leaders from Fortune 100 companies, governments, and civil society organizations.
Tim Brown
CEO, IDEO
Tim heads IDEO, a global design and innovation consultancy based in Silicon Valley. The company helps design products, services, environments, and digital experiences. Tim frequently speaks about the value of design thinking and innovation to businesspeople and designers around the world. He participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and his talks “Serious Play” and “Change By Design” appear on TED.com. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well being of people living in emerging economies.
Aron Cramer
President and CEO, BSR
Aron is recognized globally as an authority on corporate responsibility by leaders in business and NGOs and by his peers in the field. He advises senior leaders at BSR's 250 member companies and other global businesses, and is regularly featured as a speaker at major events and in a range of media outlets. Aron is co-author of the forthcoming book Sustainable Excellence, to be published in October, which explores current and future evolutions in corporate responsibility, charting its development into a core element of business strategy and activities.
Scott Elrod
Vice President, PARC
Scott directs the Cleantech Innovation Program at PARC (Palo Alto Research Center, a Xerox company), which develops solutions for delivering affordable solar energy, increasing solar cell efficiency, purifying water, managing energy utilization, and harnessing renewable fuels. A PARC Principal Scientist who holds more than 60 patents, Scott was responsible for much of an acoustic ink-printing patent portfolio (a novel inkjet technology based on focused ultrasonics), and several inventions for PARC spinout LiveWorks, Inc. Prior to his role at PARC, he directed the Environment, Safety, and Health Division at SEMATECH, a consortium of semiconductor manufacturers.
Phil Giesler
Director of Innovation, Unilever Corporate Ventures
Phil is responsible for leveraging Unilever’s technical and marketing resources, including access to more than 5,000 scientists and engineers involved in new product development, access to deal flow, market research, scientific data, marketing and distribution expertise, due diligence capabilities and a broad network of contacts. Formerly, he led Unilever's Global Technology Center for Household Care in Milan, responsible for global research and development for all elements of Unilever's $1.5 billion Household Care business. Phil has gained extensive experience at Unilever, mainly focused on its Home & Personal Care business in R&D, Innovation, Category Management, and its Supply Chain.
Marc Gunther
Senior Writer, GreenBiz.com
Marc Gunther is a writer, speaker and consultant whose focus is business and sustainability. He is a senior writer at GreenBiz.com, a contributing editor at FORTUNE magazine, and a blogger at www.marcgunther.com. Marc has written FORTUNE cover stories about the greening of Wal-Mart, the Chinese electric car company BYD, and spirituality in the workplace. His book, “Faith and Fortune: How Compassionate Capitalism is Transforming American Business,” was published in 2004. A graduate of Yale, Marc lives in Bethesda, MD.
Jim Hall
Managing Director, Waste Management, Green Squad
The Green Squad provides sustainability solutions for customers to help them create efficiencies, reduce costs, and enhance brands. Jim has over 15 years experience in the environmental services industry primarily focused on designing and developing programs that enhance customer experience and improve business value. Jim is trained in the General Theory of Innovation and is, among his many other credentials, QFD Blackbelt trained.
Michelle Harvey
Corporate Partnerships, Environmental Defense Fund
Michelle co-lead's EDF’s on-site partnership with Walmart in Bentonville, AR, advancing sustainable business practices throughout their operations and supply chain. Michelle’s areas of focus include alternative energy; green chemistry; health and environment; water; and sustainable agriculture and forestry. She received her MBA from Duke University and her B.S. Forestry from the University of the South.
Mariah Howard
Graphic Recorder
Mariah works as a meeting designer, teacher, and visual thinking specialist. She helps clients like nonprofit organizations, corporations, and community groups to translate their visions, processes, plans – anything! – into engaging images. Whether she’s listening to a keynote at a large conference or sitting at the table during a small meeting, Mariah captures her clients’ key messages and themes in Visual Records – metaphors, images, and words that she draws in real time. She also loves designing meetings that tap into the wisdom of groups and their ability to think together. Mariah teaches the practice of visual thinking in public and private workshops, building on participants’ innate creativity and desire to communicate effectively. She lives in beautiful Oakland, CA, with her husband and lots of art supplies.
Amnon Levav
Director, SIT International
Amnon is a facilitator of workshops in new product development, problem solving and advertising, a lecturer on various aspects of innovation and Managing Director of SIT International, a company dedicated to the development and application of Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT). The SIT method combines creativity with structures and predictable processes for enhancing innovation and creativity across organizations.
L. Hunter Lovins
President and Founder, Natural Capitalism Solutions
Trained as a sociologist and lawyer, Hunter co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute, which she led for 20 years. She has worked with scores of industries and governments worldwide, including the International Finance Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, Interface, Clif Bar, and Wal-Mart. She has also served an advisor to the Energy Minister of the Government of Afghanistan. Hunter is co-author of "Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution."
Adam Lowry
Co-founder and Chief Greenskeeper, Method Products, Inc
Adam's focus is bringing sustainable innovations to the Method business. He also directs the sustainability aspects of product design, sourcing, production, and marketing. Prior to founding Method, Adam worked as a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution, developing software products for the modeling of climate change. That public sector experience, combined with his earlier experience designing environmentally preferred automotive products, formed the nucleus of his unique approach of commercial environmentalism. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University.
Peter Madden
Chief Executive, Forum for the Future
Peter Madden is Chief Executive of Forum for the Future, a not-for-profit that develops cutting edge sustainability solutions with some of the world’s top businesses and government bodies. A leading expert on green issues and futures, Peter works on the strategies and innovations needed to prosper in a low-carbon world.
Previously, he worked as Head of Policy at the Environment Agency, as Ministerial Adviser to the British Government, and as Director of the Green Alliance.
Joel Makower
Chairman and Executive Editor, GreenBiz.com
Joel is a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. As a writer and strategist on corporate sustainability practices and clean technology, he has helped a wide range of companies align environmental goals with business strategy. He is author of several books on business and sustainability, including his most recent, Strategies for the Green Economy; a frequent commentator in print, broadcast, and online media; and a sought-after speaker to companies and business groups.
Pawan Mehra
Managing Director, cKinetics
Pawan is a serial entrepreneur currently focusing on the issue of scalable sustainability and low-carbon growth in emerging economies. He has been involved in building and scaling early-stage ventures, first as a venture capital investor with GVFL and McKenna Capital and, later, as an entrepreneur with Parsec Interact, Intellecap, and now cKinetics. He serves on the board of the Global Impact Investing Network which represents global investors looking to make socially relevant investments, and continues to advise a number of companies in Asia and the US. He is also actively involved with the Give Foundation, the largest online non-profit exchange connecting donors with projects in India, and he serves on its US board.
Stephen T. Meller
Chief Innovation Catalyst, Procter & Gamble
Dr. Meller is responsible for leading P&G's global technology innovators and entrepreneurs “community of experts.” He has been a key driver on the technology strategy approaches for P&G’s Sustainability and Industrial Biotechnology programs and its impact on global consumers. In his role as Chief Innovation Catalyst, he is accountable to the CTO and company treasurer.
Angela R. Nahikian
Director, Global Environmental Sustainability, Steelcase Inc.
Angela heads a cross-company effort to ensure the company achieves its global sustainability goals. In her role, she is responsible for integration of the key environmental platforms of life cycle management, materials assessment, and designing for disassembly in new product and program development. She also leads environmental research programs and corporate collaborative efforts with sustainability experts.
Tim O'Reilly
Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media Inc.
Tim is one of the most respected figures in the information technology industry, with an uncanny ability to predict and help the future of technology innovation unfold. He is largely credited with driving both the open source and web 2.0 technology movements into mainstream concepts. O’Reilly Media is consider by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world also produces a variety of leading events including the Web 2.0 Summit and the O’Reilly Open Source Convention. Tim's long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. In addition to O'Reilly Media, Tim is a founder of Safari Books Online, a pioneering subscription service for accessing books online, and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, an early-stage venture firm.
Len Sauers
VP, Global Sustainability, Procter & Gamble
Len leads the company's overall sustainability efforts at P&G, where he is a 23-year veteran with broad-reaching experience in human safety, regulatory affairs, and environmental science. In addition to his Global Sustainability leadership role, Len also leads the Human and Environmental Safety, Regulatory Affairs, and Corporate Biotechnology organizations worldwide. These groups are responsible for conducting human and environmental risk assessments for new products and ingredients, ensuring regulatory compliance, and conducting upstream basic research
Andrew Shapiro
Founder and President, GreenOrder
Andrew is a widely recognized leader in sustainability and business strategy whose diverse background as a consultant, journalist, lecturer, and attorney enables him to provide the integrated perspective that today's complex sustainability challenges require. He founded GreenOrder in 2000 and has developed it into a pioneering firm, which Fortune in 2007 called "the go-to consulting company for green business." Since 2004, he has worked closely with General Electric's senior management on the creation and implementation of its award-winning, multi-billion dollar "ecomagination" initiative. Other GreenOrder clients have included Alcan, Allianz, BP, Citi, Coca-Cola, Duke University, DuPont, General Motors, JPMorgan Chase, Masco, Morgan Stanley, NBC Universal, and Office Depot
Nathan Shedroff
Program Chair, California College for the Arts
Nathan chairs the groundbreaking MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts. He is considered one of the pioneers of experience design, an approach to design that encompasses multiple senses and explores the common characteristics in all media that make experiences successful; he also works in the related fields of interaction design and information design. His latest book is Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable. In 2006 Nathan received an MBA from the Presidio Graduate School and holds a BA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Robert Shelton
Director, PRTM
Rob is a co-author of Making Innovation Work, and a director at management consulting firm PRTM, where he leads the firm's global innovation practice. He has assisted leading companies across a range of industry sectors, including energy, health care, consumer goods, electronics, software, and automotive, to integrate new business models and new technologies into their strategy and operations. Rob was previously with Navigant Consulting, Arthur D. Little, and Stanford Research Institute.
John Warner Ph.D.
President, Chief Technology Officer, and Chairman of the Board, Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry
John co-founded Warner Babcock, dedicated to the development of non-toxic, environmentally benign, and sustainable technological solutions. Previously, he was a professor of Community Health and Sustainability and Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell; professor of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts-Boston; and a senior research scientist and research group leader in exploratory and media research at Polaroid. He holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Princeton University and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Andrew Williamson
Director, Physic Ventures
Andrew works with companies that are developing technologies, products and services to enable consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Among the portfolio company investments managed by Physic Ventures, Andrew is on the boards of Chromatin, EnergyHub, Gazelle, Halosource, Impinj and Novomer. Prior to joining Physic Ventures, Andrew spent 10 years leading materials science research and development projects at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Tom Wujec
Fellow, Autodesk
As a recognized thought-leader and award-winning innovator, Tom works with the Fortune 500 to foster innovation practices at all stages, from strategic and business planning to the design and implementation of digital design tools. Common to each practice is the application of making work visible, and transforming ideas into images that enhance clarity, engagement and persistent intelligent action. Tom has brought several software applications to market including Autodesk SketchBook Pro, PortfolioWall, and is a pioneer of business visualization the emerging practice of using images, sketches and data-driven infographics to help teams make better sense of their work.