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Carlo Petrini is the founding father of the Slow Food Movement.  It all started in Italy in 1986 when he saw that food was being standardized by industrialization and thousands of food varieties were disappearing.  Petrini wanted to show people they had choices beyond fast food and supermarkets.

Following the Slow Food principles of good, clean and fair, encourages a rediscovery of and respect for traditional foods and artisan production, supports environmentally sustainable agriculture and ensures that producers are recognized for their work and receive a fair wage.

Petrini is the mastermind behind Terra Madre: the world meeting of food communities. This groundbreaking event, held every two years in Turin, brings together more than 5,000 producers, 1,000 cooks and 400 teachers and university representatives from around the world to share their knowledge.  He also created the University of Gastronomic Sciences, the first academic institution to offer an interdisciplinary approach to food studies.

In 2003 the non-profit Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity was created to defend food biodiversity and gastronomic traditions around the world.

Carlo Petrini was listed by The Guardian newspaper in January 2008 as one of '50 People Who Could Save the World'.

Slow Food has 86,000 members in 130 countries.

Plenary panel: is organic the next clean tech?

Paul Dolan believes that business leaders can help make a better world, and he sees Mendocino County, California, as fertile ground to grow this vision.  During his 27 years at Fetzer Vineyards, 12 as president, he led a transformation that put the company at the forefront of organic viticulture and sustainable business.  With the creation of Mendocino Wine Company (MWC), a partnership of the Dolan and Thornhill families, the mantle of leadership in sustainable winegrowing shifted from Fetzer to MWC, while remaining cradled in the open, creative atmosphere of Mendocino County.  “We want to make a difference in this community,” says Paul, “and we will.”

Paul resides in Healdsburg, California with his wife Diana and daughter Sassicaia.  He spends leisure time in his Mendocino County vineyards and on horseback at Dark Horse Ranch.

Kristin Groos Richmond has served as the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolution Foods since January 2006. Revolution Foods transforms food service by providing fresh, healthy meals and nutrition education to California schools. Prior to founding Revolution Foods, Kristin served as the Vice President of Programs and Development at RISE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to recruiting and retaining outstanding teachers in public schools nationwide. During her tenure at RISE, she worked with over 50 charter and district schools and expanded the program from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles and Chicago. Kristin worked at Leadership Public Schools in San Francisco where she redesigned the food service program at four public high schools. She co-founded a special education school in East Africa and began her career as an investment banker at Citigroup in NYC. Kristin has a BS from Boston College and an MBA from UC Berkeley.

Frederick L. Kirschenmann, a longtime national and international leader in sustainable agriculture, shares an appointment as Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and as President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York. Kirschenmann also oversees management of his family's 3,500-acre certified organic farm in south central North Dakota and is a professor in the ISU Department of Religion and Philosophy.

Kirschenmann holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and has written extensively about ethics and agriculture. He has held numerous appointments, including the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board. In 2006, he was appointed to the 19-member National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production operated by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and funded by Pew Charitable Trusts to conduct a two-year examination of key aspects in the farm animal industry.

Kirschenmann served as the Center's second director from July 2000 to November 2005, when he was named a Distinguished Fellow. He joined the Board of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in 2004 and was elected president in 2007. In January 2008, he assumed a half-time appointment at Stone Barns, dividing his time between Iowa and New York, to explore ways that rural and urban communities can work together to develop a more resilient, sustainable agriculture and food system.

Walter Robb, Whole Foods Market Co-president and Chief Operating Officer. With a long and varied entrepreneurial history in natural foods ranging from retailer to farmer to consultant, Walter Robb joined Whole Foods Market in 1991. He opened and operated the Mill Valley, California, store until he became president of the Northern Pacific Region in 1993. Under Robb, the region grew from two to 17 stores, including four acquisitions. Robb then became Executive Vice-President of Operations in 2000, Chief Operating officer in 2001 and Co-President in 2004.

He currently oversees six of Whole Foods Market’s 11 regions and serves on the Whole Planet Foundation Board of Directors. Robb served two years on the Board of Directors of the Organic Trade Association and is a founding and current board member of the Organic Center for Education and Promotion. In addition, he served on the board of PotBelly Sandwich Works. Robb was named a member of Natural Foods Merchandiser’s initial Dream Team in 1990. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 1976 and is the proud father of a daughter and two sons.

Woody Tasch is Chairman of Investors’ Circle, a non-profit network of investors that, since 1992, has facilitated the flow of over $120 million into more than 190 sustainability-minded early-stage companies and venture funds. Woody was formerly Treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, where he stewarded an innovative mission-related investing program. He is an experienced venture capital investor and entrepreneur, and has served on numerous for-profit and non-profit Boards. He was founding Chairman of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, which supports venture investing in economically disadvantaged regions. For the past few years, he has been incubating the idea of Slow Money, in collaboration with leaders in organics and sustainable agriculture in the U.S. and abroad. He has written numerous essays and articles, and his upcoming book, FUNNY MONEY HONEY and Other Flights of Financey, is due out in 2008.

Keynote speaker

Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservations, and is the mother of three children. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth Fund, she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support, and create funding for frontline native environmental groups. She also works as Founding Director for White Earth Land Recovery Project.

In 1994, Winona was nominated by Time magazine as one of America's fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, the BIHA Community Service Award in 1997, the Ann Bancroft Award for Women's Leadership Fellowship, and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona has written extensively on Native American and Environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and serves, as co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network, a North American and Pacific indigenous women's organization. In 1998, Ms. Magazine named her Woman of the Year for her work with Honor the Earth. Also in 1997, her first novel, "Last Standing Woman", was published by Voyager Press. In 1999, South End Press published "All Our Relations", a non-fiction book on Native environmental struggles. Both books are available through the Native Harvest catalog. Winona's editorials and essays have also been published numerous times in national and international journals and newspapers.

Slow Money: New Strategies for Investing in Local Food Systems

Michael Dimock is President of the Roots of Change (ROC). The purpose of ROC is to spawn a sustainable food system in California by the year 2030. ROC attracts, aggregates and makes available resources and opportunities for a diverse alliance of leaders and their institutions that are collaboratively implementing a multi-sector strategy known as California’s Campaign for a New Mainstream in Fisheries, Farms and Food. ROC currently involves eleven foundations, over 500 leaders from NGOs and businesses, and over a dozen state and local government leaders.

Michael has focused on agriculture and the food system since 1989 and has worked on both ends of the spectrum, as a marketing executive in Europe for Riverbend International, a global agribusiness company, and as an organic farmer in Sonoma County. Since the early 1990s, he has been helping communities, NGOs, and businesses to build consensus and implement plans related to agricultural policy and marketing, resource stewardship, and sustainability. From 2002 to 2006, Michael served as Chairman of Slow Food USA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a good, clean, and fair food system, with particular emphasis on food bio-diversity, creating meaningful links between producers and consumers, and the pleasures of the table. In addition to US activities, Michael served on the President’s Committee of Slow Food International from 2003 to 2007 where he worked with five other international leaders and Carlo Petrini, Slow Food’s founder, to set the movement’s international strategy.

Michael’s love and convictions surrounding agriculture stem from early experiences on his cousin’s cattle operation in Santa Clara County in the 1960s & 70s and a 1979 stint in Nepal on a development project where he lived with subsistence farming families in a rural village in the Himalayan foothills. He studied US History as an undergraduate at UCLA, writing his honors thesis on the origins of the CIA. He earned his Masters in International Affairs in 1988 at Columbia University, where he specialized in Soviet Studies with a particular emphasis on media coverage of Gorbachev’s glasnost campaign. He lives in San Francisco and Sonoma County.

Don Shaffer is the President and CEO of RSF Social Finance. Prior to joining RSF, Mr. Shaffer served as Executive Director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) developing it into an alliance of 52 local networks of independently-owned businesses across the U.S. and Canada. In the past year, he has also served as Interim Executive Director of Investors’ Circle. His experience includes over 12 years in senior management positions building social mission companies including Comet Skateboards, a designer and manufacturer of premium skateboarding products committed to local and sustainable business practices. He has served and led sales, marketing, business development, and general operations teams in the education and software sectors. Mr. Shaffer graduated with a degree in American History at Cornell University, and lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife Jennifer and their daughter Sabine.

Greg Steltenpohl is the cofounder and CEO of Adina World Beat Beverages, a start-up focused on promoting equitable global trade principles and natural beverage products. Greg was formerly founder and CEO of Odwalla, Inc, the leading US supplier of fresh juice and nourishing beverages (www.odwalla.com). Since his departure from Odwalla, Greg has been active as co-founder and chairman of the Interra Project (www.interraproject.org). Interra supports local economies and emerging markets of sustainable products and technology by aggregating the buying power of like-minded consumers through payment card networks. Together with founder and former Visa International chairman, Dee Hock, Greg was a founding trustee of the Chaordic Commons.   The commons is dedicated to developing new forms of purposeful organizations based upon the self-organizing principles of natural systems. Greg has also served on the boards of Frontier Natural Products Cooperative, Social Venture Network, (www.svn.org), and Santa Cruz Community Credit Union. Greg graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor of science degree in environmental studies and resides in San Francisco with his wife Dominique.

Woody Tasch (see above)

Green Buildings and Energy Efficiency

Bennett Johnston is Vice President of Business Development for Lumenergi.  Since 1992 he has created several businesses and has been a consultant to businesses and environmental programs in North America, Japan, China, South East Asia and Europe. Mr. Johnston was a founder of Skytech Internet Services, Inc., which completed a successful strategic partnership between AOL-Japan and the largest direct-marketing company in Japan.   He is co-owner of a commercial real estate investment and development group with some 60,000 square feet of office and industrial space in Berkeley, California. 

Mr. Johnston was Director of Strategic Business Development for U.S. Electric Car, for which he raised over $20 million; initiated and developed partnerships with ITOCHU, the largest trading company in Japan, USAID, Tokyo R&D, General Motors, and European Investment Funds.   Mr. Johnston has been an early stage angel investor in numerous companies including MPower (acquired by Morningstar), Burst.com, iLeonardo.com (a new search engine), and SiteROCK (acquired by Quest) and Enova Systems (recently listed on AIM).  Mr. Johnston was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992.  From 1984 to 1991, he worked for the Trust for Public Land, an environmental organization dedicated to the protection of land and natural resources throughout the United States, where he served as National Director of Land Conservation. Mr. Johnston has also worked as a consultant to the Gorbachev Foundation and the State of the World Forum in San Francisco. He has served on the Board of San Francisco Baykeeper and the Friends of the Urban Forest, and  the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito, California.

Mr. Johnston earned a Bachelor of Arts, cum laud. in Political Science from Duke University.  In his spare time he invents puzzles and games.  His game, GinkGo!, won a Best New Product Award at the Toy and Game Inventors Forum in Las Vegas.  He recently was the recipient of a $10,000 Power of Purpose Prize from the Templeton Foundation.

Susan Preston is General Partner for the new CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, as well as CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Network.  The California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) is a $30 million public benefit investment fund created to spur investment and innovation in California’s clean energy economy.  Ms. Preston was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for 6 years and continues as a consultant, specifically focusing on initiatives related to angel investing and angel organizations. Ms. Preston is also a consultant to the Angel Capital Education Foundation, teaching seminars on angel investing and angel organizations.  Prior to taking the position with CalCEF, she was Director of Attorney Training and Professional Development for Davis Wright Tremaine, a 450-lawyer international law firm. Ms. Preston is the author of Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs: Early-stage Funding for Long-term Success released by Wiley Publishing in March 2007 and Angel Investment Groups, Networks and Funds: A Guidebook to Developing the Right Angel Organization for Your Community, a comprehensive guidebook on the establishment and operation of angel investment groups published by Kauffman Foundation. She was also a contributing author to State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on the Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing. 

Ms. Preston has held several board positions with public and privately held corporations, as well as serving on non-profit boards.  Ms. Preston is immediate past Chairman of the board for The Hope Heart Institute, a leading cardiovascular research institute, with national and international recognition. She is the chair of the Entrepreneurship Center at Seattle University and is a member of the Board of Visitors for Washington State University. In addition, Ms. Preston was on the board of advisors for Nokia/Innovent. Ms. Preston received her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law and her BS, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Microbiology and Public Health from Washington State University.

Nicholas Stolatis, Director – Strategic Initiatives, Asset Management for TIAA-CREF, leads the team which is focused on the identification, evaluation and implementation of industry leading best practices, in areas such as “green” and sustainable initiatives, branding and marketing, tenant relations, and property services and systems, across the entire US real estate equity investment portfolio encompassing office, industrial, retail and multi-family properties with a total area in excess of 125 million square feet.   Nick has been with TIAA-CREF for twenty five years, and in asset management for thirty years.

Nick has earned the Certified Property Manager (CPM®) designation IREM and is the Treasurer of the Greater New York Chapter #26.   Nick also holds the Real Property Administrator (RPA®) designation from BOMA.  He is an IREM facilitator for its course “Ethics in Real Estate Management”, and is an instructor in the BOMI Institute’s RPA designation program.  He has served as a panelist for BOMA, IREM and SIOR, and has authored several articles for various trade publications.  Nick is a NY State licensed Real Estate Broker and a member of REBNY.  

Nick earned his BBA (Magna Cum Laude) in Management from Baruch College, and an MBA in Marketing from New York University’s Graduate School of Business.

Robert Watson, Chairman & CEO, EcoTech International Group

The Fourth Sector: Part 1 - Investing for Impact

David Berge is the President and Founder of Underdog Ventures, LLC, a company which creates and manages customized community venture capital funds, integrating socially responsible investment, community development finance and philanthropic components.  Through its last fund, each company receiving an investment by Underdog Foundation has donated part of its company for philanthropic purposes.  Underdog Ventures was recognized as one of ten U.S. financial institutions providing especially strong benefits to the environment.  Through his previous retainer-based consulting firm, David advised high net worth in individuals and social venture institutions, while providing one third of his work on a pro bono basis for community development organizations.  David also is the Chairman and founder of the Underdog Foundation, which provides both community investments and philanthropy.  

David is a former  board member and Chair of the Social Investment Forum, the trade association for institutions and professionals involved in the $2.3 trillion socially responsible investment industry in the United States.    He is the former Chairman of the Social Investment Forum Foundation.  He is a former board member and current member of the Social Venture Network.  He is an advisory board member of Altrushare Securities, LLC, the country’s first non-profit owned brokerage firm.  He is a board member of Mission Research, a software company to help non-profits.  He is a member of the Financial Innovations Roundtable.  He is a former Advisory Board member of the Boston Federal Reserve’s Community Development Advisory Board, the Cooperative Fund of New England Advisory Board, the Equity Trust Advisory Board and the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility Board of Directors.

Originally from Austin, Minnesota, David currently resides in Warrens Gore, Vermont.   David graduated with a B.A. from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota and an M.A. from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Mark A. Finser is Chair of the Board of RSF Social Finance (www.rsfsocialfinance.org). RSF provides innovative investing, lending, and philanthropic services to catalyze the growth of organizations creating a more sustainable future. Mark grew RSF’s assets from $6,000 in 1984 to $120M today. Mark brings communities of philanthropists and socially responsible investors together to further RSF’s mission: to transform the way we work with money. As he travels in the U.S. and internationally, Mark speaks on all aspects of the emerging social finance arena. In addition, Mark leads TBL Capital (www.tblcapital.com) a sustainable venture fund he founded in 2007. Mark’s interests include biodynamic agriculture, integrative medicine, and meditation.

Heerad Sabeti is co-founder and CEO of TRANSFORMS, FB, a social enterprise that markets an innovative category of art and décor products for consumer and commercial use worldwide. TRANSFORMS was created as a laboratory for implementation of the For-Benefit organizational model, with irrevocable commitments to social purpose, inclusive ownership and governance, social and environmental responsibility, fair compensation, accountability, transparency and allocation of all profits to public purposes.

Sabeti is committed to pursuing systemic solutions to social and environmental challenges. In 1998, he led the development of “The Emerging Fourth Sector,” which introduced a strategy for designing a new sector of organizations (dubbed “For-Benefit” enterprises) that harness entrepreneurial energy to shape a more just, equitable and sustainable future. He has organized numerous national and international convenings devoted to the Fourth Sector movement, and is co-founder and trustee of the Fourth Sector Network, a neutral connector of individuals and organizations whose work advances the emerging Sector.

Sabeti serves on the Advisory Boards of the Center for International Business Education and Research at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the Aspen Institute's Intersectoral Relations Initiative.  He holds a BS in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University.

Joel Solomon has a diverse background in investment seed capital, politics, real estate, and philanthropy. He is President of Renewal Partners and Executive Director of the Endswell Foundation whose complementary missions utilize early stage investing and strategic charitable grant making to promote a sustainable economy for British Columbia.  In 2008 Joel assumed the position of Chairman for Renewal 2, a seed and early stage fund managed by the principals of Renewal Partners, with a mission to earn superior long term returns for investors while supporting dynamic businesses that will accelerate the transition to a sustainable society.

Renewal Partners has financed, and continues to support, some of the best known social purpose companies in Canada, including Happy Planet Foods, Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD), Communicopia, Michael Jantzi Research Associates, Horizon Distributors and Hollyhock Retreat Centre.  The Endswell Foundation, through its long-term commitment to capacity building, strategic alliances, and institutional development, helps sustain numerous Canadian charitable organizations working for a conservation economy. 

Joel is a founding member of Social Venture Network (SVN), Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), Canadian Business for Social Responsibility (CBSR), Renewal Land Company, Tides Canada Foundation and the Sage Centre. He is Chair of the Board of Tides Foundation (US) and sits on numerous other boards throughout North America.

Marjorie L. Torres is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Concrete Stories (CS), a commercial real estate advisory firm that provides landlords, tenants and investors with strategic advice, brokerage, negotiation and real estate development services. Identifying a gap in the industry for high-quality, cost-effective, personalized service, Ms. Torres created CS to deliver Fortune 100-level advice to middle market business owners.

A Theresa Ann Yeager scholar and Charles Kandel associate, Ms. Torres graduated from Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science with a B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering. Acting on her interest in corporate affairs, Ms. Torres obtained a certification in Corporate Governance from the Harvard Business School.

Ms. Torres was given the 2005 Latina Excellence Business Award by HISPANIC Magazine. Columbia University also recognized her as one of their Top 40 alumni under 40 in its Young Lions feature.

Ms. Torres holds membership in the Real Estate Board of New York, the National Association of Female Executives, Governance Matters, and the New York Junior League. She has served on the Board of the Women’s Venture Fund. Ms. Torres currently is on the Board of Visitors of the Engineering School at Columbia University and serves on the Board of the New America Alliance, an organization that promotes the advancement of the American Latino community in the economic, political, social and philanthropic arenas.

Ms. Torres has been featured in the New York Times, Time Warner publications, HISPANIC Magazine, Hispanic Business, as a real estate expert in Donald Trump’s book "The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received", among other print and media outlets.

Is Local the New Organic?

Gary Paul Nabhan, Ph.D., is a writer, lecturer and world-renown conservation scientist. He is the outgoing Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, where he catalyzed the Canyon Country Fresh regional food initiative on the Colorado Plateau.
After gaining degrees in agriculture and arid lands resources from the University of Arizona, Dr. Nabhan co-founded Native Seeds/ SEARCH and became a leading voice for conserving and renovating native plant agriculture in the Americas.

Over three decades, he has worked with more than a dozen indigenous communities on cross-cultural initiatives to revive indigenous foods to prevent diabetes, to restore ancient agricultural landscapes and to honor traditional knowledge.  For this work and his related writings, he has received a MacArthur “Genius” award, and a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Conservation Biology, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

He is a currently a Board member of the Seed Savers Exchange. He is author of twenty books (including Coming Home to Eat ) and well over 200 technical articles and essays in addition to op-eds, poems, and reviews.  Dr. Nabhan’s work moves from policy to practice, as his founding of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions and Forgotten Pollinators campaigns demonstrate. He and wife Laurie Monti raise Navajo-Churro sheep, Black Spanish turkeys and native crops in the pygmy woodlands near Winona, Arizona.  Among his recent books are Why Some Like It Hot: Genes, Food and Cultural Diversity and Renewing America’s Food Traditions.”

Jessica Prentice is both a professional chef and a passionate home cook. In her cooking, Jessica brings together creativity and imagination with a deep respect for traditional cuisine and time-honored culinary practices. Through her work, she seeks to provide a model for how communities can feed themselves in a way that is satisfying and health-supportive on all levels: delicious, environmentally responsible, and grounded in the wise nourishing traditions of our forebears. In her workshops, she seeks to both inspire people to cook, and help them develop the practical skills to feel successful in the kitchen.

Don Shaffer (see above)

David Van Seters is President and CEO of Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD) Inc., an organic food delivery company that he founded in 1998.  His education includes a B.Sc. degree in Environmental Biology from McGill University in Montreal and an MBA degree from the University of Alberta in Edmonton.   In the decade prior to launching SPUD, David spent 4 years running a business management consulting firm and 5 years as the National Environmental Practice Leader for KPMG consultants.

SPUD has grown rapidly in the last nine years and is now the largest organic food delivery service in North America.  The company has 10,000 customers, over 150 staff, and operates from six warehouse locations (Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles).  The company has strong social mission and is a member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and the Better Business Bureau.  Last year the company contributed over $50,000 to local community groups. 

David sits on the Board of the Fraser Basin Council, a non-profit group working to foster sustainability in the Fraser River Basin in British Columbia. He lives in West Vancouver with his wife, Adine and their three children, Philip, Juliette and Sarah. 

The Fourth Sector: Part II - Evolution of Capital Markets

John Fullerton is an active private investor and is passionate about the challenge of sustainable economics. He recently founded Level 3 Capital Advisors, which seeks to allocate capital across a “sustainability efficient frontier”.  Previously he was a Co-Founder and CEO of Alerian Capital Management, a $300 million investment firm that invests in midstream energy MLPs with a macro hedge overlay.  Prior to Alerian, John was a Managing Director of JPMorgan where he worked for over 18 years.  During his career at JPMorgan, John managed various parts of the firm’s industry leading capital markets and derivatives businesses around the globe, and subsequently was a private equity investor for JPMorgan, culminating in his role as Chief Investment Officer of LabMorgan responsible for the firm’s “eFinance” private investment activity.

John has been a director of numerous private and public companies including Edison Schools (where he first began to think about the role of social purpose companies), and was a member of the Long Term Capital Oversight Committee that oversaw the $3.6 Billion rescue of the distressed hedge fund in 1998.  He is currently a Director of New Day Farms, NuTech Solutions, Investors’ Circle, The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, and The National Dance Institute.

John received a Bachelor of Arts degree from The University of Michigan in 1982, with a concentration in economics and international relations, and a Masters in Business Administration from the Executive Management Program at the Stern School of New York University in 1986.  John and his wife Susan have lived in London and Tokyo and now reside in Rye, NY with their three children. 

Peter Kinder has served as President of KLD Research & Analytics, Inc., (KLD) in Boston since its founding in 1988. KLD’s mission is to remove barriers to socially responsible investing by providing institutional investors with research, compliance services, benchmarks, performance analytics and consulting.

The firm is best known for its index family which started with the Domini 400 Social IndexSM, the first benchmark (1990) for socially screened US equity portfolios.  Today, KLD’s research and 14 indexes underly more than 40 financial products.

Mr. Kinder has co-authored three books on social investing and written dozens of articles for publication on four continents.  KLD’s website links to a number of his articles.  He contributes regularly to KLD’s blog.

Mr. Kinder has served two terms on the board of the U.S. Social Investment Forum, the SRI trade organization, and one as vice chair. 

From 1973 to 1988, Mr. Kinder practiced law, first as an assistant attorney general in Ohio, then in Boston as a staff lawyer for a foundation and finally in private practice. He specialized in administrative law and corporate regulation.

Mr. Kinder received an A.B. in History from Princeton University in 1970 and was awarded a J.D. from Ohio State University in 1973.

Julia Novy-Hildesley is Executive Director of the Lemelson Foundation.  Founded by Jerome Lemelson, one of U.S. history's most prolific inventors, the Foundation’s programs in the U.S. and developing countries recognize accomplished inventors, mentor innovators of all ages, and disseminate technologies that help people generate income and meet their basic human needs. To date the Foundation has donated or committed more than $140 million in support of its mission. 

Julia has worked for the World Wildlife Fund, consulted to the World Bank, USAID and the UK Department for International Development, and conducted research in Tanzania, Bolivia, French Polynesia, and Madagascar. A Fulbright Scholar, she earned a Master's of Philosophy degree in International Development from Sussex University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a Bachelor's degree in Human Biology and a Minor in African Studies. Julia serves on numerous boards, including the John F. Kennedy School of Government Women’s Leadership Board, the Board of Advisors to the World Affairs Council of Oregon, and the Editorial Board of Innovations, a journal published by MIT Press.  She speaks French, Spanish and Kiswahili.

Heerad Sabeti (see above)

Woody Tasch (see above)

Strategies for Supporting Social Entrepreneurship: Lessons from the Field

Karyn Barsa serves as President for Investors’ Circle.  Formerly CEO of Smith & Hawken and COO/CFO of Patagonia, Karyn has led two vibrant organizations that serve as models for values-centered leadership around the world.  With a career that includes investment banking, commercial banking, and turnaround corporate finance, Karyn has specialized in opportunities to meld business and social missions and has been a featured speaker for numerous organizations including the American Management Association, Business for Social Responsibility, and various sponsored conferences.  She serves on the Advisory Board of inResonance, Inc. and as a Trustee at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.  Karyn holds a B.A. in Economics from Connecticut College and a MBA from the University of Southern California.

Gary Cohen has been working on environmental health issues for more than twenty years. He is a founder and co-executive director of Health Care Without Harm, the international campaign for environmentally responsible healthcare. He is also the executive director of the Environmental Health Fund, which works on domestic and global chemical safety issues. Cohen is a member of the international Advisory Board of the Sambhavna Clinic and Documentation Center in Bhopal, India, which provides free medical care to the survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal. He is also a founder of green harvest technologies, a sustainable bio-plastics start up company.

Amir Alexander Hasson has a background in entrepreneurship, IT management, and business development internationally. He received his Bachelor’s from Wesleyan University and then worked for start-ups in New York City during the .com boom. He received his Master’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in June 2002 and then served as the Business Development Manager for MIT Media Lab Asia. Amir spun-out First Mile Solutions (FMS) from MIT in 2003 and has spent the past five years developing, deploying, and marketing WiFi-based networks and services in developing countries such as India, Cambodia, Rwanda, Paraguay, and Costa Rica. He is currently the CEO of United Villages, which acquired FMS in 2005. Amir was a member of the United Nations Information Communication Technology Task Force for “Affordable Access & Connectivity” and has served as a consultant to the World Summit on the Information Society for “Equitable Access”. He has been interviewed and featured by major media and has spoken at numerous international conferences and workshops. Amir also holds 3 patents applications related to wireless communication networks. In December 2006 Amir was featured as one of the Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 35 in Red Herring.