Peter G. Brown
Peter G. Brown is a professor in the School of Environment, the Department of Geography, and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University. Before heading to McGill, he was Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland’s graduate School of Public Affairs; while at Maryland he founded the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, the School of Public Policy, and also established the School’s Environmental Policy Programs. He is a graduate of Haverford College, holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy of Religion from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Columbia in Philosophy. He is the author of Restoring the Public Trust: A Fresh Vision for Progressive Government in America and Ethics, The Commonwealth of Life: Economics For a Flourishing Earth, and Right Relationship: Building Whole Earth Economies. Brown is involved in conservation efforts in the James Bay and Southern regions of Quebec, as well as in Maryland. He operates tree farms in both locales and is a Certified Quebec Forest Producer, named Tree Farmer of The Year of Garrett County, Maryland in 1995. He is a member of the Religious Society of Friends.
Graciela Chichilnisky
Graciela Chichilnisky is the author of the carbon market of the UN Kyoto Protocol that became international law in 2005. She also created the concept of Basic Needs voted by 153 nations at the 1993 UN Earth Summit to be the cornerstone of Sustainable Development, and in 1996 created the formal theory of Sustainable Development that is used worldwide. Chichilnisky is a world renowned economist and mathematician that the Washington Post calls an "A-List Star" and appeared in the 2009 Time Magazine on "Heroes of the Environment". Chichilnisky acted as a US Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the 2007 Nobel Prize. A special adviser to several UN organizations, heads of state and US Congress, her pioneering work uses innovative market mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions, conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Chichilnisky has a Masters and a PhD in Mathematics from MIT and UC Berkeley and a second PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley. She has taught at Harvard University, Stanford and Columbia University. Dr. Chichilnisky is a Professor of Economics and Mathematical Statistics at Columbia University, Director of Columbia Consortium for Risk Management (CCRM) (http://columbiariskmanagement.org), a former Senator and UNESCO Chair in Mathematics and Economics at Columbia University, and currently the Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Nankai University and at Beijing Normal University in China, and a Founder and Managing Director of Global Thermostat LLC (http://globalthermostat.com). Dr. Chichilnisky has authored 14 books and over 250 articles published in leading academic journals and popular news media outlets, such as Time Magazine and the Financial Times. She is a frequent commentator on CNN, ABC, BBC TV News, and Bloomberg News. Her most recent books are Saving Kyoto, published in fall 2009, and The Economics of Climate Change, published in fall 2010.
Dr. Chichilnisky was the Founder, Chairman and CEO of a successful financial telecommunications company, FITEL, the CEO and Chairman of a successful financial technology company, Cross Border Exchange, owned by JP Morgan. She is an advisor to the Capital Institute, a member of the UK Climate Bonds Initiative, a former member of the Board of Trustees of the National Resources Defense Council. Chichilnisky is listed in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, Who is Who of American Women, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in Education and in the Dictionary of International Biography among the world's 1,000 most outstanding scientists of the 21st century. In 2007 she was identified by Hispanic Business among the top 10 most influential Latinos in the US. A native of Argentina, Professor Chichilnisky is a U.S. citizen, the mother of two children, and a resident of New York City.
Penelope Douglas
Penelope Douglas is Founder of Pacific Community Ventures (PCV), a hybrid organization that stimulates economic development in California’s low-income communities. Pacific Community Ventures manages three socially-responsible investment funds and provides innovative resources to emerging businesses and their low-income workers. In addition, Douglas is also a Partner in Pacific Community Ventures, LLC. Before founding PCV, Douglas was Senior Vice President at Odwalla, Inc., Chief Administrative Officer at Morrison & Foerster, and chair of the Morrison & Foerster Foundation. She has also held senior management positions at Ernst & Young and Wells Fargo Bank.
As co-founder of the first west coast community venture fund, Douglas is a pioneer and thought leader in the area of community development investment. She has served on the board of directors of the Community Development Venture Capital Association (CDVCA) and is a frequent presenter at industry conferences. She currently serves on the boards of New Mexico Community Capital (NMCC), New Vine Logistics, and Evergreen Lodge, in addition to having served as chair of Larkin Street Youth Center, chair of the Children’s Television Education and Resource Center, chair of San Francisco Friends of the Urban Forest and founding chair of Juma Ventures.
Douglas is a California native and her education includes a B.A. from Smith College. She is also an artist and an athlete who has competed in four Ironman distance triathlons and numerous long distance races.
Phil Duff
Philip N. Duff is founder and Chief Executive Officer at Massif Partners, an institutional investment manager focused on the solvency of funding long term liabilities. Prior to founding Massif Partners, Mr. Duff was one of the founding partners of FrontPoint Partners LLC, an investment management firm, and served as its Chairman and CEO from November 2000 to December 2006. In December 2006, FrontPoint Partners was sold to Morgan Stanley. Prior to his starting FrontPoint Partners in 2000, Mr. Duff was the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Managing Director of Tiger Management from 1998 to 2000. Before joining Tiger, Mr. Duff spent much of his career at Morgan Stanley and served as the Chief Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 1998, Mr. Duff served as President and CEO of VanKampen Investments, a mutual fund acquired by Morgan Stanley. Mr. Duff started his career at Morgan Stanley in 1984 in investment banking, where he became head of the Financial Institutions Group. Mr. Duff received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and a Master of Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hazel Henderson
Dr. Hazel Henderson is a world-renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a worldwide syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, and author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy and nine other books. Her editorials appear in 27 languages and more than 200 newspapers syndicated by InterPress Service, Rome, New York, and Washington DC. Her articles have appeared in over 250 journals, including (in USA) Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and Challenge, Mainichi (Japan), El Diario (Venezuela), World Economic Herald (China), and Australian Financial Review. Her books are translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Korean, Portuguese, and Chinese.
She founded the independent media social enterprise Ethical Markets Media (USA and Brazil) in 2004 and serves as president and editor. She sits on several editorial boards, including FUTURES, FORESIGHT, The State of the Future Report, E/The Environmental Magazine, and Resurgence. She is a Fellow of the World Business Academy and co-edited, with Harlan Cleveland and Inge Kaul The United Nations: Policy and Financing Alternatives (Elsevier Science, 1995), a Report of the Global Commission to Fund the United Nations. As a fulltime media executive, Henderson resigned from her former board associations, including Worldwatch Institute (1975-2001) and the Calvert Social Investment Fund (1982-2005). She co-created with Calvert Group, Inc.: the Calvert-Henderson Quality-of-Life Indicators in 2000, updated regularly at www.calvert-henderson.com. She is an Honorary Member of the Club of Rome and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society for the Arts, founded in 1754.
She has many honorary degrees, was Regent’s Lecturer at the University of California (Santa Barbara), held the Horace Albright Chair in Conservation at the University of California (Berkeley), and advised the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and the National Science Foundation from 1974 to 1980. She is an active member of the National Press Club (Washington DC), the Social Venture Network, and the World Futures Society (USA). Henderson also shared the 1996 Global Citizen Award with Nobelist A. Perez Esquivel of Argentina. She is listed in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Business and Finance and Who's Who in Science and Technology.
Simon Rich
Simon Rich serves by appointment of the Governor on the North Carolina Economic Development Board and chairs the Innovation and Technology committee. He also serves on the Governor’s Energy Policy Council. Formerly he was Chairman and CEO of Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas and President of Louis Dreyfus Holding Corp; the Louis Dreyfus Group holds a global position in all areas of energy and agriculture including production, processing and merchandising. Mr. Rich is former chairman and emeritus member of the board of visitors of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University and teaches courses in Energy and Environment within the school. He is chairman of Environmental Defense Fund in North Carolina, and the former chairman and current member of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, the largest sustainable agriculture program in the US a partnership of the NC Department of Agriculture, NC A&T University, and NC State University. Mr. Rich is on the board of Triangle Capital Corporation, NSDQ symbol TCAP, a business development company operating throughout the southeast; Verenium , NSDQ symbol VRNM, a cellulosic ethanol developer and enzyme production company. Mr. Rich is a 1967 graduate of Duke University.
Allan Savory
Allan Savory was born in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa (University of Natal – BSc Biology and Botany). He pursued an early career as a research biologist and game ranger in the British Colonial Service of what was then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia), and later as a farmer and game rancher in Zimbabwe. In the 1960s he made a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation and desertification of the world’s grassland ecosystems and, as a resource management consultant, worked with numerous managers across four continents to develop sustainable solutions. He served as a Member of Parliament in the latter days of Zimbabwe’s civil war and leader of the opposition to the ruling party headed by Ian Smith. Exiled in 1979 as a result of his opposition, he emigrated to the United States where he co-founded the Center for Holistic Management with his wife, Jody Butterfield and in 2009, the Savory Institute. In 1992 they founded the Africa Centre for Holistic Management near Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe whose purpose is to enhance food and water security and human livelihoods through training that utilizes livestock to restore degraded watersheds and croplands to health. Their book, Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making (Island Press, 1999) describes Savory’s effort to find workable solutions ordinary people could implement to overcome many of the problems besetting communities and businesses today. In 2003, Allan Savory received Australia’s International Banksia Award “for the person or organization doing the most for the environment on a global scale,” joining previous recipients Rachel Carson, and David Attenborough, among others.
Gus Speth
Gus Speth is the Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy at Yale where he served as Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies from 1999 to 2009. From 1993 to 1999, Dean Speth was Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the UN Development Group. Prior to his service at the UN, he was Founder and President of the World Resources Institute; Professor of Law at Georgetown University; Chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality; and Senior Attorney and Co-founder, Natural Resources Defense Council. Throughout his career, Dean Speth has provided leadership and entrepreneurial initiatives to many task forces and committees whose roles have been to combat environmental degradation, including the President’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment; the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development; and the National Commission on the Environment. Among his awards are the National Wildlife Federation’s Resources Defense Award, the Natural Resources Council of America’s Barbara Swain Award of Honor, a 1997 Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Environmental Law Institute and the League of Conservation Voters, and the Blue Planet Prize. He holds honorary degrees from Clark University, the College of the Atlantic, the Vermont Law School, Middlebury College, and the University of South Carolina. Publications include The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, Global Environmental Governance, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment, and articles in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, The Harvard Business Review, and other journals and books. Professor Speth currently serves on the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council, World Resources Institute, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Population Action International, Center for Humans and Nature, 1Sky, and Climate Central. In July 2010, Professor Speth will join the faculty of the Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont.
Joseph Stanislaw
Joseph Stanislaw is founder of the advisory firm The JAStanislaw Group, LLC, and an Independent Senior Advisor to the Energy & Resources group of Deloitte LLP. Dr. Stanislaw was a founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and was Managing Director for non-U.S. activity until he was named President and CEO. Dr. Stanislaw is an adjunct professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. He serves on the Boards of several corporations and NGOs with interests in the areas of clean, alternative, and renewable energy. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Stanislaw was a Research Fellow, lecturer in economics, and founding member of the Energy Research Group at Cambridge University. He was a Senior Economist at the International Energy Agency in Paris. Dr. Stanislaw is the co-author with Daniel Yergin of The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. Dr. Stanislaw received a B.A., cum laude, from Harvard College, a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Edinburgh, and holds an Honorary Doctorate and Professorship from Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas.
Stewart Wallis
Stewart Wallis is the Executive Director of New Economics Foundation (NEF), an independent think-and-do tank based in the UK that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being through challenging mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues. Prior to NEF, Mr. Wallis was International Director of Oxfam with responsibility for 2500 staff in 70 countries and for all Oxfam’s policy, research, development and emergency work worldwide. He was awarded the OBE for services to Oxfam in 2002. He has previously worked for the World Bank in Washington DC, focusing on industrial and financial development in East Asia. He then worked for Robinson Packaging in Derbyshire for nine years, the last five as Managing Director, leading a successful business turnaround. Mr. Wallis has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a Masters Degree in Business and Economics from the London Business School.