2010 Speakers

8th Annual BALLE Business Conference

May 21-23, 2010 ♦ Charleston, SC

Thanks to everyone who joined us in Charleston for an invigorating 3 days!

Mainstage Speakers

 
Annie Leonard
 Lily Yeh
David Orr
 Eric Henry Baye Adolfo-Wilson Jamee Haley
Marjorie Kelly Lyle Estill Judy Wicks Jamila Payne Michael Shuman Elissa Sangalli Hillary
Don Shaffer Michelle Long Ben Burkett Vicki Pozzebon Woody Tasch Sandy Wiggins
Jennifer Buffet Matt Bauer April Harrington Joel Solomon David Korten Guillermo Quiroga
Kimber Lanning Mayor Joseph Riley Merrian Fuller India Pierce Lee Leslie Christian Mark Albion

 

A Post Consumerist Society and Local Living Economies


Annie Leonard
Annie is currently the Director of The Story of Stuff Project, created around her web-based film The Story of Stuff, about the consequences of our consumer culture, which has been seen by millions of people all over the world. Prior to this, Annie coordinated the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, a funder collaborative seeking to address the hidden environmental and social impacts of current systems of making, using and throwing away all the stuff of daily life. Annie has spent nearly two decades investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues. She has traveled to 40 countries, visiting literally hundreds of factories where our stuff is made and dumps where our stuff is dumped.

 

Lighting the Way to a New Economy


Marjorie Kelly
Marjorie Kelly is with the Tellus Institute in Boston, where she co-founded Corporation 20/20, an initiative to envision and advocate enterprise designs integrating social, environmental, and financial aims. She was co-founder and for 20 years publisher of Business Ethics magazine, and is author of The Divine Right of Capital (Berrett-Koehler, 2001), named one of the Best Business Books of the Year by Library Journal. She is at work on a new book on alternative enterprise design.

David Korten
David Korten is co-founder and board chair of YES! magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, president of the People-Centered Development Forum, and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). His books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World.
 

Worker Ownership & Green Jobs: A Community-Owned Job Creation Strategy in Cleveland, Ohio


India Pierce Lee
India Pierce Lee, Program Director for Neighborhoods, Housing and Community Development at the Cleveland Foundation, has 22 years of experience in the community development field. She holds a Master of Science in Social Administration from Case Western Reserve University. In 2009, she completed the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. India, help’s lead the foundation's Greater University Circle Initiative, a comprehensive neighborhood strategy with a focus on sustainability, community wealth and economic inclusion.
 

Bringing Feminine Energy into our Economy: A Conversation with Jennifer Buffett and Judy Wicks


Jennifer Buffett
Jennifer Buffett is Co-Chair and President of the NoVo Foundation (Latin NoVo: change, alter, invent), a philanthropic organization focused primarily on the empowerment of women and girls. In December 2009, Jennifer and her husband Peter Buffett were named among Barron’s top 25 most effective Philanthropists. In September 2008, Jennifer and Peter received the Clinton Global Citizen Award for their “visionary leadership and sustainable, scalable work in solving pressing global challenges.” NoVo Foundation’s approach is to invest in long-term strategic initiatives that lead to systemic and social change rather than short-term traditional granting.

Judy Wicks
Judy Wicks founded the White Dog Café on the first floor of her house in 1983, and grew it into a Philadelphia landmark known for its leadership in the local food movement. In 2001, she founded the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and co-founded the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies that same year. In 2009, she sold the White Dog through a unique agreement that preserves local, independent ownership and maintains sustainable business practices.

Moderator, Bob Dandrew
Bob Dandrew is Director of the Local Economies Project at The New World Foundation. His work is centered on the exploration and promotion of sustainable communities. As a grant maker, he has collaborated with numerous organizations working to advance social justice, environmental stewardship, and progressive education. Before joining New World, Bob was executive director of the NoVo Foundation, a philanthropic organization funded by investor Warren Buffett and dedicated to education and the empowerment of women and girls. Bob also served as East Coast Director for RSF Social Finance (formerly the Rudolf Steiner Foundation), which focuses on community investing and philanthropic services. Bob’s professional career began as a grant seeker for educational nonprofits.
 

Local Living Economy Manufacturing Supply Chains:  Eric Henry, Ronnie Burleson, Brian Morell


Eric Henry
Eric Henry, president of TS Designs, is one-half of the dynamic duo that owns TSD. Alongside his business partner and TSD CEO Tom Sineath, Eric has been in the screenprinting business for over 30 years. The foremost public face of TSD, his boundless enthusiasm and energy won him the Sustainability Champion award from Sustainable North Carolina in 2009.
Outside of TS Designs, Eric devotes much of his time volunteer organizations, serving on the boards of several community associations. He founded the Burlington Biodiesel Co-op and his latest project is working to establish Company Shops Market in downtown Burlington, a local co-op grocery whose goal is to reconnect local agriculture to Alamance County.
 

Network Innovation Spotlight: Policy Changes to Support Local Living Economies


Kimber Lanning
Kimber Lanning is an entrepreneur, arts advocate and community activist who works to cultivate strong, vibrant communities and inspire a higher quality of life throughout Arizona. Lanning is actively involved in fostering cultural diversity, economic self-reliance, regional planning, and responsible growth. In 2003, Lanning founded Local First Arizona, and has secured both a 501c6 and 501c3 for the organization. She is Executive Director of both organizations and oversees their 1800 business members statewide.
 

Local Living Economy Business Plans, Hosted by Organic Valley


Jamila Payne
Board member of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and president of Milla by Mail, Jamila has had a passion for fashion and entrepreneurship since she was a little girl. She honed her entrepreneurial skills with the National Foundation for Entrepreneurship, and went on to work for fashion houses such as FUBU, Anthropologie, and Mimi Maternity. As the consulting director of business services for the National Association of Sustainable Designers, she develops programs that assist nearly 2,000 entrepreneurs a year.

Vicki Pozzebon
Vicki Pozzebon is the Executive Director of the Santa Fe Alliance.  Her background includes arts administration, nonprofit development, marketing and public relations.  Honors include Young Careerist ’06, and 40 under Forty Business Executive by NM Business Weekly.  In 2008 Vicki was appointed to the City Business and Quality of Life Committee by Mayor Coss.  Board positions include Southwestern College, Capital City Business & Professional Women, American Independent Business Alliance, Santa Fe SBDC, Capulin Business Cooperative.

Dr. Mark Albion 
Dr. Albion was a student and professor at Harvard for 20 years, after which he co-founded seven organizations, including Net Impact. Most recently, he served in the Office of the President at Babson College and is on several boards, including BGI. He has made over 600 speaking visits to business schools and written seven books. His 2009 animated short, "The Good Life Parable," won the sustainability award at four film festivals. In April, Dr. Albion was the first social entrepreneur to receive the Distinguished National Entrepreneur Of the Year award.

 

Sustainable Communities


Sandy Wiggins
Sandy is founder and principal of Consilience, LLC, a national consultancy with a mission to build environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable communities. During his three-decade career in the real estate industry, he has led the development, design, and construction of projects totaling more than a billion dollars. In 2001, he cofounded the Philadelphia-based Delaware Valley Green Building Council. He is a director and immediate past chair of both the U.S. Green Building Council and the Green Building Certification Institute. He is also chair of the newly formed e3bank, a triple-bottom-line bank with a mission to facilitate the transition to a green economy.

David Orr  
David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Assistant to the President of Oberlin College and a James Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont. He has served as a trustee for many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Aldo Leopold Foundation, and the Bioneers. David has recently engaged in a two-year $2.2 million collaborative project to define a 100 days climate action plan for the Obama administration. He is also active in efforts to stop mountaintop removal in Appalachia and develop a new economy based on ecological restoration and wind energy. He is the author of Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford University Press, 2009).
 

Community Food & Fuels Entrepreneurship


April Harrington
April Harrington founded Earth Elements in 1998, starting as an organic farm and has grown into a processor specializing in the preservation and value adding of local foods, utilizing seconds and surplus from Oklahoma farmers. For the last three years she has volunteered as Treasurer for the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, establishing accounting procedures and policies for the 3000+ membership.  Her mission is to aid the establishment of an alternative “LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM”.

Ben Burkett
Ben is a fourth generation farmer, presently operating 255 acres in Petal, Mississippi. He is president of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), and a cooperative-marketing-specialist member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund. He is a member and former manager for 16 years of his local coop, the Indian Springs Farmers Association. Ben represents NFFC on the Via Campesina Food Sovereignty Commission and is a board member of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC).

Lyle Estill
Lyle Estill is a traveling salesman who accidentally became an environmentalist, stumbled into being an activist, and went on to become what some refer to as a social entrepreneur. He has founded companies, grown enterprises as an intrapreneur, and has traveled successfully through the business world for several decades.
Although he has written epistles, treatises, poetry, fiction, and essays he is best known as the publisher of Energy Blog, and for his newspaper columns, and books. He is the author of Small is Possible; Life in a Local Economy, and Biodiesel Power; the passion, people, and politics of the next renewable fuel. His third book, Industrial Evolution, is scheduled to launch in the spring of 2011.

Moderator, Michael Shuman
BALLE Research & Economic Development Director, Michael holds an A.B. with distinction in economics and international relations from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. An economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, Michael has authored, coauthored, or edited seven books, including The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006) and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age (Free Press, 1998). The Small-Mart Revolution was awarded a bronze medal for best business book by the Independent Publishers' Association.
 

Arts as Economic Renewal


Lily Yeh
Lily Yeh is an internationally celebrated artist whose work has taken her to communities throughout the world. As founder and executive director of the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia from 1968 to 2004, she helped create a national model of community building through the arts. In 2004, Yeh pursued her work internationally, founding Barefoot Artists, Inc., to bring the transformative power of art to impoverished communities around the globe through participatory, multifaceted projects that foster community empowerment, improve the physical environment, promote economic development and preserve indigenous art and culture. (www.barefootartists.org)
 

Local Exchange: The Future of Social Finance


Woody Tasch
Woody Tasch is Chairman and President of Slow Money, a 501(c)3 non-profit formed in 2008 to catalyze the flow of investment capital to small food enterprises and to promote new principles of fiduciary responsibility to support sustainable agriculture and the emergence of a restorative economy. Tasch is Chairman Emeritus of Investors' Circle, a nonprofit network of investors that has facilitated the flow of $130 million to 200 sustainability minded, early stage companies and venture funds. He is an experienced venture-capital investor and entrepreneur, he has served on numerous for-profit and non-profit boards, and was founding chairman of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, which supports venture investing in economically disadvantaged regions. His new book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money is available at www.chelseagreen.com.

Leslie Christian
Leslie is Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Portfolio 21 Investments, a pioneer in the field of social and environmental investing since 1982. Leslie has more than 35 years of experience in the investment field, including nine years in New York as a Director with Salomon Brothers Inc. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and her MBA in Finance from the University of California, Berkeley. Leslie is Chair of the Board of Upstream 21 Corporation and Portfolio 21 Investments and serves on the RSF Social Finance Investment Advisory Committee.

Joel Solomon
Joel Solomon is Chairman for Renewal2 and President and CEO of Renewal
Partners. Based in Vancouver, BC, Renewal2 builds upon Renewal Partners'
15 years of high impact investment experience and has delivered superior
financial returns by investing in some of North America's leading
environmental and social mission businesses. Joel was instrumental in
the development of Renewal Partners and the Endswell Foundation and has
led them since their inception in 1994. Renewal Partners has invested in
over 75 companies that share its commitment to socially responsible
growth.

Bernie Mazyck
Bernie Mazyck is President and CEO of the South Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations, the state’s trade association for CDCs and grassroots economic development organizations. Bernie has also served on staff for the N.E.W. (Neighborhoods Energized to Win) Fund, established to empower low-income residents to effect change in their own community through neighborhood organizations. Bernie is the former Vice President of Community Development of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce and a former program manager in the Employment and Training Department of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2004, Bernie received the Order of the Silver Crescent from Governor Mark Sanford. The Order is the highest honor given to a citizen of South Carolina for community service.

Don Shaffer, Moderator
Don Shaffer is President & CEO of RSF Social Finance. Prior to joining RSF, Don served as Executive Director of BALLE, and currently serves on its Board of Directors. Don has also held senior management positions building social mission companies such as Comet Skateboards, a designer and manufacturer of products committed to local and sustainable business practices. He has led sales, marketing, and general-operations teams in both the education and software sectors. Don served as Interim Executive Director of Investors’ Circle, a network of angel investors, venture capitalists, foundations, and family offices who invest private capital into companies addressing social and environmental issues.