Luminaries

John Abele, Cofounder and Director of Boston Scientific Corporation, is a pioneer and leader in the field of “less invasive medicine.” Mr. Abele holds numerous patents and has published and lectured extensively on the technology of various medical devices and on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting health care. His major interests are science literacy for children, education, and the process by which new technology is invented, developed, and introduced to society. Current activities include Chair of the FIRST Foundation, which works with high school kids to make being science-literate cool and fun, and development of The Kingbridge Centre (www.kingbridgecentre.com) and Institute, a conferencing institution whose mission is to research, develop, and teach improved methods for interactive conferencing, including problem-solving, conflict resolution, strategic planning, and new methods for learning, as well as generally helping groups to become “collectively intelligent.”

Ray Anderson experienced a now legendary “spear in the chest” epiphany upon first reading Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce. Thirteen years and a sea change later, Interface, Inc., is approximately 40 percent to its target of “Mission Zero,” the journey no one would have imagined for the company, or the petroleum-intensive industry of carpet manufacturing, which has been forever changed by Mr. Anderson’s vision. The once captain of industry, now environmentalist, authored a book chronicling his journey, Mid-Course Correction. He is an unlikely screen hero in the 2004 Canadian documentary The Corporation, and has a master commentator role on the new Sundance series Big Ideas for a Small Planet. Mr. Anderson was named one of Elle magazine’s heroes with the Green Awards in 2007. He’s a sought after speaker and advisor on all issues eco, including a stint as co-chairman of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development.

Prior to founding Sustainable South Bronx (SSB), Majora Carter was a program director at The Point CDC where, among other projects, she spearheaded the development of the Hunts Point Riverside Park, the first waterfront park on the Hunts Point peninsula to be developed in more than sixty years. She then wrote a successful $1.25M proposal for federal funding for the South Bronx Greenway Feasibility Study — a community-led plan for a bicycle/pedestrian greenway along the South Bronx waterfront providing open space, waterfront access, and opportunities for mixed-use economic development. Recent projects include a green and cool roof demonstration project above the SSB office in the American Bank Note Building, and the B.E.S.T. ecological restoration job training and placement program. Ms. Carter is a life-long resident of Hunts Point in the South Bronx, a graduate of PS 48, IS 74, the Bronx High School of Science, Wesleyan University (BA) and New York University (MFA). She is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, and 2002 Open Society Institute Community Fellow.

Yvon Chouinard, Founder and Owner of Patagonia, Inc., began about fifty years ago by designing, manufacturing, and distributing rock-climbing equipment. His “tinkering” also produced an ice axe that became the basis for modern ice axe design. In 1964 his first mail order catalog — a one-page mimeographed sheet — was distributed and business grew slowly until 1972 when he added rugby shirts and the clothing business took off. In the late 1980s, Mr. Chouinard contemplated early retirement but decided to continue directing Patagonia’s course, in part to use the company to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. Thus, Patagonia instituted an Earth Tax, pledging one percent of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. In 2001, he cofounded One Percent For The Planet, an alliance of businesses that contribute at least one percent of their net annual sales to environmental organizations. Mr. Chouinard serves on the boards of numerous environmental groups. He was recently featured on the cover of Fortune magazine as Founder of the “Coolest Company on the Planet.”

Elected President of the United States in 1992, and again in 1996, President Clinton was the first Democratic president to be awarded a second term in six decades. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed the strongest economy in a generation and the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. President Clinton’s core values of building community, creating opportunity, and demanding responsibility resulted in unprecedented progress for America, including moving the nation from record deficits to record surpluses; the creation of more than 22 million jobs — more than any other administration; low levels of unemployment, poverty and crime; and the highest homeownership and college enrollment rates in history. His accomplishments as President include increasing investment in education, providing tax relief for working families, helping millions of Americans move from welfare to work, expanding access to technology, encouraging investment in underserved communities, protecting the environment, countering the threat of terrorism and promoting peace and strengthening democracy around the world. After leaving the White House, President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the mission to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. To achieve this, the Clinton Foundation is focused on four critical areas: health security, with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS; economic empowerment; leadership development and citizen service; and racial, ethnic and religious reconciliation.

Jesse Fink is Cofounder and Managing Director of MissionPoint Capital Partners, a private investment firm focused on financing and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy. Mr. Fink cofounded priceline.com and served as its founding CEO from inception through IPO. In 1999, he formed his family office, Marshall Street Management. His philanthropic activities are synergistic with the MissionPoint platform and are executed through the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation, which invests in catalytic initiatives through environmental NGOs and educational institutions. He also serves on Environmental Defense’s National Council and the Advisory Board of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. He is a graduate of SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, where he received a BS in environmental resource management. He earned an MBA from Syracuse University School of Management and after attending business school, worked in marketing and operations management with Citicorp and CUC International. He then joined entrepreneur Jay Walker as Chief Operating Officer of Walker Digital Inc, an Intellectual Property Laboratory, which incubated priceline.com.

Thomas L. Friedman, a world-renowned author and journalist, joined The New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter specializing in OPEC- and oil-related news, and later served as the chief diplomatic, chief White House, and international economics correspondent. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he has traveled hundreds of thousands of miles reporting on the Middle East, the end of the cold war, U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, international economics, and the worldwide impact of terrorism. His foreign affairs column, which appears twice a week in the Times, is syndicated to seven hundred other newspapers worldwide. Mr. Friedman is the author of the award-winning books From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999), Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11, and The World Is Flat. He graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a degree in Mediterranean studies and received a master’s degree in modern Middle East studies from Oxford.

Ashraf Ghani is currently Chairman of ISE. As Adviser to the UN Secretary General, he advised on the Bonn Agreement for Afghanistan. While serving as Afghanistan’s Finance Minister, Dr. Ghani instituted a series of successful reforms throughout the country, including reform of the Treasury, Customs, Budget, and the Currency. He prepared Afghanistan’s first National Development Framework as well as Securing Afghanistan’s Future, a $28-billion reconstruction program for the country. As Chancellor of Kabul University, he instituted a style of participatory governance to enlist students in managing the university’s transformation. Dr. Ghani sits on the advisory boards of a number of organizations that support the reform of global institutions, including the UN’s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, IDEA, the Brookings Institution’s project on global insecurity, the Atlantic Council, and the World Justice Project of the American Bar Association. He is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Hal Harvey is the Environment Program Director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. From 1990 through 2001, Mr. Harvey served as Founder and President of the Energy Foundation, a joint initiative of six large U.S. Foundations. Mr. Harvey has served on energy panels appointed by Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton, has published one book and dozens of articles on energy and national security issues, and speaks widely on energy topics. He is President of the Board of Directors of the New-Land Foundation, and Chairman of the Board of MB Financial Corporation, an $8-billion Chicago bank holding company. Earlier in his career, he designed and built solar homes. In 2005, Mr. Harvey served as Rhodes Chair and Lecturer in Public Policy at Arizona State University.  Mr. Harvey has BS and MS degrees in engineering, specializing in energy planning, from Stanford University.

Bill Joy is currently a Limited Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer where he helps entrepreneurs advance the Internet, develop wireless innovations, and find new ways of using large-scale computing to solve the most difficult problems. He also helps entrepreneurs who have discoveries and inventions that can solve energy and resource problems, and assists them in applying 21st century advances in physics, chemistry, and the natural sciences to help create abundance. Formerly Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, Mr. Joy led Sun’s technical strategy from the founding of the company in 1982 until September 2003. While at Sun, Mr. Joy was a key designer of Sun technologies including Solaris, SPARC, chip architectures and pipelines, and Java. In 1995 he installed the first citywide WiFi network. He has more than 40 patents issued or in progress. Before co-founding Sun, Mr. Joy designed and wrote Berkeley UNIX — the first open source operating system with built-in TCP/IP, making it the backbone of the Internet.

Dean Kamen is an inventor, entrepreneur, and a tireless advocate for science and technology. He is the Founder of DEKA Research & Development Corporation, where he develops internally generated inventions and provides research and development for major corporate clients. He holds more than 440 U.S. and foreign patents for innovative devices that have expanded the frontiers of health care worldwide. Some of his notable inventions include the first wearable insulin pump for diabetics, the HomeChoice™ portable peritoneal dialysis machine, the INDEPENDENCE® IBOT® Mobility System, and the Segway® Human Transporter. Among Mr. Kamen’s proudest accomplishments is founding FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation to understand, use, and enjoy science and technology. Mr. Kamen was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2000, the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2002, is a member of the National Academy of Engineers, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2005.

Clare Lockhart is Cofounder and CEO of the Institute for State Effectiveness, an organization established in 2005 to rethink the role of the state in our era of globalization and technological change. Between 2001 and 2005 she worked in Afghanistan as Adviser to the United Nations on the Bonn Agreement, and in Kabul as Chief Adviser to the Ministry of Finance. Previously, she worked at the World Bank managing a program on institutions and as a Barrister in the United Kingdom. Ms. Lockhart has published many articles on state-building, and is the coauthor, with Dr Ghani, of the forthcoming book The Framework. She has degrees in history, public administration, and law.

Christine Loh is Founder and CEO of Civic Exchange, an independent, non-profit policy think tank. Her background in law, business, politics, and the media contributes to her role as a leading voice in public policy in Hong Kong. Ms. Loh spent fourteen years in the commercial world, holding top regional posts in commodities trading at Philipp Brothers and Phibro Energy — the physical commodities trading arms of U.S. multinational Salomon, Inc. (now Citicorp) — before joining a Hong Kong company (CIM Co. Ltd.) to head their special projects division between 1992 and 1994. Appointed to the Hong Kong Legislative Council (“LegCo”) in 1992, she was a popular politician until 2000 when she chose not to seek re-election in order to found Civic Exchange. Her legislative success includes sponsoring the historic Protection of the Harbour Ordinance. The Economist described her as “perhaps LegCo’s most gifted member.” Apart from her professional and political careers, Ms Loh has been a long-time advocate of democracy, human rights, urban planning, and environmental protection activities.

Amory Lovins, a MacArthur Fellow and consultant physicist, has advised the energy and other industries for 34 years as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. His work in 50-plus countries has been recognized by the Blue Planet, “Alternative Nobel,” Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes; the Benjamin Franklin, and Happold Medals; nine honorary doctorates; honorary membership in the American Institute of Architects; and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, and World Technology Awards. Mr. Lovins advises industries and governments worldwide, and has briefed 19 heads of state. He cofounded RMI, whose pathfinding work on advanced resource productivity and innovative business strategies is synthesized in Natural Capitalism (www.naturalcapitalism.com). More than 80 Fortune 500 firms have used or invited RMI’s consultancy. RMI earns most of its revenue from such programmatic enterprise, including the superefficient redesign of $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors. His 29th book, now being implemented in the private sector, is Winning the Oil Endgame (www.oilendgame.com).

James Murdoch was appointed as a Director of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) in February 2003 and named Chief Executive Officer in November 2003. Prior to his appointment as CEO, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Star Group Limited. Mr. Murdoch, who attended Harvard University, serves on the Board of Yankee Global Enterprises, the Board of Trustees of the Harvard Lampoon, and the Leadership Council of The Climate Group. “It would be hard to beat the 25 years of fresh and challenging thinking on environmental issues that RMI has produced,” he noted recently. “But I am sure that the next quarter century has every chance of being even better — at a time when the world needs it even more.”

Julia Novy-Hildesley is Executive Director of The Lemelson Foundation (TLF). Founded by Jerome Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific inventors, TLF’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 basic human needs. To date the Foundation has donated or committed more than $130 million in support of its mission. Ms. Novy-Hildesley has worked for the World Wildlife Fund, consulted to the World Bank, USAID, and the UK Department for International Development. She has conducted research in Tanzania, Bolivia, French Polynesia, and Madagascar. Both a Fulbright and Marshall Scholar, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and earned a master’s degree in international development from Sussex University. Ms. Novy-Hildesley 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.

Governor George E. Pataki is the Founder and Chairman of Pataki-Cahill Group, a consulting firm concentrating on climate change, energy, and the environment and Counsel at Chadbourne and Parke, LLP. Prior to forming the Pataki-Cahill Group, he served three terms as the 53rd governor of New York State (1995–2006). Widely know for his protection of over one million acres of open space, Governor Pataki balanced his pro-business philosophy with cutting-edge policies in the renewable energy and environmental fields. He led the establishment of the first mandatory cap-and-trade carbon initiative (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)), which now includes ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. The Governor implemented the first integrated strategy for creating clean, renewable transportation networks utilizing alternative fuels, instituted the nation’s first green-building tax credit incentive program, introduced net metering to encourage alternative energy production in homes, and ensured that the redeveloped World Trade Center site will be a global example of green building design.

Michael Potts, Chief Executive Officer of Rocky Mountain Institute, is a former Managing Partner with Galway Investments, an investment firm focused on alternative public offering strategies for small-cap and mid-cap companies, and a consultant. Prior to Galway, he served as CEO for American Fundware and Vice President of Public Sector Solutions at Intuit. His 25 years of experience in management and high-tech sales and marketing began with IBM, BancTec, Recognition International, and American Fundware. Mr. Potts currently serves on RMI’s Board of Trustees, as well as the boards of the Business School at the University of Colorado in Denver, Denver’s Curious Theater, and Kripalu Center, the nation’s largest spiritual retreat center.

Jonathan F.P. Rose is President of Jonathan Rose Companies LLC, an award-winning multidisciplinary real estate firm whose mission is to repair the fabric of communities. All of the firm’s work uses environmentally responsible development strategies in choosing sites, designing building systems, and selecting materials. Mr. Rose is a prominent thinker and activist in the Smart Growth and green building movements, bringing together innovative solutions to planning, community development, finance, culture, and land preservation. He serves on the Boards of the Enterprise Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the American Museum of Natural History, the Urban Land Institute, and the Garrison Institute, among others. In 2007, his team received the Urban Land Institute’s Award for Excellence for Highlands’ Garden Village in Denver.

Jeff Seabright is Vice President for Environment and Water at The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia. He has held several positions in government and business, including as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department and as Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senators Timothy E. Wirth and John D. Rockefeller IV. In 1993, Mr. Seabright joined the U.S. Agency for International Development, later serving as Director of the Office of Energy, Environment, and Technology. He moved to the White House in 1999 as Executive Director of the Climate Change Task Force and later joined Texaco as Vice President for Policy Planning. He earned a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics, and began his professional career with Booz Allen Hamilton. He serves on the Boards of the American Council for Renewable Energy, the Keystone Center, Conservation International — International Leadership Council, World Environment Center, the Georgia Conservancy, and the Nature Conservancy.

Son of Wal-Mart Founder Sam Walton, Rob Walton is Wal-Mart’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, a position he has held since 1992. Since joining Wal-Mart in 1969, Mr. Walton has served as Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel, and Vice Chairman. Prior to his employment at Wal-Mart, he was in private law practice as a partner with the law firm of Conner & Winters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mr. Walton attended Wooster College and graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1966 with a BS in business administration. He received a juris doctor degree in 1969 from the Columbia University School of Law in New York. Mr. Walton is also a trustee at Wooster College, a director of Conservation International, and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

Linton Wells II serves as the Force Transformation Chair and Distinguished Research Professor at the National Defense University. From 1998 to 2007 he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in Networks and Information Integration (NII) and its predecessor, Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I). From 1991 to 1998, Dr. Wells was in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), most recently as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Policy Support). During his twenty-six years of naval service, Dr. Wells served on a variety of surface ships, and commanded a destroyer squadron and a guided missile destroyer. In addition, he acquired a wide range of experience in operations analysis; Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Middle East affairs; C3I; and special access program oversight. He has learned a great deal from Rocky Mountain Institute over the years about energy issues, natural capitalism, alternative vehicle designs, and sustainability. Dr. Wells used RMI’s Brittle Power when he began working on critical infrastructure protection issues in the 1980s.

Andrew Winston, founder of Winston Eco-Strategies, helps leading companies use environmental thinking to drive growth. Mr. Winston is a nationally recognized speaker and writer on green business issues. He is coauthor of the bestseller Green to Gold, which highlights what works — and what doesn't — when companies go green. Mr. Winston's early career included advising companies on corporate strategy while at Boston Consulting Group and management positions in strategy and marketing at Time Warner and MTV. He received his BA in economics from Princeton, an MBA from Columbia, and a master's degree in environmental management from Yale.

Jim Woolsey is Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton. He served in the U.S. Government during two Republican and two Democratic administrations. Most recently he served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995. Mr. Woolsey chairs the Advisory Boards of the Clean Fuels Foundation and the New Uses Council, and serves on the National Commission on Energy Policy. He has chaired the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution, was a trustee of Stanford University, and served on The National Commission on Terrorism, 1999–2000. Mr. Woolsey is a managing director of the Homeland Security Fund of Paladin Capital Group and a member of VantagePoint Management, Inc.’s Cleantech Advisory Council. He has served on the boards of several corporations and national nonprofit organizations, and with five presidential commissions. Mr. Woolsey received his BA from Stanford, MA from Oxford (Rhodes Scholar 1963–1965), and LLB from Yale Law School.