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Keynote Speakers

Tom Szaky
CEO, TerraCycle, Inc.

Tom Szaky is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of TerraCycle, Inc., producer of the world's first products made from and packaged in waste. TerraCycle has been named the producer of most eco-friendly brands in America, has received the Home Depot Environmental stewardship award twice, been featured in Wal-Mart's sustainability report and been repeatedly named the ultimate eco-friendly brand.

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1982, Mr. Szaky emigrated from Hungary to Holland. In 1989 he and his family emigrated again from Holland to Canada. At 14 he started his first business, a web design company called Flyte Design. While in high school, Mr. Szaky cycled solo from Toronto to Vancouver to raise funds for the environmental organization Ontario Naturalists, setting a national speed record of 21 days for such a bike ride. Mr. Szaky came to the United States in 2001 to attend Princeton University. In 2002, Mr. Szaky took a leave of absence to dedicate himself full-time to starting TerraCycle, beginning as a 2 man outfit in the crowded basement of an old office building.

Today TerraCycle is the leader in upcycling, with sponsored waste partnerships with America's biggest brands, ranging from Capri Sun to Oreo to Stonyfield Yogurt, and is distributed in America's biggest retailers ranging from Wal-Mart to Target to Home Depot. TerraCycle has been featured in virtually every major media outlet from "60 Minutes" to the Wall Street Journal (5 times). TerraCycle is on its way to help eliminate the idea of waste on a grand scale all while sustaining sales growth of over 100% per year for the past five years!

John Ehrenfeld
Executive Director, International Society for Industrial Ecology
Author, Sustainability by Design

Read John’s blog post about the conference.

In his most recent book, Sustainability by Design, Dr. Ehrenfeld posits that reducing unsustainability, although critical, will not create sustainability. The book is founded upon this new definition: sustainability is the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth forever. There are obstacles to this hopeful vision, however, and overcoming them will require us to transform our behavior, both individually and collectively. The book has been heralded as “one of the most important books of the 21st century.”

Dr. Ehrenfeld currently serves as Executive Director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. He retired in 2000 as the Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment, an interdisciplinary educational, research, and policy program. He holds a post as Senior Research Scholar at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He continues to teach, do research, and write.

His current projects focus on sustainability and industrial ecology. In October 1999, the World Resources Institute honored him with a lifetime achievement award for his academic accomplishments in the field of business and environment. He received the Founders Award for Distinguished Service from the Academy of Management’s Organization and Natural Environment Division in August 2000.

He spent part of the 1998-1999 academic year at the Technical University of Lisbon as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar and was Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Delft during the 2000-2001 academic year. He was elected in 2005 to the Board of Trustees of the Society for Organizational Learning. He is an editor of the Journal of Industrial Ecology. He holds a B. S. and Sc. D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, and is author or co-author of over 200 papers, books, reports, and other publications. He spends his summers on the Maine Coast and is an avid saltwater fly fisherman.

Jason Saul
President, Mission Measurement

Jason Saul is a leading authority on measurement and strategy in the social sector.  He has advised some of the world’s leading corporations and nonprofits, including McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, Levi Strauss & Co., Easter Seals, American Red Cross, the Humane Society of the U.S. and the Smithsonian.  He is the Founder and CEO of Mission Measurement, LLC.  In 1994, Saul co-founded the Center for What Works, a nonprofit organization focused on benchmarking. Saul began his career as an attorney, most recently at Mayer Brown in Chicago where he represented government and nonprofit clients in public finance transactions.

Saul is a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and serves on the faculty of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship. He has written and spoken extensively on the topics of measuring social impact, corporate social strategy, education philanthropy and nonprofit management.  Saul is the author of Benchmarking for Nonprofits: How to Manage, Measure and Improve Performance, awarded Best Business Book of the Year in 2005 by the Independent Publishers Association.

Saul holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a B.A. in Government and French Literature from Cornell University. Saul was awarded the Harry S. Truman Scholarship for leadership and public service and is a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow.  In 2008, Saul was recognized as one of Crain’s Chicago Business “40 under 40” emerging business leaders.