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Stories from the front lines of business and sustainability innovation.
Episodes
Friday Dec 02, 2022
Friday Dec 02, 2022
Forging A New Way to Build Companies
A Conversation with Oliver Libby, Co-Founder & Managing Director of H/L Ventures
Oliver B. Libby is co-founding Managing Partner of H/L Ventures. Based in New York City and founded in 2009, H/L Ventures is dedicated to building high-growth businesses that add value to society by protecting and promoting people and the planet, with a strong preference for diverse founding teams. H/L Ventures’ proprietary Daily Active Engagement model blends the best of venture studio and investment firm on one platform to help grow companies from early stage to exit in a holistic approach to company building.
Bard MBA’s Hector Aguirre speaks with Oliver for this episode of the Impact Report.
Friday Nov 18, 2022
Friday Nov 18, 2022
Gear for Good: A Conversation with Annie Agle, Senior Director of Impact & Sustainability at Cotapaxi
Cotopaxi is a carbon-neutral outdoor gear brand founded to create sustainably designed products that fight extreme poverty, inspire adventure, and move people to do good.
As a certified B Corporation, they believe in using the power of business as a force for social, environmental, and economic good. Their motto, Gear for Good, touches every aspect of their company.
Cotopaxi is committed to making all of their gear using repurposed, recycled, or responsible materials by 2025.
They allocate a minimum of 1% of annual revenue to the Cotopaxi Foundation which awards grants to outstanding nonprofit partners carefully selected for their track records at improving the human condition and alleviating poverty. In 2021, they aided over 1 million people in extreme poverty through targeted grants to outstanding organizations with proven methodologies. Cotopaxi is a Bcorp, 1% for the Planet member, The Climate Pledge signatory and certified Climate Neutral.
In her role as Senior Director of Sustainability and Impact, Annie steers Cotopaxi’s giving, corporate responsibility, and sustainability. She oversees Cotopaxi's reporting and certifications (GRI, B Corp, Climate Neutral) as well as its ESG strategy. Alongside her team of lion-hearted llamas, Annie aims to ensure that every aspect of Cotopaxi’s brand is leveraged to generate a positive benefit to society and the communities the company touches. She is a graduate of Columbia University and graduate student at Cambridge University. In her spare time, Annie spends as much time as possible outside and traveling.
Katie Boyle, Bard MBA’s Director of Marketing and Enrollment, speaks with Annie for this episode of the Impact Report.
Friday Nov 04, 2022
Friday Nov 04, 2022
Advancing Careers By Redefining Professionalism
A Conversation with Pabel Ramirez, Founder of Plurawl
As an Afro-Latino living & working in NYC, Pabel Martinez would often repress parts of his identity inside & outside of work in an effort to feel more included and less judged.
Formerly a marketing and media executive, Pabel launched PLURAWL to begin creating an inclusive community that’s dedicated to changing the narrative and challenging the stereotypes in the Latinx Community.
Bard MBA’s Hector Aguirre speaks with Pabel for this episode of the Impact Report.
Monday Oct 31, 2022
Monday Oct 31, 2022
Bio-Design, Seaweed & Nature-Based Solutions:
A Conversation with Roger Bason – CEO and Founder of Atlantic Ocean Aquaculture (AOA)
The goal of Atlantic Ocean Aquaculture (AOA) is scaling production to reduce Ag sector GHGs in the US and abroad. CEO, Roger Bason was trained in ocean science at Colgate University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This included a research cruise to the Galapagos Islands and early seabed measurements of the East Pacific Rise. He is a certified Energy Engineer with experience in ocean energy development in the US and internationally that deployed the first US tidal energy system in New York City’s East River and an innovative wave energy system in Bermuda in cooperation with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science.
Bason was part of an expert team that initiated coral reef recovery efforts in the Republic of the Marshall Islands using innovative BioRock technology in 2010. He developed and directed the US AmeriCorps program on the Island of Hawaii with a focus on sustainable development including projects in reforestation, aquaculture, solar energy and community food forests.
For the past five years Roger has focused on climate action, installing several offshore seaweed farms and wild seaweed harvests in New England. Present work focuses on the harvest of Asparagopsis in Europe, a red seaweed that reduces methane in cattle when used as a feed supplement.
Bard MBA’s Hung Tran speaks with Roger for this episode of the Impact Report.
Friday Oct 14, 2022
Friday Oct 14, 2022
A NEW MODEL FOR HOME OWNERSHIP: Yifan Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Loftium
Yifan Zhang is the CEO & Cofounder of Loftium, a Norwest and Threshold-backed startup that creates affordable homeownership in expensive cities through management of an onsite Airbnb. Loftium and Yifan’s own experience hosting has been featured in The New York Times, and Yifan was named in Entrepreneur’s “50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs”. Yifan served on former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s Innovation Advisory Council and currently serves on Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's One Seattle Civic Partnership. She was previously named Forbes “30 under 30” as the founding CEO of top mobile fitness startup GymPact. She is a Techstars alum and current mentor. Yifan graduated magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard University.
Loftium is re-defining home ownership by providing buyers a home with built-in savings for a down payment. Loftium makes the American dream of homeownership possible for people that may have ordinarily been left out by buying dream homes. Host to Own clients paying Loftium 1% of their home price while generating income from hosting AirBNB guests in their homes. Learn more here.
For this episode of the Impact Report Series Producer, Katie Ellman, speaks with Yifan about how Loftium is creating next-generation affordable housing in cities around the United States.
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Sustainability Grows on the Vine: A Conversation with Steve Lohr of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines
J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines is a winery headquartered in San Jose, California, with almost 4,000 acres of estate vineyards in Paso Robles, Monterey County and the Napa Valley. J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines was named the 2020 recipient of the Green Medal Leader Award. The annual California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Awards provide recognition to vineyards and wineries who are standard-bearers in implementing the three “E’s” of sustainability: environment, economic, and social equity.
As the President and CEO of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, Steve Lohr combines a big picture view of the wine industry with a hands-on work ethic. In this role, Steve is responsible for the overall management and strategic planning of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, with a particular focus on sales and finance.
For this episode of the Impact Report, Bard MBA's Rachel Terry speaks with Steve about how J. Lohr cultivates a culture of sustainability for its employees, processes and the land on which they grow their products.
Friday May 20, 2022
Friday May 20, 2022
Kind Careerism Over Toxic Professionalism
Lauren Goldberg — Career Strategist, Lauren Goldberg Coaching
Lauren Goldberg is Career Strategist for purpose-driven professionals, helping them gain tools for self-assurance, self-compassion, and self-advocacy. She is an entrepreneur with 7 years experience consulting and working in-house to improve organizational culture and employee experience. Rooted in organizational psychology, she's developed a body of work to help shift the way people see themselves and their career. This shift, called Kind Careerism, helps people combat the pressures of Toxic Professionalism they've been taught. She teaches people tools to balance being kind to themselves and others while challenging the unkind.
As a woman with partially deafness and neurodivergence, she helps people overcome internalized ableism and recognize what makes them different as a strength. Coaching social impact and sustainability professionals to see themselves and do work differently is not only life-changing for individuals, but she believes is critical for transforming beyond the status quo to a healthier, more socially just world.
Series Producer, Katie Ellman speaks with Lauren for this episode of the Impact Report.
Friday May 13, 2022
Friday May 13, 2022
Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas
David Lidsky is the interim editor-in-chief of Fast Company. An 18-year veteran of Fast Company, Lidsky most recently served as deputy editor, where he helped steer its overall editorial direction, with an emphasis on finding, commissioning, and editing longform narrative feature stories that appear in print and on digital platforms. In addition, he helped oversee fastcompany.com’s Creativity channel for nearly three years, which covers the entertainment business, advertising, and pop culture. He was part of the leadership team that won Magazine of the Year in 2014 from the American Society of Magazine Editors, and stories he’s edited have won Deadline Club, New York Press Club, and James Beard awards. He runs Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies franchise, and coauthored the compilation book Fast Company’s Greatest Hits. Previously, Lidsky was an editor at FSB: Fortune Small Business and PC Magazine.
Fast Company recently released their highly anticipated “World Changing Ideas Awards”: an award-winning list uncovering companies with big, innovative ideas (in their infancy) that forecasts the future of how we’ll work, eat, travel, build, create policy and more.
Bard MBA’s Katie Boyle, Director of Marketing & Enrollment speaks with David for this episode of the Impact Report.
Friday May 06, 2022
Friday May 06, 2022
Growing the Future Through Smart Digital Technology:
Molly Brown, Ph.D. Chief Science Officer, 6th Grain
Dr. Brown has been a Research Scientist at the University of Maryland since 2015, a job she took after leaving NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Molly has two decades of experience in interdisciplinary research using satellite remote sensing data and models with socio-economic and demographic information to better understand food security and agriculture drivers.
6th Grain believes that the direct application of digital technology and science is key to establishing profitable and productive agriculture and food systems. They are a digital agriculture technology company which focuses on transforming farmer-provided data into information that can be used to increase success and uptake in crop protection services, credit provision, and high yielding seeds.
Machine learning, modeling, and sophisticated, composite data are at the heart of their technology platform and sets 6th Grain apart from the competition. By providing services both to the small farmer and large agribusiness, 6th Grain’s digital agriculture solutions delivers high quality, remote sensing and weather-based information to millions of farmers across the world.
Bard MBA's Camila Leal speaks with Molly for this episode of The Impact Report.
Friday Apr 22, 2022
Friday Apr 22, 2022
The Clear Choice for Solar: A Conversation with Veeral Hardev of Ubiquitous Energy
Veeral Hardev is VP of Strategy at Ubiquitous Energy. Hardev has over a decade of experience commercializing novel nano-materials products for the electronics industry. This includes his time at Nanosys, Inc. where he led materials and business development, and product management. Hardev holds an MBA from the Berkeley Haas School of Business, and bachelor’s degrees in Materials Science and Economics from UCLA.
Ubiquitous Energy is the world leading transparent solar technology dramatically reduces the carbon footprint of buildings by converting light into electricity using semiconducting materials all while maintaining visible transparency.
Bard MBA’s Hannah Hintz speaks with Verral for this episode of The Impact Report.