Chris Dearnley is the co-founder of Pura Vida Coffee. He has lived in Costa Rica for over 16 years. He coordinates the Pura Vida Partners staff and volunteers in the implementation of Pura Vida's programs for at-risk children and families in Central America. Chris draws on his experience in international business, non-profit and pastoral work in making life-changing impact in the lives of children in need.
Chris Dearnley earned a BA from Wheaton College and a MBA from Harvard University.
Lynn Ambrosia is currently the Vice President of Retail Fresh at Campbell's Soup Company. Previously, she was Vice President/General Manager for Sauce and Meal Preparation for Campbell USA, and Vice President, Global Soup Strategy and New Business, North American Soup.
Prior to coming to Campbell's in 2002, Ambrosia spent 17 years at Nabisco and most recently Kraft where she was Vice President, New Business Development with responsibility for acquisition synergies. Other assignments at Nabisco included Vice President, Strategy / Business Development; Vice President of Marketing at Nabisco Biscuit Company and General Manager of Specialty Biscuits.
Lynn Ambrosia earned both her Bachelor of Science degree and MBA at Cornell University.
Abigail Charpentier is the Vice President of Human Resources of Aramark Harrison Lodging. Charpentier began her ARAMARK career in property human resources, moving up to director of human resources at the largest center in ARAMARK Harrison Lodging. She then assumed the corporate responsibilities as director of human resources for conference center management before becoming a director of operations responsible for ten properties. In 2002, Abigail returned to human resources as the Vice President. She is now responsible for human resources, staffing and employee development.
Abigail Charpentier is a graduate of Cornell University.
Tom Gibson has been a pioneer in the field of risk capital for small and medium enterprises in developing countries. From 1989 through 1999, Mr. Gibson was founding President, then Chairman of Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF) and chaired a number of SEAF's funds. Mr. Gibson is currently president of the Institute for SME Finance, a group of financial and legal professionals who promote the greater availability and more effective use of risk capital for Small and Medium Sized Entreprises (SMEs) in developing and transitional economies.
Since its founding in mid-2000, the Institute has provided training to more than 300 practitioners in risk capital finance in developing countries and advisory services to a wide range of organizations and governments in the development of SME risk capital funds. Through his work in some 40 countries, he has held in-depth interviews with more than 500 SMEs and some 50 SME equity funds on five continents.
Deirdre Nissenson Kurzweil is currently serving as a market research manager in the Office of Publications and Marketing at Cornell University.
Prior to her role at Cornell, Kurzweil was affiliated with Art & Science Group's market research through its field house, Widener-Burrows & Associates. Kurzweil has experience in all phases of marketing and market research, both qualitative and quantitative. She has utilized a variety of advanced analytic techniques -- including trade-off analysis (conjoint, discrete choice), segmentation analysis, discriminant analysis, and factor analysis -- on behalf of a diverse clientele in the non-profit sector, as well as the financial services and consumer products industries.Previously, she was a project manager at Total Research Corporation and Opinion Research Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey. She has also worked as senior research analyst for Merrill Lynch, where much of her work focused on assessing the impact of various advertising efforts.
Deirdre Kurzweil received her undergraduate degree from Dickinson College.
Robert Kern is the Founder and Chairman of Generac Power Systems, a company that he and his wife Patricia founded in 1959 in a rented garage. From those humble beginnings, Generac is now a world leader in standby electrical power systems with over 1500 employees occupying four plants throughout South Central Wisconsin and Iowa. He is the inspiration behind many industry breakthroughs such as Modular Power Systems and Bi-fuel products.
Robert and Patricia Kern also formed the Kern Family Foundation in 1998 with the purpose of enriching the lives of Americans through strong pastoral leadership, educational excellence and high quality innovative engineering talent.
Robert Kern received an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois.
Helen Johnson-Leipold joined SC Johnson in September 1985 in the product management area and served in a variety of sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility before being named Vice President - Consumer Marketing Services, Worldwide in 1992. She moved to Johnson Outdoors, a leading global outdoor recreation products company, as Executive Vice President of North American businesses in 1995. She returned briefly to SC Johnson in 1997 as Vice President, Personal & Home Care Products.
In March 1999, Johnson-Leipold was elected Chairman and CEO of Johnson Outdoors Inc., and in July 2004, was also elected Chairman, Johnson Financial Group, the $3.2 billion dollar global financial services company founded by her father, Sam Johnson. She leads both of these family companies from their worldwide headquarters in The Johnson Building, designed by "green architecture" pioneer William McDonough.
Prior to coming to SC Johnson, she began her career at Foote, Cone & Belding in Chicago in 1979, directing the advertising for some of America's leading consumer packaged goods companies, including Kraft and Beatrice Foods.
Helen Johnson-Leipold is a graduate of Cornell University.
John Bello is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of South Beach Beverage Company. He brings more than 25 years of brand building and marketing experience to the Company, which was established in January 1995.
Prior to founding SoBe, Bello, 55, spent 14 years with National Football League Properties Inc., the marketing arm of the National Football League. As President, Bello has been credited for building NFL Properties into a sports marketing leader.
Prior to the NFL, Bello worked in the Pepsi Cola Division of Pepsico Inc., serving in marketing and strategic planning capacities, as well as in the Maxwell House Division of General Foods Corp., where he held product management roles with the Sanka and Maxwell House brands.
During four years of service with the United States Navy, Mr. Bello achieved the rank of Lieutenant (Senior Grade) and received the Navy Commendation with Combat V for meritorious service on riverboats in South Vietnam.
John Bello graduated Cum Laude from Tufts University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College.
Peter Staudhammer is the Director of the Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California
Staudhammer has been a practicing engineer for over 40 years, primarily in industry and more recently in academia. He began his professional career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1957 at the beginning of the space era. In 1959 he joined the technical staff of TRW where he remained for the next 42 years in a wide range of technical and management positions: Chief Engineer for Apollo Lunar Descent Engine and the Viking Mars Biology Instruments; headed TRW's Central Research Labs; general manager of Defense Projects Division; Chief Technical Officer with leadership of 15,000 engineers and scientists in the space, defense, electronics and automotive fields.
Peter Staudhammer is a graduate of UCLA with BS, MS and PhD degrees in Engineering.