Peter Nolan is a managing partner of Leonard Green & Partners, L.P., a private equity firm.
Prior to becoming a partner at Leonard Green & Partners, L.P., Nolan served as a Managing Director and Co-Head of Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette's Los Angeles Investment Banking Division from 1990 to 1997, as a First Vice President in corporate finance at Drexel Burnham Lambert from 1986 to 1990, and as a Vice President at Prudential Securities, Inc. from 1982 to 1986.
Prior to 1986, Mr. Nolan worked at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, a financial institution.
Peter Nolan holds both a B.S. degree in Agricultural Economics and Finance and an M.B.A. degree from Cornell University.
Scott E. Johnson is the Vice President of Global Environmental and Safety Actions at SC Johnson & Son, Inc. In this role, he provides global leadership to facilitate the development and implementation of environmental and safety policies, strategies and actions which build upon the Corporation's eco-efficiency efforts of the 1990's and commitment to responsible environmental management. Unique to this role, Scott has also initiated sustainable development cross-sector partnership programs in the U.S. and Africa, including Base of the Pyramid programs.
Johnson has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience with SC Johnson. Previous assignments include Managing Director of Corporate New Products & Technologies, Director of Sales & Marketing in North America Professional, Director for Global Business Development in Worldwide Innochem and Category Manager in Air Care/Floor Care in North America Consumer Products Marketing.
Scott Johnson earned both a BBA degree and MBA degree in Marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.
Erik Simanis is the Co-Director for BoP Protocol at Cornell University's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson Graduate School of Management.
Simanis co-founded with Professor Stuart Hart the Base of the Pyramid Learning Laboratory in 2000, a consortium of multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and multilaterals that explore market-based approaches to serving the four billion people at the base of the income pyramid. Simanis currently co-directs the BoP Protocol Project, a ground-breaking initiative to develop and refine a business process that enables large corporations to co-create new businesses in deep partnership with income-poor communities. As Co-Director, Simanis has led successful BoP Protocol field implementations in Kenya in partnership with SC Johnson and in India with Dupont's Solae subsidiary.
Erik Simanis has taught undergraduate, masters, and executive level courses in strategy and sustainability. He holds a BA in Spanish from Wake Forest University and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business, where he received the Norman Block Award for highest academic achievement.
Kobus De Klerk is the Global Lead of The Solae Company. De Klerk heads up a newly created business unit within The Solae Company which focuses on doing business in the Base of the Pyramid. The business unit directs its business activities two fold: 1) towards institutionalized food solutions and 2)towards co-created business models. The co-created business channel focuses on community empowerment and, through process and relationship development, communities are empowered and facilitated towards generating business which results in sustainable economic and social infrastructure growth.
DeKlerk's career spans 18 years within the food sector. Starting off with Nestle in human resource and labour relationship management, he has held positions in factory and operations management as well as general management and strategic marketing.
DeKlerk's comments are from a conference entitled "Business with Four Billion: Creating Mutual Value at the Base of the Pyramid." The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan and the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University co-hosted the conference which was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan on September 9-11, 2007.
Kobus DeKlerk holds a post graduate qualification in Industrial psychology and Labour law, a diploma in Food Science and Technology and a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Wales.
David Robb is the General Manager of the Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative. Robb is a teacher and organic farming devotee. Robb has been an artisan, small business owner, visiting professor, community organizaer, consultant, Slow Food convivium founder and leader, and an organic dairy business development manager. In his role as GM at the Tuscarora Organic growers Cooperative, Robb is attempting to manage the comings and goings of thousands of cases of organic vegetables and the staff and farmers that make the cooperative a success.
Robb's comments are from a panel discussion entitled "Working Together - Partnerships That Make Marketing Possible". The panel was part of a 2007 Strategic Marketing Workshop held in Hyde Park, NY.
David Robb holds an undergraduate degree in economics and politial science.
William Welker is a Sales Manager at Railex USA. Railex is a distribution platform designed to enhance logistics, distribution, consumer demands and inventory control. The Railex platform features two refrigerated, mega-transload distribution centers; one in Wallula, Washington, the other in Rotterdam, New York. Between these two coast to coast distribution centers runs a scheduled 55-car refrigerated unit train, with the capacity to transport the equivalent of 220 trucks of refrigerated merchandise each and every week, both ways!
Bill Welker received his undergraduate degree from Saint Michaels College and his Masters in International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management.
Liz Thorpe is the Managing Director of Murray's Cheese Shop. Co-author of The Murray's Cheese Handbook and Murray's Wholesale Director, Liz has in recent years emerged as one of the cheese world's best. She left the corporate world in April of 2002 to join Murray's and hasn't looked back since.
Liz Thorpe graduated Yale University with a degree in art history and American studies.
William Wagner has been a Managing Director of Dauk/Wagner Investments, LLC since its founding in 1994.
Prior to that, Wagner was Managing Director and Co-Head of the Merger and Acquisition Group at Smith Barney from 1980 through 1993, and was a Vice President in the Corporate Finance Department of Citibank, N.A. from 1975 to 1980.
William Wagner holds a B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Wharton Graduate School of Business.
Derek Cabrera is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ThinkWorks, the company that teaches thinking. He is a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University and a Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complex Systems. Cabrera's research focuses on analytical, creative, and systemic thinking; he applies interdisciplinary work in nonlinear and systems sciences, evolutionary biology, cognition, human development and education to better understanding patterns that underlie human thought. Cabrera also invented (and holds a US Patent for) the ThinkToy system, a tactile manipulative toy that teaches advanced abstract thinking skills to children and adults.
Prior to his current appointments, he was a National Science Foundation Post Doctoral Fellow and Co-Investigator in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. He was also a National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow in Nonlinear Systems at Cornell and is the recipient of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' K. Patricia Cross Future Educational Leaders Award. He is the author of the book, Remedial Genius, numerous refereed journal articles, and book chapters.
For 14 years prior to ThinkWorks and Cornell, Cabrera worked nationally and internationally as an educator and mountain guide with Outward Bound and other organizations. He has led high-altitude climbing expeditions to the world's most remote mountain regions and is an avid adventure traveler. As a social entrepreneur, he led fundraising efforts to establish the Aceh Relief Fund for victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and co-founded Children of Rural Africa to develop schools in Nigeria. He has founded and/or led several successful for-profit and non-profit ventures and held/holds several board of directors seats.
Derek Cabrera holds a Ph.D. in Education from Cornell University.