Nicole-Anne Boyer is a futurist, facilitator, and collaboration expert enabling leaders to co-create solutions to our most pressing systemic challenges. She learned her unique craft at Global Business Network, a pioneering think-tank, and founded Adaptive Edge, a consultancy devoted to accelerating “better futures”. An innovator in business education, Nicole was a lecturer and program director at CEDEP in INSEAD and teaches futures thinking to leaders around the world. A global citizen, Nicole has lived in Vancouver BC, Singapore, India, Paris, and now San Francisco. Past careers include being a pollster, political speech writer, and venture capitalist. Nicole also co-authored the popular book, Worldchanging: A Users Guide to the 21st Century and holds a BA (hons.) and MA from the University of British Columbia.
Gretchen Cummings is a managing director at American Institutes of Research (AIR), a global behavioral and social science research firm, where she oversees project and program services and works with AIR’s new business incubator. Prior to this, she was deputy director and chief of staff for the education program. Cummings has worked in nonprofit management, planning, governance, and leadership for over two decades, with a focus on building organizational effectiveness in mission-driven organizations. She earned an AB at Princeton University, an MPP at the Harvard Kennedy School, and her MBA at Presidio Graduate School.
Mona Das, MBA, BA, graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in Psychology. She spent eight years as a Sales Executive for a variety of software companies in Portland OR, and Dublin Ireland. For the past 12 years she has been running her own mortgage business, which combines her passion for helping people and exceptional customer service. She has been awarded the Portland Monthly 5 star mortgage professional award consecutively since it’s inception. In 2012, Mona graduated from Pinchot University, with an MBA in Sustainable Business. Mona has served as the Vice-Chair of the Multnomah County Advisory Committee on Sustainability and Innovation and on the Budget Committee for The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability as well as a leadership position at Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future. She has been very involved in a number of roles at Pinchot, where she still serves as a member of the Board of Trustees. She also serves on the board for Women’s Business Exchange. She recently launched MOXY!, to inspire, coach and mentor women to live their life and earn their livelihood by following their true purpose. She just returned from Women’s Campaign School at Yale University where she was trained on how to run for political office, her goal is to run for Senate.
Candice Eggerss has 30 years of investment experience in private and public markets as a venture capitalist, a portfolio manager, and securities analyst in multiple industries, specializing in technology, cleantech, and telecommunication industries. She is currently a Managing Director of Firelake Capital Management, a venture capital firm, where she also co-managed a small capitalization technology portfolio. She serves on the boards of Cornerstone Capital Group, Amazing Care Network, and WOCAN (Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Resource Management). She holds a BS from Stanford University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Suzanne Farver teaches corporate sustainability strategy at Harvard University Extension School. With over 30 years experience in non-profit management, she also serves as finance chair and treasurer for the Rocky Mountain Institute board. As Executive Director of the Aspen Art Museum in the 1990s, she brought the organization from fiscal crisis to financial health, with balanced budgets in each year of her tenure. She holds a BA from Grinnell College (Phi Beta Kappa), an ALM in Environmental Management from Harvard University (class marshal), and a JD from the University of Denver.
Saskia Feast is Western Region Vice President at Natural Capital Partners, a world-leading provider of market-based solutions to help clients combine business success with a positive impact on the environment. She has worked for large (Chevron, B.P.) and small (Cyrano Sciences, EOS Climate) organizations, launched the first handheld electronic nose and was part of the team that established a new class of emission reductions traded in California’s carbon market. Saskia is the author of more than 15 peer-reviewed scientific papers, white papers, and the voice of product videos. Her MBA is from Presidio Graduate School, where she was the senior manager of business partnerships, and she holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Liverpool University, United Kingdom.
Lee Gotshall-Maxon is a partner of the Allen Matkins law firm. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, International Bar Association, and San Francisco Planning & Urban Research Association. He has served as Board President of both the Volunteer Center of Marin and Central City Hospitality House, also as a board member of San Francisco’s Legal Aid Society. He is a cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College with a JD from Hastings College of the Law.
Rebekah Helzel is a start-up and small business advisor on finance and strategy. Achieving the prestigious Chartered Financial Analyst designation (CFA) while working at BA Securities, she had an extensive career in investment banking, including of many aspects of the financial markets. She went on to co-found for-profit enterprises and started up her own non-profit which advocates for and builds affordable housing. She has served on many cultural and service organization boards in the Bay Area and Sun Valley, Idaho. Rebekah holds an MBA from Presidio Graduate School.
Steve is co-founder and CEO of The Earth Genome, which is developing the first global information platform on ecosystem services and natural capital. The goal is to guide better decision-making on sustainability in the private and public sectors.
Steve served as president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, one of the largest foundations in the U.S., from 2007-2014. Before that he worked for The Nature Conservancy for thirty years, beginning in 1977 as western regional legal counsel, and eventually serving as President and CEO from 2000-2008.
Steve is a recipient of the Chevron Conservation Award, the Edmund G. Brown Award for Environmental and Economic Balance, the John Pritzlaff Conservation Award, and the California League of Conservation Voters’ Conservation Leadership Award. Steve holds a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1973), and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law (1976).
Monica is a passionate sustainability advisor, adopting global views in her mission to improve the quality of our natural capital and the way we value and interact with it. With over 10 years of expertise in managing environmental legacy issues, she has a successful track record of developing strategy, managing projects, evaluating and implementing sustainability initiatives, environmental due diligence, mergers & acquisitions services, and remediation technologies. Prior to joining PGS, Monica was a Principal Consultant at the global sustainability consultancy ERM advising a wide range of clients in the energy, manufacturing, mining and real estate sectors in Europe, Asia, and Australia. She earned an MS from Babes-Bolyai University (Romania) in Systems Ecology and an MS from Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Germany) in Applied Environmental Geoscience.
Steven L. Swig, JD, Co-founder, Emeritus Advisor, is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of Santa Clara School of Law. Formerly with the Law Office of Joseph Alioto, he was Partner and Managing Director of Titchell, Maltzman & Mark; Executive Vice-President of Swig, Weiler & Dinner Development Co.; and Counsel with Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin. He has served on many boards including the University of Oregon, the A.C.L.U., and A.C.T.
Amy is a mother of two and active PGS student with 15 years experience in non-profit, both in operations and philanthropy, domestic and abroad. Amy is a joyful conductor, connecting with all people across cultures and objectives — bringing systems perspective, alignment, and assurance to dynamic situations. She revels in life and the pursuit of common goals. Specialties include social enterprise, monitoring & evaluation, marketing, human resources, project management, group facilitation, grant-writing, and adventure-seeking. Drawn to excellent organizations with compelling missions, Amy has had the great pleasure of working for M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Mercy Corps, FareStart, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and launching the first design-build studio in the Philippines since she graduated with a BA in International Studies from Willamette University (2002).
Malcolm Walter’s career spans over 40 years and includes serving as the COO or CFO for several privately-held and public companies. In 2016, Malcolm retired after a 17-year career as COO of Bentley Systems, a global software company whose mission is sustaining infrastructure. At Bentley, his responsibilities included sales, professional services and marketing. During his tenure as COO, Bentley’s revenues transformed from license sales to subscriptions, from an indirect sales model to direct, and revenues grew from $100 million to over $600 million. Malcolm is a CPA and received his undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sabrina Watkins, MBA, BSCE, serves as Head of Sustainable Development for ConocoPhillips, with global responsibility for corporate policies, positions, and implementation strategies. She chairs the Senior Advisory Council for the Global Environmental Management Initiative and serves on the Board of Trustees of Bainbridge Graduate Institute. She chaired the executive committee of the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development from 2007-2009. In 2012, she was named to Industrial Safety and Health News “Power 101” list of influential leaders in sustainability. Watkins began her career in upstream production and drilling engineering. During her 32 years in the industry, she has held senior management roles in asset development, production, procurement, drilling, health, safety, and environment. Since 2001, she has led early-stage innovation, upstream technology strategy and global environmental technology and assumed her current role in 2009. She earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Lehigh University in 1981 and a MBA in Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute in 2007.
As a seasoned sustainability professional, Suzanne Farver watched Presidio Graduate School climb up the graduate school system. Over the last...
Rahul Raj’s work at Walmart.com shows that economic and social benefits can be delivered simultaneously. As director of sustainability and...
When I was studying non-profit management in Cambridge back in 2004, I was assigned terribly dry texts on organizational operations...
