The Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit is the premier event for CEOs, Presidents, and Founders who are committed to elevating humanity through the active practice of Conscious Capitalism. This is an invitation-only event to maintain the peer-to-peer alignment of participants. If you have not participated before, but would like to nominate yourself or someone to be considered for an invitation, please complete our nomination form.
Each year, participants experience dynamic keynote speakers, thought-provoking conversations, and the opportunity to walk away with tactical tools for yourself and your teams to continue to evolve your conscious business practices. Most uniquely, you’ll be surrounded by people who think and talk about business the way you do, who authentically want to support your endeavors, and who are open to being supported themselves. These are your people.
from fellow conscious business leaders and their experiences.
your own insights in support of others.
with values-aligned peers dedicated to elevating humanity through business.
By listening, listening, listening…
We are identifying topics that reflect real participant challenges and emergent global trends that are important to the Movement.
When the room becomes the stage…
We can nurture an experience where an equal amount of time is spent learning from the stage and connecting with one another.
With real-time co-creation…
We will leverage the combined genius of the room to uncover new possibilities and drive conversation into new territories.
As we build momentum…
We deepen engagement before, during, and after the Summit to spark long-term collaboration and build lasting community.
Former CEO, Evite
Former CEO, Evite
A passionate consumer advocate, Cho was most recently the CEO at Evite where he led the company back from the brink of COVID19 extinction and returned it to growth, financial health, and a successful corporate extraction. Before that Cho was the CEO during a multi-year turnaround effort at Kodak Gallery (formerly ofoto.com). He served as the Vice President and leader of Intuit’s web channel, taking the business from $300 million to $1.3 billion+. Cho also spent seven years at Microsoft, where he launched some of the company's earliest Internet commerce initiatives.
Cho has received numerous awards for his work, including being named the Internet Person of the Year by the Internet Marketing Association and receiving an Italian Knighthood from the Royal House of Savoy for his philanthropic efforts--which have raised nearly $30M for charities and non-profits.
Cho currently serves on the boards of Evite and ModoPayments as well as the advisory boards of the Internet Marketing Association and Wharton Customer Analytics.
He earned a BS from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
CEO, Torani
CEO, Torani
Melanie’s mantra is “Grow, baby, grow!” That’s exactly what she’s done for three decades as Torani’s first outside CEO. Torani, the amazing flavor company and B-Corp, has grown an average of 20% per year in that time, flavoring cafés and kitchens around the world.
Melanie is especially passionate about Torani’s purpose of “Flavor for All, Opportunity for All.” It’s a palpable part of the culture, with a focus on building opportunity -- learning, development, growth -- for Torani’s team, customers, and within its community.
Melanie earned a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She continues to work closely with both of her alma maters by supporting Cal’s Opportunity Lab in research on income inequality and is a favorite speaker in Stanford’s Managing Growing Enterprises class.
She serves on the Board of SHE-CAN (Supporting Her Education – Changes A Nation), actively mentoring and supporting young women from Rwanda, Cambodia, Liberia, and Guatemala.
Chief Advocacy Officer, Economics of Mutuality (EoM)
Chief Advocacy Officer, Economics of Mutuality (EoM)
Jay Jakub is the Chief Advocacy Officer of the Economics of Mutuality (EoM) movement for the EoM Foundation and is the Senior Client Advisor for the EoM Solutions consultancy, an EoM Foundation subsidiary. Jay also serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Richmond-based Thompson Family Office, which is constructing a smart city in Virginia, and is an Advisor to the Alliance on Corporate Purpose, which is developing a national framework and blueprint on corporate purpose for the Government of Singapore. He is among the founding members of Conscious Capitalism’s Senior Leaders Network.
EoM is a transformational business model management innovation created by the Mars, Incorporated internal think tank, Catalyst, that Jay helped the Mars Chief Economist lead for the last 14 years. In 2020, Catalyst and EoM were repositioned into an independent not-for-profit EoM Foundation that owns a for-profit EoM Solutions consultancy with no shareholders. Profit must be invested in the capability or given to the foundation.
Jay co-authored the first EoM book, Completing Capitalism: Heal Business to Heal the World (Berrett-Koehler, 2017; CITIC Press, Beijing, 2018) and is a contributing co-author of a new EoM book, Putting Purpose into Practice: The Economics of Mutuality (Oxford University Press, March 2021). His doctorate is from Oxford University, St. John’s College and Jay is a frequent international speaker.
President and CEO, Scribe Media
President and CEO, Scribe Media
JeVon is the President and CEO of Scribe Media, a publishing company that helps individuals from a variety of backgrounds write, publish, and market their books. Scribe Media has worked with 1,900+ authors, including members of The Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Nassim Taleb, and David Goggins, whose blockbuster book Can’t Hurt Me has sold over 2 million copies.
In addition to his role at Scribe, JeVon is an author and highly sought-after keynote speaker, delivering the message that “Everyone Has A Story” to enthusiastic audiences across the country. His book, I Got There: How a Mixed-Race Kid Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Achieve the American Dream, tells the harrowing story of his struggle to succeed despite the overwhelming odds stacked against him.
JeVon is passionate about conscious entrepreneurship and creating opportunities for at-risk youth. He has mentored young men and women in the juvenile justice system, as well as those in lower economic communities.
JeVon currently serves as a board member for Conscious Capitalism and the StartEdUp Foundation. His story and work have been featured on CNBC, and in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Inc. magazines. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Megan, and their four children Ava, Jaxon, Elle and Jace.
President & Founding CEO, Virgin Unite and Co-Founder, Plus Wonder
President & Founding CEO, Virgin Unite and Co-Founder, Plus Wonder
Jean is the founding CEO and President of Virgin Unite, an entrepreneurial foundation that builds collectives, incubates ideas and re-invents systems for a better world.
Over the last 15 years, she has worked with partners to lead the incubation and start-up of several global initiatives, including: The Elders, The B Team, The Carbon War Room (successfully merged with the RMI), Ocean Unite, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, 100% Human at Work, The Virgin Unite Constellation and The Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship. She also played a key partner role in the incubation of many other initiatives such as The Audacious Project and The New Now.
As part of her work over the last three decades, Jean has helped corporations put the wellbeing of people and the planet at their core, including working with over 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries to help embed purpose in all they do. Jean also served as a Partner in the Virgin Group leading their people strategy.
Jean spent 18 years living and working on six continents to start and help lead mobile phone companies in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. She was the joint CEO of Virgin Mobile in Australia prior to starting Virgin Unite.
Jean has long explored the overlap of the business and social sectors and has been involved in both, having worked for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife in Australia, and in numerous volunteer roles, including a year-long stint as a VISTA volunteer where she worked with – and learned from - homeless teens in Chicago.
Jean holds a number of advisory board roles, including The Elders, The NewNow, the Sara Blakely Foundation, Last Mile Health Advisory Council, Humanity 2.0, Penn State Board of Visitors and the boards of Rocky Mountain Institute, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, Ocean Unite, AID Live, Unite BVI Foundation, and Just Capital. She is also honoured to be a B Team Leader.
Jean has been on the TED and TEDx stages as a host and speaker and has been the recipient of a number of awards including the Bernie Glassman Trailblazer Award and the FilmAid Philanthropic Leadership Award.
Managing Director, Cranemere
Managing Director, Cranemere
Diana has more than twenty years of experience backing and building sustainability and values‐led companies.
Diana is a Managing Director at Cranemere, a holding company that acquires privately held, middle-market companies in the United States and Europe. With permanent capital, Cranemere has no view to exit the companies it partners with, and has a “buy, build, and hold” strategy.
Diana leads Cranemere’s Sustainability and Purpose team, focused on acquiring ownership stakes in market leaders and mission-led companies across diverse sectors, including energy efficiency, environmental services, organic food, and healthy living, as well as partnering with diverse mission driven companies. Diana works with all Cranemere’s operating companies to further enhance their environmental and social impact to build value for all stakeholders.
Prior to joining Cranemere, Diana was a Partner at Expansion Capital Partners, a sustainability and cleantech growth stage venture fund where she invested in green building and energy efficiency, taking companies public and executing successful trade sales. Diana has also been an advisor to family offices on developing impact investment strategies for both fund and direct investments.
Diana’s work in mobilizing capital to solve environmental and social problems has its roots in her sustainable development work in Africa and South America, including backing small businesses and cooperatives in the Brazilian Amazon that harvested, processed, and exported non-timber forest products, such as fruits, nuts, and essences. Customers included Ben & Jerry’s, the Body Shop, and Knudsen’s.
Diana is a board member of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Echoing Green, which provides seed stage funding to social entrepreneurs. She is on the Advisory Board of Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and was a founding board member of Capital Institute, a center of innovation focused on evolving the financial system to align it with the long-term health of ecosystems and societies. Most recently, Diana had the pleasure to support the making of Beyond Zero, written and directed by fellow Conscious Capitalist, Nathan Havey. The film captures the story of Interface and the founder/CEO Ray Anerson’s journey in reducing the company’s overall environmental footprint, in particular, becoming net zero in climate emissions.
Diana has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Duke University. She lives with her family in New York City.
Co-Founder, Farmers Restaurant Group
Co-Founder, Farmers Restaurant Group
Dan Simons is the Co-Founder of the innovative Founding Farmers Restaurant Group — majority-owned by American family farmers — with a mission to earn farmers a larger share of the food dollar while delivering thoughtfully sourced, scratch-made food, and exceptional hospitality. Founding Farmers Restaurant Group operates 7 restaurants and 1 distillery (Founding Spirits) throughout the DC, MD, VA, and PA area, and through the Pandemic pivoted their business model to include an e-commerce Founding Farmers Market + Grocery, selling everything from prepared dinners and hand sanitizer made in their DC distillery, to homemade chocolates and bottled cocktails. Passionate about the health of the planet, Simons founded the non-profit Our Last Straw, a business-led coalition working to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics, and is on the CC DC Chapter’s Board.
CEO, Cypress Creek Renewables
CEO, Cypress Creek Renewables
Sarah is the CEO of Cypress Creek Renewables with 30 years of development, finance and operations experience in the power sector. She is an accomplished investor and officer of public and private companies, having led investments of $5 billion across the electric sector. During her 21 years at AES, she rose to be a senior officer and built and ran the Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean division. Sarah co-founded GeoGlobal Energy, a geothermal company in the US, Chile, and Germany, which was sold to its investor. Subsequently, she co-founded Point Reyes Energy Partners. Sarah graduated from Harvard University with Honors and received an MBA from Yale School of Management.
President & COO, Union Square Hospitality Group
President & COO, Union Square Hospitality Group
As President and COO of Union Square Hospitality Group, Chip Wade is responsible for further enhancing and evolving the company’s culture, driving an even greater experience for guests, and bolstering the profitability of its businesses. Most recently, Chip spent 17 years in leadership with Darden Restaurants, where he oversaw all operating functions, drove best-in-industry people metrics, and enhanced financial performance for a number of Darden’s high-growth brands. He also served as Chief Operating Offer for Legal Sea Foods in Boston, Massachusetts, in which capacity he led all operations for the family-owned group’s 31 restaurants and oversaw the launch of the Legal Test Kitchen concept. Earlier in his career, Chip spent 13 years with TGI Fridays where he progressed through various management positions, in Operations, Human Resources, and New Business Development. A Pennsylvania native, Chip got his culinary degree from Johnson & Wales College, his B.S. from Widener University, and his M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to his professional experience, Chip also serves on the following boards: Cracker Barrel, Johnson & Wales University, Share Our Strength, a national organization working to end childhood hunger and poverty in the United States, and Youth Villages, a non-profit offering services and support for families of children with emotional, mental, and behavioral problems. He is also a senior advisor for Junzi Kitchen, a Chinese fast-casual restaurant and concept based in New York.
Chairman & CEO, Brooks Running
Chairman & CEO, Brooks Running
Jim Weber joined Brooks as CEO in 2001 and is credited for the Seattle-based company’s aggressive turnaround story, focusing the team solely on delivering personally inspiring products and experiences that keep people running. The business and brand caught the attention of Warren Buffett, who declared Brooks a standalone Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary company in 2012. Jim’s professional journey also includes assignments in the branded consumer products industry as chairman and CEO of Sims Sports, president of O’Brien International, vice president of The Coleman Company, and various roles with The Pillsbury Company. Prior to joining Brooks, Jim was managing director of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Seattle Investment Banking practice and served on the Brooks board of directors. Jim received a master’s of business administration degree with high distinction from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Author of the book Running with Purpose, he currently serves on the boards of directors for Brooks and Tuck. In September 2015, Runner’s World magazine named Weber one of nine most influential innovators in the running industry. As well, he’s earned a spot for more than 10 consecutive years on the Footwear News “Power 100” list, honoring greats across all footwear categories from the runway to running.
