Chuck Schnitzlein, Ph.D.
PROFESSOR, ACADEMIC DIRECTOR - SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION MBA PROGRAM, STEVEN GROSSMAN ENDOWED CHAIR IN FINANCE
Dr. Schnitzlein is the Academic Director for the Sustainable Innovation MBA and the Steven Grossman Endowed Chair in Finance in the Grossman School of Business at the University of Vermont. He joined the faculty of the University of Vermont in 2014. Previously he held faculty positions at the University of Central Florida where he was doctoral program coordinator, the University of Arizona, and the University of Miami. He has also taught in the executive MBA program at the University of Illinois. He earned his Ph.D. in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Schnitzlein has long believed that government action alone will not be sufficient to address the enormous environmental challenges that confront the world and he was thus excited to join the only U.S. School of Business that has sustainability as a core value and strategic focus. At UVM Professor Schnitzlein teaches the core finance course which has the objectives of developing the standard MBA finance tool kit while also developing an appreciation for how standard financial analysis can lead to poor decisions if it fails to account for the real options that are embedded in many business ventures. This type of analysis is particularly important for startups and new product development.Professor Schnitzlein's research applies the tools of experimental economics to financial market design issues and financial behavior. He has published his work in the top finance journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Business, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and he serves as an associate editor for the Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions, & Money. He frequently participates in scholarly meetings and he has made invited research presentations at over 25 universities in the United States and Europe. In addition to teaching and research Professor Schnitzlein has served on the Investment Committee for the University of Central Florida Foundation, and as advisor to the investment committee of a large philanthropy. Prior to commencing his doctoral studies he lived and worked in Europe for five years.
KIM NOLAN, PH.D
GRADUATE PROGRAMS DIRECTOR
Kim Nolan holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University and a M.Ed. from Boston University in Counseling Psychology. Her undergraduate years were spent at UVM – designing her own major and romping around campus as the school mascot (go cats go!). Kim is an ordained Buddhist chaplain and a lifelong advocate for social justice and human rights. She is an appointed member of the Vermont Commission on Women
Kim has worked closely with leaders and diverse teams for over 30 years, helping create engaged, equitable, and just work environments that make a positive impact on the world. A community-based leader, educator, and practitioner, Kim facilitates collaborative processes, builds safe relationships and achieves desired outcomes within larger systems. Recognized as an effective and compassionate leader, she facilitates JEDI trainings, transforms vision into strategic plans with executive teams, and provides leadership coaching and mentorship. Kim is the Founder and Executive Director of the Dignity Foundation, working at the intersection of cultural transformation, leadership & change management, and contemplative science. Bringing 30+ years of experience, Kim’s interdisciplinary approach creates safe space to explore innovative pathways toward personal development, organizational change and enhanced systems thinking. After several years of affiliation with the Sustainable Innovation MBA program at UVM, as adjunct faculty, DEI trainer and leadership advisor, Kim has stepped into the Graduate Programs Director role at the Grossman Business School.
Prior to this work, Kim served as Head of People & Culture at City Market Co-op, Assistant Professor and Program Director of Mindfulness Studies at Lesley University, Program Officer of the Mind and Life Institute - designing the Academy of Contemplative and Ethical Leadership, and served as Department Chair of Integral Psychology at Burlington College in Vermont, where she founded The Institute of Contemplative Studies. Kim lives with her dog in Shelburne, VT. She is thrilled her daughter has returned to live in Vermont.
Elizabeth Teal
Graduate Programs Coordinator
Liz is the Program Coordinator for the Graduate Programs at the Grossman School of Business – The Sustainable Innovation MBA and the Masters of Accountancy, along with the Sustainable Enterprise Graduate Certificate. She joined the Grossman School of Business in April 2019 with experience in recruitment and special event planning for a private high school in Buffalo, NY. During her free time, she enjoys exploring Vermont with her husband and dog.
Megan Goleski
Graduate Programs Support Generalist
Megan is the Graduate Programs Support Generalist at the Grossman School of Business. She joined the Grossman School in October 2022 with prior experience in local government, law, and land planning. She graduated from Binghamton University with a bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Law in 2019 and a master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) in 2020. In her downtime, Megan can be found reading, playing board games with friends, skiing, or traveling.
John Kim
Graduate Programs Career Advisor
John Kim, for the past two years, has served as the Head of Impact and Strategy at 1Row, a boutique marketing and consulting firm focusing on purpose-driven start-ups, nonprofits, and other ventures. Before this, he spent 10 years in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and ESG (environment/social/governance) roles at The Walt Disney Company and Herman Miller (now MillerKnoll). Prior to that he worked at Lipman Hearne, a branding and marketing agency focused on the nonprofit sector, supporting higher education institutions, large foundations, and member associations. Earlier in his career, John served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, worked on food insecurity impacting communities in the Washington, DC area and South Africa, and evaluated programs for the United Nations World Food Programme in Malawi. He’s also the creator of the blog, Virtuous Cycle, which highlights changemakers using bikes to do good and serves as an advisor for zero-emissions last-mile delivery company, Coaster Cycles. He received his master’s in public policy (MPP) from Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and his bachelor’s from Cornell University. He lives with his family in Montpelier, VT.
DODGE BINGHAM
LECTURER (PART-TIME)
Dodge Bingham is a recognized leader in developing, advancing and scaling innovative solutions for transformation, former strategy executive at international companies and technology startups, and consultant to global organizations for creating and executing transformational strategies. Previous banker. Dodge is fluent in Spanish and holds an MBA 1994 from Babson’s FW Olin Graduate School of Business. He is a lecturer in the practice of management at the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business.
Kim Brearley
Lecturer (Part-time)
Kim is the Managing Director of CARE Impact Partners, the corporate advisory arm of CARE. Prior to joining CARE’s impact team, she was the Chief Financial Officer at THINKMD, a digital health startup operating in ten countries across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. As a founding member of THINKMD, she helped the company build the financial and business arms of the company, raising $8M in equity and $4M in revenue to establish THINKMD as one the most notable digital health companies globally. She lived in Tanzania for close to a decade, working primarily in the finance industry as an investment manager for a private equity company. She also managed TechnoServe’s entrepreneurship program, funded by Google.org, which trained Tanzania’s most promising entrepreneurs. Her earlier career focused on women’s groups and microcredit as a volunteer in the Canadian peace Corps. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she completed her Masters in Development Economics, and the University of British Columbia with a degree in international relations.
Patrick J. Callery
Assistant Professor
Patrick Callery is Assistant Professor of Management at the Grossman School of Business. Prior to joining GSB, he served as Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, Canada. His research examines the nexus of corporate sustainability and strategic management within the context of climate change. Specifically, he studies corporate and investor management of climate change, covering carbon emissions reductions and associated information disclosure strategies, with the goal of improving stringency and accountability on corporate initiatives and reporting of climate-related performance. He also studies corporate innovation strategies to enable a hastened transition to a more sustainable, low carbon economy. His research has been published in several academic journals including Academy of Management Discoveries, Organization & Environment, Journal of Environmental Management, Journal of Cleaner Production, and the Journal of Environmental Investing.
Dr. Callery obtained his PhD from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Department of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and holds an MBA in Strategy and Finance from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He also brings a wealth of diverse business experience, with more than fifteen years of international experience for both start-up and established companies in a variety of management roles, including product line management; sales and business development; finance and equities research; operations; and engineering.
DAVID CARPENTER,
LECTURER (PART-TIME)
David Carpenter became the General Counsel of Green Lantern Development, LLC in 2019, bringing decades of experience with environmental, land use, renewable energy and commercial matters. David’s time in private practice included terms at mega-firms Dewey LeBoeuf and Bingham McCutchen as well as smaller regional firms in New York and Vermont, and David represented Green Lantern Solar as outside counsel for nearly five years before taking the position of Green Lantern’s first in-house attorney. From 2007-2012 David also served as Associate General Counsel at Casella Waste Systems, Inc. where he was lead inside counsel for environmental and renewable energy matters across the company’s six-state footprint.
David is an active member of Renewable Energy Vermont (REV), the Maine Renewable Energy Association (MREA), and is past Co-Chair of REV's Legislative & Policy Committee. David is also a member of the Vermont Bar Association's Board of Managers, a member of the Energy Bar Association. Dave earned his J.D and M.S.E.L magna cum laude from Vermont Law School in 1997, and is a 1990 graduate of Penn State University. David lives in Orwell, VT where he serves as Chairman and Training Officer for the Orwell Volunteer Fire Department, and he served as a Board member of the Slate Valley Unified School District and Act 46 Committee.
David’s goal for the “Law as a Framework for Entrepreneurial Business” course is to bring a hands-on, practical skills approach to the SI-MBA cohort that gives them a solid grounding in the many ways that the law can impact their future business endeavors, from business formation to contracting to litigation.
THOMAS CHITTENDEN, MBA
SENIOR LECTURER
Thomas Chittenden obtained his MBA from the University of Vermont in 2004. His work experience includes systems engineering consulting with Competitive Computing in Colchester VT, Reporting Analyst for Level 3 Communications and Asset Transfer Representative for Janus Mutual Funds. He is experienced in financial services, telecommunications, higher education, computer networks and virtualization as well as developing information systems and technology adaptation/integration into existing business processes and workflows.
Thomas currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Student Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate, as the program chair of the Schlesinger Global Family Enterprise Case Competition, a director of the Grossman School of Business Undergraduate Case Competition Program, as the Vice Chair of Green Mountain Transit (formerly the Chittenden County Transit Authority) and is a currently serving South Burlington City Councilor. In 2017, he was awarded the UVM President's Distinguished Lecturer Award.
ANJANETTE DECARLO, PH.D.
LECTURER (PART-TIME)
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo received her doctorate in Natural Resources and Environment from the University of Vermont. As the Chief Sustainability Scientist at the Aromatic Plant Research Center, she conducts primary anthropological and ecological field research and ecological supply chain analysis on aromatic and medicinal species. As founder of the Save Frankincense initiative (and sole proprietor of her own LLC) she consults with the private sector on green and ethical supply webs and provides education and outreach for the public. As a development expert, she has worked on post-conflict evaluations of natural assets, supply chains and environmental projects, cross culturally, in Somaliland, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Canada and China. Previously, Dr. DeCarlo was the Program Director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and with the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she worked on some of the first iterations of socially responsible business benchmarks and triple bottom line reporting. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors of Somaliland Biodiversity Foundation and the Global Frankincense Alliance. Dr. DeCarlo’s intensive work on frankincense is regularly highlighted in the media including CNN Inside Africa, the New York Times, and National Geographic.
JOSEPH FUSCO
CHAIR OF THE ADVISORY BOARD
Joe is the chair of the Advisory Board for the program and also teaches a year-long personal leadership seminar in the program.
Joe speaks frequently to companies and organizations on leadership, organizational culture, problem-solving, business and cultural trends, economic development, business strategy and sustainability, and life/work balance. He’s been engaged as a speaker by groups and companies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Vermont Gas Systems, the Project Management Institute, MyWebGrocer, Green Mountain Power, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Telecommunications Association of the Southeast.
Joe is also a vice president of Casella Waste Systems, where he serves as an advisor to the chairman and CEO and is an executive coach to over 200 mid- and upper-level managers and numerous work teams.
He is a trustee of the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, and serves on the Vermont Governor's Climate Action Commission. He currently chairs the Vermont Council on Rural Development's Climate Economy Action Team, and served as a past chair of the State of Vermont's Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy steering committee.
ANTE GLAVAS, PH.D.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Dr. Glavas earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, and joined UVM’s Grossman School of Business in August, 2017. He has published numerous articles on Corporate Social Responsibility, and was honored to receive the Emerald Citations award for his influential work in this area. A passionate teacher, he received the Professor of the Year award in management while working at the University of Notre Dame. His professional experience includes a senior executive role in a Fortune 500 company, consulting engagements with over 100 organizations, and the founding of three social enterprises. Ante has lived in five, and worked in over 50, countries.
STUART HART, PH.D.
PROFESSOR AND PRACTICUM LEAD
Stuart L. Hart is one of the world's top authorities on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. He is the Steven Grossman Endowed Chair in Sustainable Business at the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business and Co-Founder and former Director of the School's Sustainable Innovation MBA Program. He currently takes the lead in developing and managing the capstone summer practicum projects for the program. Stuart is also the S.C. Johnson Chair Emeritus in Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor Emeritus of Management at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, where he founded the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. Hart is also Founder and President of Enterprise for a Sustainable World, and Founder of the BoP Global Network.
Previously, he was the Hans Zulliger Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he founded the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and the Base of the Pyramid Learning Laboratory. He was also faculty in corporate strategy at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and was the Founding Director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program (CEMP), now the Erb Institute's Dual Master's Program.
Hart has published more than 100 papers and cases and authored or edited eight books with over 35,000 Google Scholar citations to his work. His article "Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World" won the McKinsey Award for Best Article in the Harvard Business Review for 1997 and helped launch the movement for corporate sustainability. With C.K. Prahalad, Hart also wrote the path-breaking 2002 article "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," which provided the first articulation of how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. With Ted London, Hart is also the author of a 2011 book entitled Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid. His best-selling book, Capitalism at the Crossroads, published in 2005 was selected by Cambridge University as one of the top 50 books on sustainability of all-time; the third edition of the book was published in 2010.
DAVID A. JONES, PH.D.
PROFESSOR, JOHN L. BECKLEY PROFESSORSHIP
David A. Jones is a Professor of Management and holder of the John L. Beckley Professorship. He joined UVM in 2004 after completing his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at The University of Calgary.
David served on the initial curriculum design team that created this award-winning MBA program, and he teaches ‘Strategic CSR for Transformational Sustainability’, among other MBA courses. David is a passionate educator who was honored to receive a University-wide teaching award (the 2009 Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award), and he regularly conducts full-day leadership development seminars, having trained over 1000 executives and managers in Vermont alone.
Professor Jones is recognized as a scholarly thought leader in the emerging area of employee responses to socially and environmentally sustainable business practices. His work in this area includes ten published studies, theory development pieces, and literature reviews; two co-edited journal issues and a co-edited volume; academic conference roles as theme-track chair, symposium discussant, and expert panelist; and key note addresses and visiting scholar positions. David’s broader program of research includes studies of employee volunteerism, recruitment and retention, and responses to perceptions of fair and unfair treatment at work. Professor Jones has authored over 90 papers presented at scholarly conferences, and published over 40 journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceeding papers, including articles in top academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal and Journal of Applied Psychology. He also serves on the editorial boards of four peer-reviewed journals, including two leading outlets in which his work has been published: the Journal of Management and Journal of Organizational Behavior.
SUZANNE LOWENSOHN, PH.D.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Suzanne L. Lowensohn joined the Grossman School of Business accounting faculty in August 2016. Prior to this appointment, she was an associate professor of accounting at Colorado State University for 14 years. She received a Bachelor of Science in accounting and a Master of Accountancy degree from the University of South Florida and her Ph.D. from the University of Miami. She is a certified public accountant (Florida) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. At UVM, she currently teaches managerial and governmental and not-for-profit accounting. Dr. Lowensohn’s primary area of research interest is governmental accounting and auditing. She has published articles in Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy; Journal of Accounting Literature; Research in Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting; Accounting and the Public Interest; Issues in Accounting Education; Behavioral Research in Accounting, and Accounting in Europe, among others. She is a coauthor of the textbook, Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Entities, and serves on the editorial board for several academic journals. Professor Lowensohn spent a sabbatical acting as a Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) research fellow and has served on the GASB Disclosure Framework project Task Force, GASB Statement No. 84 Implementation Guide Consultative Group, GASB Comprehensive Implementation Guide Advisory Committee, GASB Intangible Issues Task Force, on the Government Finance Officers Association Special Review Executive Committee, on the Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants Governmental Issues Committee, on the executive board of the Vermont Government Finance Officers Association, and as president of the Government and Nonprofit Section of the American Accounting Association. She also served on the inaugural Vermont State Ethics Commission and as a Daniels Fund Ethics Fellow. Prior to joining academia, she worked for KPMG.
ERIK MONSEN, PH.D
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, STEVEN GROSSMAN ENDOWED CHAIR IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Erik Monsen teaches courses in entrepreneurial business models and technology commercialization. His teaching reflects his career, which has crossed disciplinary (engineering, management, economics) and geographic (US, Germany, UK) boundaries on his journey from designing better aircraft to designing better entrepreneurial organizations. He joined the University of Vermont's Grossman School of Business in August 2014 as the Steven Grossman Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship, and in January 2015 he was awarded a secondary appointment as Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. Building on personal experiences as an aerospace engineer and business consultant in American and European aerospace organizations, his mission is to aid technology and research organizations, both public and private, to become more entrepreneurial and create new value not only for business owners, but also for their employees, the society and the environment. His current research examines how and why employees act entrepreneurially (or not!), and in particular, how and why scientists and engineers choose to commercialize their research (or not!).
THOMAS NOORDEWIER, PH.D.
PROFESSOR
Dr. Noordewier joined UVM's Grossman School of Business in the fall of 1990, after spending a year as Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University. Prior to Yale, he taught at Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Recent courses that he has taught at UVM include marketing management, sustainable marketing, and marketing decision-making under uncertainty. Professor Noordewier received the Graduate Teacher of the Year Award in 2012. He is a Fellow at UVM's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, an interdisciplinary organization with the stated purpose of integrating "natural and social sciences to understand the interactions between people and nature and to help build a sustainable future." In research related to sustainability, he is co-author of an article on collaborative environmental planning in river management (published in the Journal of Environmental Management), and in research-in-progress is co-investigating the moderating effect of industry pollution-related factors on firm financial performance. Other publications include articles in the Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management, the Journal of Health Care Marketing, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, the Journal of Business Logistics, Real Estate Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Research, the Journal of Housing Research, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Professor Noordewier is also co-author of a book on customer service.
JOANNE PENCAK, MBA
LECTURER
Joanne Pencak is a consultant specializing in executive education, fraud prevention and internal controls. Before teaching, she was a practicing Certified Public Accountant. Her history includes working for local firms as well as running her own CPA firm which merged with a regional firm. She obtained her MBA with a concentration in Information Security in 2008 from James Madison University. In June of 2009, she attended the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business Bridge Program at Ohio State University. The AACSB Bridge Program helps senior level executives transition from industry into the classroom. She serves as a member of the advisory board to the Treasurer of the City of Rutland, Vermont, and as the voluntary Chairperson for the Fresh Air Fund. She is also a member of the Sustainable Accounting Standard Board's Consumption Industry Working Group, which was formed to shape and influence sustainable reporting standards for the Meat, Poultry, Dairy & Fishing & Processed food Industries. Prior to teaching at the University of Vermont, Joanne was an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Castleton State College, where she served as the Coordinator of Graduate Accounting.
LAURY SALIGMAN, MBA
LECTURER
Laury Saligman is a proud graduate of the second SIMBA cohort in 2016. She is a climate tech investor focused, focused on innovative technology, sustainability, and food systems. She is a Managing Partner of the Clean Energy Venture Group and a Venture Partner with the $110 million sister fund, Clean Energy Ventures. She is active in the broader ecosystem as a mentor with several accelerators and incubators.
With a goal to level the playing field for women and underrepresented founders, she co-developed the Vermont Women’s Investor Network and is a co-organizer and diligence lead for the Founders of Color Showcase. Previously, she worked in the government, non-profit, and private sectors, including two start-ups and a Fortune 500 company. In addition to her MBA, she holds an MS in Environmental Health Sciences from Harvard University and a BS in Physics from Georgetown University.
PRAMODITA SHARMA, PH.D.
PROFESSOR, SCHLESINGER-GROSSMAN CHAIR OF FAMILY BUSINESS
Dr. PramoDITA Sharma, Ph.D. (University of Calgary) is the Sanders Chair & Professor of Family Business at the Grossman School of Business, University of Vermont. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Witten/Herdecke in Germany. Her research on succession processes, governance, innovation, next generation commitment and entrepreneurial leadership in sustainable family enterprises has been honored with several international awards. Editor of the highly ranked Family Business Review, she is amongst the most frequently cited scholars in family business studies. Her book on Entrepreneurial Family Firms (w. Hoy) is being used in family business courses around the world and has been translated into Mandarin. And, the SAGE Handbook of Family Business (w. Melin and Nordqvist) is described as a 'must read' and 'critical resource for all students and scholars of family business'. In 2013, she established the UVMs Family Business Awards and the Global Family Enterprise Case Competition. In the 'Entrepreneurial Family Business' course, her students draw lessons from the extraordinary members of 'The Henokiens Association' who have been in existence for over 200 years, continue to be led by the founding family members and are in good financial health.
RICHARD VANDEN BERGH, PH.D.
PROFESSOR
Dr. Vanden Bergh came to UVM in the fall of 2000 after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Business and Public Policy and an MBA. Prior to academia, he worked in banking in Colorado, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He also helped manage a small entrepreneurial retail firm located in Berkeley. Dr. Vanden Bergh's areas of research include: firm strategy in the political environment and the effects of political institutions on business investment. For the past several years Dr. Vanden Bergh has been exploring issues in the energy sector including an exploration of how the political environment affects investment in renewable energy. He is also starting to gather entrepreneurship data to try to unpack dimensions of the political environment that have the greatest impact on entrepreneurial location and investment decisions. Dr. Vanden Bergh's research has been published in many elite academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Law & Economics, the Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, and the Strategic Management Journal. Dr. Vanden Bergh was instrumental in designing the new Sustainable Innovation MBA curriculum. He was the original chair of the curriculum redesign committee and continued to serve as an active member of the redesign committee as it finalized the new program. He teaches two courses for the Sustainable Innovation MBA program including a course on Business Sustainability & Public Policy. During his tenure at the University of Vermont, Dr. Vanden Bergh has received honors for his teaching including "Teacher of Year" in the School of Business and a nomination for UVM's Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award.
SRINI VENUGOPAL, PH.D.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Dr. Venugopal joined the Grossman School of Business in August 2016. Prior to his academic career, Srini led a technology-based social venture that delivered educational services to low-income consumers in rural India. He continues to run a social enterprise that is focused on promoting girl’s education in several low income neighborhoods (slums) in the city of Chennai, India. In his research, Srinivas (Srini) examines the intertwined nature of consumption and entrepreneurship in subsistence marketplaces where more than a billion poverty-stricken entrepreneurs run micro-enterprises to meet basic consumption needs. In a parallel stream of research, he examines how social enterprises entering into contexts of poverty negotiate institutional differences to bring about positive social change. Srini teaches Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid.
TJ WHALEN
LECTURER (PART-TIME)
T.J. Whalen is Managing Director and General Partner at FreshTracks Capital, focusing his efforts on consumer opportunities for the fund. T.J. was formerly the Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer for Keurig Green Mountain, a $4.5 billion consumer products, coffee and beverage manufacturer, which sold in 2016 for $13.9 billion. T.J. served in a variety of roles with Keurig Green Mountain over 13+ years, including Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Vice President of Marketing, Vice President of Foodservice, and Director of Brand and Market Development. He led the coffee and beverage business’s product and brand P&L’s, new product development, and strategic relationships, as well as all of the various marketing functions he built there to drive the company’s growth. When he joined in 2001, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters had less than $100 million in sales, and under his leadership grew by a factor of more than 45X, with a market cap growth of 140X. From 2000 to 2010 Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was the top performing public company in the country. During this time, Green Mountain Coffee also became the world’s largest supplier of Fair Trade and Organic coffee.
Prior to Keurig Green Mountain, T.J. held marketing, product and sales leadership roles at Patagonia, a leading apparel and outdoor gear manufacturer; Leo Burnett, a global advertising and marketing services agency; and Adventurous Traveler (acquired by Away.com), a direct marketer of adventure travel services.
T.J. currently serves on several boards, including Caledonia Spirits, Zero Gravity, NativeEnergy, Ogee, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance, and has also recently served as board chair at 1% for the Planet, as well as SunCommon, which was recently sold to iSun. T.J. holds a B.A. in Economics and Education from Dartmouth College.
