- Date: 31 March 2022
For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Mitsuko Wong, Director of Sustainability, Product and Supply Chain at Ralph Lauren to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and more.
- Date: 30 March 2022
- Author: Anukampa Freedom Gupta-Fonner, CEO, Spring
I was the first girl child to be born in my father’s family after 40+ years. In more ways than just that, I broke the mold.
I grew up in a community, in a part of the world, where spotting a single tree was a sight to behold. Growing up was an experience that was dense, crowded, loud and polluted. Wildlife sightings in the community were limited to pigeons, cows and eagles. Even as a five-year-old, I was yearning to get close to Earth. My parents made special efforts to take me to the nearest available parks, scant as they were. I so loved trees that I named my two favorite trees "Camel" and "Elephant."
Then, somehow, as a stroke of luck, I came across this wacky man by the name of Steve Irwin. To me, as a five-year-old, he fired my imagination. I was glued to his “Crikey!” catchphrase and would watch in sheer awe the wonders of wildlife. It came to such a head that I was called “Animal Planet” by all my cousins. My never-ending queries about the natural world, and really everything else, earned me the name “question bank.”
That’s when I knew I wanted to do something in the natural world. Life is not a straight line. It took a circuitous journey to truly understand how my love and passion for God’s green Earth could be expressed in the form of a career.
- Date: 28 March 2022
For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Simone Emilie Gourguechon, Director, Global Sustainability & ESG Strategy, at McDonald’s Corporation to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and more.
- Date: 22 March 2022
For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Erika Meschkat, Senior Analyst, Sustainability, at The J.M. Smucker Co., to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and more.
- Date: 16 March 2022
- Author: Kari Armbruster, Kroger
My career at Kroger began in 2013. At that time, very few companies had begun to formalize their strategy on “sustainability.” Kroger was only one year in to having a full time employee leading the function and she was a team of one. I came into the corporate affairs department as a specialist designed to help manage projects for several different functions including sustainability and corporate philanthropy. My background was in politics and campaigning, so corporate social responsibility was brand new to me.
Looking back, I am so thankful that I came into Kroger at that time. Being a part of the development of a full scale sustainability strategy and the redevelopment of our social impact work was truly groundbreaking for me. There are two points in my life that I can look back on and realize that I lost myself in a passion for work: The first was in college on my first political campaign; the second was in the development and launch of Zero Hunger | Zero Waste.