Michael Kobori has spent his career working to build a more just and sustainable world. As Chief Sustainability Officer at Starbucks Coffee Company, he is responsible for leading Starbucks to become resource positive and activating sustainability with the company’s 350,000 partners and millions of customers worldwide. He also serves as an independent Director of Bunge Ltd., one of the world’s largest agricultural companies, which connects farmers to consumers to deliver more sustainable food, feed, and fuel to the world.

Previously, Michael served as Vice-President at Levi Strauss & Co. where he helped build the company into a sustainability leader in the apparel sector. Michael is deeply committed to industry collaboration on sustainability, having served on a number of boards and advisory commissions, including the U.S. Cotton Board, Better Cotton Initiative, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, ILO Better Work Programme, and Levi Strauss Foundation Board. During his long career in sustainability, Michael also served as Vice-President at BSR and spent nearly a decade at The Asia Foundation, where he supported human rights and economic development in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam. Michael has taught corporate sustainability at the Haas Business School, University of California at Berkeley. He is the Executive Producer of Utopia Theatre Project, an artist-led social justice theater company.

Michael received his Masters’ Degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley, where he also received his undergraduate education in Asian Studies and Psychology. He spent a year at International Christian University in Tokyo and studied sustainable finance at Oxford University.

Chandra Farley serves as Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Atlanta. In this role, Chandra sets direction for the City’s sustainability and resilience goals and leads the interdepartmental, and community-wide, engagement necessary to address the inequitable effects of climate change. Chandra’s charge is the development of a comprehensive climate resilience strategy that will address energy insecurity, healthy housing, food systems, waste diversion, building decarbonization, workforce training, and fleet electrification while advancing the City’s goal to achieve 100% clean energy for 100% of Atlantans by 2035. Chandra is also developing the strategy to leverage the historic federal investment in clean energy and the Justice40 Initiative to advance these goals through a lens of environmental justice. Prior to joining the City, Chandra founded ReSolve Consulting, an energy justice consulting firm and the “Good Energy Project,” a social space connecting the transformational power of Black Women and their community leadership to the movement for an equitable clean energy economy. In 2022, Chandra completed a historic run for the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Ezgi Barcenas is AB InBev’s Chief Sustainability Officer, overseeing the company’s sustainability vision and strategy. In this role, Ezgi coordinates across all business functions to advance sustainability and inclusive growth. Her team focuses on agricultural development, water stewardship, circular packaging, climate action and responsible sourcing to build a resilient value chain spanning nearly 50 countries. She leads ESG engagement and reporting, and also oversees the 100+ Accelerator, an award-winning program which pilots and scales sustainable innovations. Since joining the company in 2013, Ezgi has held key roles within the Corporate Affairs and Procurement functions. Prior to AB InBev, she worked in international trade, public health and international development. Ezgi is a member of Adweek’s Sustainability Council and INSIDER’s Financing a Sustainable Future Council. She was also recognized as a 2022 Sustainability Trailblazer by Reuters’ Responsible Business Awards. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, a master’s degree in Environmental Health from Harvard School of Public Health and an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Gail Grimmett is a Senior Vice President of Corporate Innovations at Delta Air Lines.  

Gail leads Delta’s efforts to drive forward innovative, sustainable solutions that will empower the next chapter of aviation, which includes next generation technologies, partnerships with educational institutions and other corporations. 

Prior to joining Delta, she was the Chief Experience Officer for Wheels Up overseeing the member experience, including event programming, marketing, public relations, social and digital channel performance, as well as member experience and member benefits.  

Gail has spent 20 years at Delta Air Lines, serving in multiple key executive functions including SVP of Global New York, SVP of Pricing and Yield Management and Managing Director of Investor Relations. 

She served as Governor Andrew Cuomo’s appointee on both the New York State Tourism Board and the New York City Regional Economic Development Council for a decade. 

For six years straight, Gail was consecutively named among the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in New York by Crain’s Business.   

Gail holds an undergraduate degree from Indiana University and an MBA from George Washington University. 

Marcelo Lu serves as Senior Vice President, Care Chemicals North America at BASF Corporation. He assumed this role in January 2021, overseeing eight manufacturing sites, four laboratories, and a team of over 650 people that serve our customers. In this role, Marcelo leads the strategic and operational performance of the Care Chemicals business that serves customers in the Home Care, Personal Care, Ag Additives and Industrial markets. Key responsibilities include customer relationships, operational excellence, innovation, sustainability and collaborating with teams globally to meet the needs of the North American market.Marcelo joined BASF in 2006 and has held various commercial and general management positions in Germany, Hong Kong, Canada and the U.S. Marcelo then held regional business management positions in Asia in the textile, packaging and automotive markets. Prior to BASF, Marcelo held several consulting positions at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank.Before joining Care Chemicals North America, Marcelo served as Managing Director of BASF Canada. In this role, he put a spotlight on BASF as a sustainability leader in Canada, through driving thought leadership, promoting a circular economy and advocating innovation, digitalization and smart regulation for sustainable solutions in Canadian business. Marcelo holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) and executive education from INSEAD. Marcelo is passionate about archery, swimming, spinning and traveling. In his free time, he enjoys the company of his daughter and son and is trying to be a fun dad.

Bradford has worked in the renewable energy and energy infrastructure industries for over 15 years and is currently a Senior Director in NextEra’s Integrated Clean Energy Solutions group. He leads cross-functional teams in the development of tailored clean energy solutions that help reduce the carbon footprint of large government and corporate clients. He specializes in interpreting rapidly changing energy markets and simplifying complex transactions for C-level approval and shareholder/stakeholder engagement. 

Prior to joining NextEra, Bradford worked for NRG Energy and Carrier focused on counseling corporate executives and public officials on innovative funding strategies, public-private partnerships, project delivery methods and sustainable commitments. Bradford holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University and a Master of Science, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Arts from Arizona State University.

As part of McDonald’s Global Impact leadership, Jenny McColloch leads the Sustainability & ESG team, which designs and manages McDonald’s cross-cutting environmental, social and community impact strategies, including overseeing corporate giving and volunteerism. Partnering with groups within and beyond McDonald’s, Jenny’s team coordinates impact initiatives and public commitments to drive meaningful, industry-wide change across the value chain – from supply chain through to the restaurant, customer and community experience. Together with IR and other internal partners, her team also manages McDonald’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) progress tracking and reporting for long-term value creation.

Jenny joined McDonald’s in 2012. She’s held a variety of roles related to restaurant and supply chain sustainability strategy, including enabling McDonald’s climate action strategy with science based targets to reduce GHG emissions and strategic planning to drive climate resiliency and risk management. She previously held roles with Nestlé Waters N.A and as Education Director for Salish Sea Expeditions. 

Jenny earned her BS/MS in Earth Systems from Stanford University and her MBA from the Yale School of Management. She serves on the First Movers Advisory Board for the Aspen Institute’s Business & Society Program, and is committed to mentoring students and early career professionals exploring sustainability and ESG-related fields.

Melissa James is a Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley in Global Capital Markets where she currently heads
the ESG Center for Excellence working to bring domain expertise around ESG to capital markets and
investment banking clients across debt, equity and M&A. Melissa has worked with numerous clients across
sectors on strategy formulation and implementation around environmental, social and governance matters.
Her work includes advising emerging growth companies on ESG stewardship in preparation for going public
as well as structuring and executing ESG labeled capital raises and helping companies think through their
capital allocation decisions with an ESG lens.

Prior to her current responsibilities, Melissa held a number of leadership positions including Global Head of
Loan Products where she managed over $80 billion of loan commitments for the firm’s clients. She also
Chaired the firm’s Capital Commitment Committee and ran the industrial origination effort in Debt Capital
Markets where she had responsibility for managing relationships with some of the firm’s largest industrial
clients.

Melissa sits on the Global Capital Markets Operating Committee. She is a member of the Asset Liability
Committee for the Securities Division, the Securities Division’s Diversity Council and Morgan Stanley’s
Women’s Business Alliance Steering Committee.
Melissa has been recognized by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the “Top 75 Most Powerful Blacks on
Wall Street” and as one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Corporate America”. The Network Journal has
recognized her as one of the “25 Influential Black Women in Business”. She has a BA degree from Yale and
a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Zack Parisa is the co-founder and CEO of NCX (formerly SilviaTerra). Over the last decade, he has developed and innovated precision forestry tools that are revolutionizing the way that forests can be measured, valued, and managed. Using satellites, cloud computing, and machine learning, NCX worked with Microsoft to create "Basemap," the first high-resolution forest inventory of the United States. It is now using this data to build new markets for forest values beyond timber, such as carbon, wildlife habitat, and fire risk. Zack is a forester and biometrician by training and earned an MFS from Yale University, and a BS in Forestry from Mississippi State University. He was a 2021 candidate for the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award and a 2021 honoree for the annual Environment and Energy Leader 100 list.

Jillaine is the Vice President of Sustainability and Industry Affairs for Henkel’s North America consumer brands business. Jillaine partners with business leaders, internal functional experts, and external stakeholders to facilitate the implementation of Henkel’s corporate sustainability strategy in North America. As the executive sponsor of the employee-led Sustainability Action Team, Jillaine champions the team mission of creating a culture of sustainability by enabling employees and stakeholders to live their best lives while leaving minimal impact on the environment. She is also responsible for leading public affairs and government relations where she oversees Henkel’s advocacy efforts with government officials, NGOs, and other key external stakeholders. Jillaine has over 30 years of experience leading product stewardship and related functions in the consumer packaged goods industry and holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in engineering.