Program

Keiko Niccolini is a marketing, operations and reuse leader currently fighting plastic pollution and disposable waste through strategic partnerships, systems solutions, and industry-changing product innovations. She has extensive experience in both the food & beverage and CPG industries. Her experience with entrepreneurial and more established brands, including Conde Nast, Moët Hennessy, Illy Caffé and others, makes her a key driver of an organization's growth and success. In 2021, Keiko helped to spearhead the delivery of the first public private partnership in reuse in North America with the launch of the Reuse Seattle, a city initiative of Seattle's Public Utilities Department. Keiko now focuses exclusively on working with cities and municipalities to develop and operationalize reuse as a climate, waste and social solution.

Sydney brings a unique blend of facilitation and policy expertise to Upstream. With a foundation in science research and 10+ years of experience in environmental advocacy, Sydney now focuses her time on her true passion: reuse. She enjoys supporting stakeholders across all sectors as they design, introduce, and pass strong policies that drive packaging reduction, reuse, and recycling, and she is recognized for supporting the passage of the nation’s first packaging EPR laws. Sydney now leads Upstream’s engagement with state, federal, and global policy and supports the policy team with local engagement as well. She is also passionate about social and environmental justice and has held many youth advocacy and education positions. In her spare time, she co-leads Reuse Portland – a community reuse coalition in Portland, ME - and enjoys any excuse to get outdoors.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Joycelyn speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. The time she spent assisting local Chinese-speaking restaurants navigate thecity-mandated waste management programs influenced the genesis of the Restaurant 2 Garden project. Joycelyn has a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Washington. She's dedicated to environmentally-just and place-based solutions to keep food scraps out of the landfill.

Andrew Lee has worked for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) for over 11 years and is currently the SPU General Manager / Chief Executive Officer (GM/CEO). Andrew has spent his entire 23-year career working on water, wastewater, and stormwater issues, with 17 of those years in local government for Seattle, San Francisco, and Bellevue. Andrew is regionally and nationally recognized for his expertise in water/wastewater regulations, smart water technology, and asset management. He is committed to delivering high quality utility services, maintaining affordable rates, and partnering with and serving the community with a focus on environmental justice. He is also passionate about developing high performance organizations through an emphasis on shared leadership, employee engagement, continuous improvement and diversity/equity/inclusion. Andrew has a bachelor’s and master’s degree, both from Stanford University.

Shela Gobertina von Trapp is Director of Global Relations at the Global Electronics Council (GEC). In her role, she leads several global initiatives, including participation as a founding partner to the Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP). With over 20 years of sustainability experience, her work has covered the nonprofit, government, and corporate sectors. Shela spent a decade at a retail Fortune 500 company—within North America and Europe—where she was recognized for her contributions toward the development of the office supply industry’s first comprehensive product green rating system and first green reporting analysis tool for customers. Additionally, she was a founding member of the European Commission's Organization Environmental Footprint (OEF) Retail Pilot. Shela holds a Masters in Energy & Environmental Analysis from Boston University. She is currently based in The Netherlands.

As strategic initiatives manager in Eastman’s Global Sustainability Organization, Holli Alexander helps translate the complexity of sustainability into tangible and actionable efforts.

For the last 10 years, she has focused on plastics, recycling and sustainability. In 2012, Holli launched and led the Full-Wrap Label Consortium, a group founded by Eastman to address the challenges recycling PET bottles that use shrink labels.  She represents Eastman in a variety of external organizations including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CE100.  She serves on the Sustainability Advisory Board for PLASTICS and is leading an emerging work group there exploring chemical recycling technologies.

Holli was born and raised in Indiana and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University. 

Ashley has 17 years of experience bringing sustainable packaging solutions to market with some of the world’s most prominent brands.  Prior to joining Dow in 2019, she gained diverse experiences from a variety of roles spanning both technical and commercial functions, from start-up to multi-national, in sustainable packaging and consumer goods product development.  She led the development and launch of new packaging and technologies across 5 continents for companies including PepsiCo, Amcor, HAVI Global Solutions, and 915 Labs.  Ashley received a DuPont Packaging Award, R&D 100 Award, Chairman’s Award, and a patent for her work on sustainable packaging at PepsiCo, and a Pinnacle Award for Marketing Excellence at Dow.

 Currently, Ashley is the Sr. Marketing Manager for Value Chain Engagement for Circular Packaging at Dow. Her role focuses on increasing collaboration across the value chain to accelerate adoption of sustainable packaging solutions and to create circular ecosystems for plastic packaging.  She also has responsibility for shaping the commercial strategy and introduction of Dow’s circular products made from advanced recycling processes.  Ashley served on the Executive Committee of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition from 2019-2022.

Ashley holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and is a certified yoga and meditation instructor.

Dylan de Thomas is Vice President of Industry Collaboration for The Recycling Partnership, working with the team there to increase both the quantity and quality of the curbside collected recyclables across the U.S. Previous to joining the Partnership, he worked for Resource Recycling for a decade, directing and producing content for three publications and three conferences covering various aspects of the recycling industry. Now, when he isn’t indulging his hobby of recycling container photography he can be found with his family and an assortment of domestic animals at their home in Portland, Oregon.

Megan Daum is the vice president of sustainability at the American Beverage Association (ABA), where she oversees the industry’s sustainability programs, policies and activities. Prior to joining ABA, Megan was the vice president of sustainability at the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), where she headed the sustainability program for thirteen years. She sits on various U.S. and International Committees on packaging, policy and sustainability. She has a Master’s Degree from the University of Vermont and lives in Washington DC.

Erin works to drive positive change across industries by leading WWF’s packaging and material science program. Key to conservation is the overall protection of the planet’s natural resources, and packaging plays a vital role in that.

Through her efforts, she works with business and industry to help them make informed, sustainable material choices for their products and packaging. Her work focuses on the major commodities that go into packaging, which come in many different forms and materials, and how to integrate sustainability into the decisions and trade-offs that must be evaluated across a product’s lifecycle.

Erin works with companies to strategically address their packaging work streams by focusing on developing transparency in the supply chain for the major packaging materials and pursuing strategies that reduce the environmental impact of these materials through responsible sourcing.

Prior to joining WWF, Erin worked at Hewlett Packard for 10 years as a packaging engineer responsible for the design and implementation of laser jet printer and media packaging. Her expertise is in material science, design innovation, procurement, manufacturing, and logistical and point of purchase aspects of packaging.

Matt Prindiville is the Chief Solutioneer and CEO for Upstream, a norms-disrupting non-profit that helps business, non-profit, government & community leaders ideate, accelerate & scale the new reuse economy & circular systems for packaging and foodware. In this role, Prindiville works with entrepreneurs, policymakers and culture-shapers to ideate and accelerate the transition from single-use to reuse. Matt is a recognized thought leader within the plastic pollution movement and helped found the global Break Free from Plastic Movement, the Cradle2 Coalition and the Make It Take It Campaign. Previously, he helped create and establish multiple national campaigns and coalitions to transform industry sectors to become more sustainable - such as the Electronics Takeback Coalition, the Multi-State Mercury Campaign, and Safer Chemicals and Healthy Families Coalition. Matt has advised the United Nations Environment Program on their plastic pollution strategies and written for The Guardian, GreenBiz, and Sustainable Brands among other publications. Prindiville’s work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Fast Company, on NPR’s 1A, Jack Johnson’s Smog of the Sea film, and 60 Minutes, among others. For more information visit upstreamsolutions.org and www.mattprindiville.com.

Randi Marshall is the Head of Government & Public Affairs, U.S. at H&M, where she leads the fashion brand’s regional public policy strategy and stakeholder engagement efforts regarding sustainability and circularity. Prior to H&M, Randi held government relations roles at Zillow, AOBA, and Stateside Associates, and served as a policy advisor for the Mayor of the District of Columbia, Chairman of the DC City Council, and the Massachusetts State Senator representing Boston and Jamaica Plain.Randi holds a master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in public policy from the University of Baltimore, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts Boston. A native of the California Bay Area, Randi now resides in Washington D.C. with her husband and 3-year-old daughter.H&M

Dr. Cooper is a Scholar at Google for Entrepreneurs and an Adjust Assistant Professor at Northwestern University Department of Physiology. Before Rheaply, Dr. Cooper was a Senior Consultant at Ernst & Young, LLP in the Life Science Advisory practice where he worked in performance improvement and supply chain for biopharmaceutical clients.

Stephanie Phillips, AICP, is an urban planner and policymaker working at the intersection of heritage conservation and the circular economy. In her role as Deconstruction and Circular Economy Program Manager for the City of San Antonio, she administers the largest deconstruction ordinance in the United States, which aims to maximize building material salvage for reuse while advancing the City’s climate action, public health, affordable housing, cultural heritage, and workforce development goals. Her role also leads strategic local partnership development, which has helped forge the Material Innovation Center at Port San Antonio; a research partnership with UT-San Antonio; and the integration of deconstruction contractor training into City workforce initiatives.Outside of the City of San Antonio, Stephanie actively contributes to nonprofits and coalitions that focus on embodied carbon and circular economy policy and advocacy. She is the Waste and Consumption Issue Lead for the Climate Heritage Network and serves on the national boards of Build Reuse and Preservation Action. Broadly, her work aims to foster collaborative, transdisciplinary, silo-busting partnerships that get us closer to creating a truly regenerative built environment. Stephanie holds a MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS in Interior Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Sri Narayan-Sarathy is Technical Director of Sustainable Packaging and Senior Research Fellow at PepsiCo. Sri received her M.Sc. in Chemistry and M.Tech. in Polymer Science & Technology from Indian Institutes of Chennai and Delhi respectively. She got her Ph.D. in Polymer Science & Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Prior to joining PepsiCo in 2010, Sri was Technology Manager/Principal Scientist at Ashland Performance Materials. Sri’s research interests are in the areas of Materials Science and Chemistry. At PepsiCo, she is leveraging her extensive experience with different polymer chemistries to identify and develop bio-based materials for sustainable flexible packaging with good end of life. She has several patents and publications to her credit. Sri also has an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Grain Sciences at Kansas State University and sits on the board of Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI).