AESC Virtual Conference May 2021

Jennifer J Fondrevay is the Founder and Chief Humanity Officer of Day1 Ready™, a consultancy that advises forward thinking business leaders, owners and C-Suite executives on how to prepare for and manage the people challenges of business transitions, particularly Mergers & Acquisitions.

As a Fortune 500 C-Suite “survivor” of three separate multibillion-dollar acquisitions, Jennifer authored the satirical survivor’s handbook, “NOW WHAT? A Survivor’s Guide for Thriving Through Mergers & Acquisitions”. With over 70 reviews, NOW WHAT? became a #1 new release on Amazon when it was launched in Nov. 2019.

She shares her expertise as a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc., Forbes and Thrive Global; is a frequent podcast guest and keynote speaker for conferences and associations; and has advised numerous small-mid market as well as Fortune 1000 companies, including Express Scripts, Cigna, Livongo and Teladoc, to support their workforces in navigating the emotional journey of business transitions and post M&A-deal integration.

Linda E. Ginzel has been on the Chicago Booth faculty since 1992. She specializes in negotiation skills, managerial psychology, leadership and executive development. Her recent book, Choosing Leadership, helps readers to develop what she terms Leadership Capital: the courage, wisdom and capacity to decide when to manage and when to lead.

Ginzel has taught at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. She is a charter member of the Association for Psychological Science, as well as a member of the Academy of Management. At Booth, she has received the 2011 Faculty Excellence Award, and the Inaugural Global Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013. She was named an Impact Professor by the class of 2014, received the Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019, and the class of 2020 Phoenix Award.

In 2000 President Clinton awarded her a President's Service Award, the nation's highest honor for volunteer service directed at solving critical social problems. Ginzel is the co-founder of Kids In Danger, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by improving children's product safety. She also served as director of the Consumer's Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

With over 15 of experience, in early 2019, Viviana was appointed as Head of Sustainability for Unilever North America. Prior to this, she was the Head of Corporate Strategy in the US. She has also been part of the Global Corporate Strategy team in London supporting the overall company medium-long term plans at a Global Level, with an emphasis in Inclusive Capitalism and supporting the CEO and Excecutive team in further integrating sustainability and circular economy into Unilever’s Global Corporate Strategy.

Viviana has an Executive MBA from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and BSBA in Business Management. Recent Executive Education at Harvard Business School and University of Oxford on Circular Economy, Sustainable Development, Leadership and Scenario Planning. She is currently finishing an Excecutive course on Sustainability Leadership in Yale with WBCSD and INSEAD on Leading Organizations in Disruptive Times
Previos positions in Unilever also include - Global Strategies Social Business Models Project Leader - Unilever Foundation Global Ambassador. Others: - Co-Founder of H2H ("Help to Haiti") - NGO in Haiti since 2010. She speaks fluently 4 languages: Spanish (native), English, French, Catalan

Current Advisory Board Member of:
- The Recycling Partnership
- Sustainable Brands
- Centre of Responsible Business for Berkley University

Former advisor of the US Plastic Pact and The Close Loop Partners

Recent awards: SDG Media - United Nations, 2019

Ted Talk in 2013: https://www.ted.com/talks/viviana_alvarez_don_t_quit_your_job_use_it_for_good

Sophia Mendelsohn has been leading corporate sustainability and environmental social governance (ESG) in the U.S. and China for over a decade.

Sophia balances immediate financial imperatives with social and environmental considerations for long-term financial viability.
Sophia drives profit with executable ESG strategies. She creates and executes business models for a resource-constrained world.

Sophia is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of ESG for Cognizant, a Fortune 200 digital solutions and technology company. She and her Cognizant colleagues are applying ESG solutions into tech and systemic thinking.

Sophia was the first Chief Sustainability Officer at JetBlue Airways, where she shaped JetBlue and the aviation industry by instigating climate crises responses. She lead ESG conversations with investors and owners, taking back their questions to further protect intangible brand and traditional financial value. Prior to JetBlue, Sophia was head of sustainability, emerging markets, for Haworth, a multinational manufacturer in the corporate real estate industry. Previously, she worked for the Jane Goodall Institute in Shanghai, establishing environment programs in offices and schools in China.

Sophia designed and taught the first ESG at Harvard Extension School. She has a master of science in sustainable management from Columbia University.

Over the course of her career, Sophia has been recognized for her leadership and commitment to corporate citizenship. In 2016, she won the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leadership Award and was named Climate Leader of the Year by Ethical Corporation. In 2020, she was named one of the top 30 people leading the climate charge by Bloomberg.

Sophia serves on boards and advisory councils. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and is raising children in a mostly Mandarin environment.

She continues to lead at work and be present at home, never pretending it is easy.

My childhood preoccupation with creating meaningful connection grew into an academic interest. I went on to teach courses in leadership and collaboration as a research fellow, first at Harvard and MIT. The research I contributed to during that time motivated me to start my own speaking business and scale it from a what-if idea into a global company. It’s been a journey of growth. At the start, I had no big speaking experience and no media connections. I was just an entrepreneur, asking: How can I get big things done?

Before I knew it, my book Get Big Things Done became a best-seller. I was addressing global leaders at the World Economic Forum, getting interviewed by Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, becoming a “sought-after” keynote speaker by CEOs and top executives, and teaching twenty-first-century collaboration skills to thousands of leaders across a range of industries, companies, and countries.

I owe my success to a superpower that we all share: Connectional Intelligence