2020: Innovation to Impact

Founder, Co-CEO, and Chairwoman, EILEEN FISHER, Inc.

Fisher ventured into clothing design in 1984. Her original concept—simple, timeless pieces that work together to help women get dressed easily—still defines the company’s collections, which are sold at 66 EILEEN FISHER stores and over 300 department and specialty stores across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, as well as at two Renew stores as part of the company’s innovative recycling program. 

In 2009, EILEEN FISHER started a take-back program—part of a circular system designed to preserve the value of the brand’s clothes at every stage, in any condition. The company has taken back over 1.3 million garments to date, transforming damaged clothes into one-of-a-kind artworks, pillows, wall hangings and accessories using a custom felting technique that requires no water or dyes. 

In spring 2015, EILEEN FISHER announced VISION2020, a bold five-year plan that addresses sustainability and human rights. In keeping with Fisher’s belief in collaboration, VISION2020 calls for partnering with other brands to shift the fashion industry. 

In 2019, Fisher received the Positive Change Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Fisher has also been selected to join the Steering Committee for New York State’s Council on Women and Girls. 

Sustainable Systems Specialist, Materials Reuse Advocate, and Social Entrepreneur

Stacy Flynn is the CEO and a founding partner of Evrnu, a textile innovations company. An accomplished sustainable systems expert, Flynn is committed to developing innovative fiber technologies that reduce textile waste and preserve natural resources.

Under Flynn’s leadership, Evrnu is working to solve the most pressing challenges facing the global textile and apparel industry. In 2019 Evrnu debuted NuCycl, a technology that transforms garment waste into a resource by recovering the raw materials for reuse. Evrnu has been recognized as an organization making notable contributions to the circular economy as well as being named in 2018 Fast Company World Changing Ideas.

Flynn is a TEDx and keynote speaker and a passionate voice of authority advocating for materials reuse for sustainability in textiles. She is an Unreasonable Impact Fellow, along with a cohort of CEOs that are advancing other world-changing ideas.

Prior to founding the company in 2014 with her business partner Christo Stanev, Flynn worked as a global textile specialist for nearly two decades in roles at DuPont, Eddie Bauer, and Target. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Systems from Presidio Graduate Institute and a Bachelor of Science degree in Textile Development and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

President, FIT

Dr. Joyce F. Brown, president of FIT since 1998, is a highly regarded educator and academic administrator with over 40 years experience in public higher education. She held a number of senior administrative posts at the City University of New York before arriving at FIT, including acting president of Bernard Baruch College and vice chancellor of the university. Prior to her appointment at FIT, she was professor of counseling psychology at the Graduate School and University Center of CUNY. Dr. Brown has also served as a New York City Deputy Mayor during the Dinkins administration. At FIT, Dr. Brown has led an ambitious multi-year strategic initiative that has transformed the college. She has built faculty ranks, increased technology, enhanced student services, expanded the curriculum with innovative new programs, and renovated facilities. She has invigorated the college’s culture with groundbreaking initiatives in diversity and sustainability. Under Dr. Brown’s leadership, sustainability became a key element of FIT’s mission. Her early participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University formalized a commitment to sustainability that was reflected in the college’s physical plant, curriculum, and public programming. She established a Sustainability Council that promotes dialogue, campuswide activities—including the annual Sustainability Business and Design Conference—and manages grant programs for related projects. FIT has been honored by both New York City and New York State for its leadership among public institutions in the field of sustainability.

Founder and CEO, Wardrobe

Adarsh Alphons is the founder and CEO of Wardrobe, a new peer-to-peer luxury clothing rental app focused on sustainability. Wardrobe partners with local dry cleaners to turn them into fashion destinations that provide cleaning, storage, caring, and access points for items where users can pick up and return their rented items. Wardrobe was launched in New York City in November 2019 and is backed by the founders of Airbnb and Coinbase. It has been featured in Vogue, TechCrunch, and WWD. Alphons was named a CNN Hero in 2015 for his nonprofit, ProjectArt, which provides free art classes to public school children.

Regenerative Farming Entrepreneur

Ben Banks-Dobson is a seasoned entrepreneur with experience building international ecological agricultural ventures. Dobson specializes in regenerative farming systems and supply chain management. He launched and operated two seed stage start-ups through successful exits—a high-production salad brand called Locally Known and a small-scale shade-grown coffee processing business in the Haitian Highlands.  

Dobson works at the nexus of ecology, agriculture, and economics, and champions placing an economic value on natural resources through financial incentives for farmers and landowners. Dobson currently manages a 2,400-acre organic grain and hemp farm in New York State. The farm is the flagship research pilot for Hudson Carbon, a collaborative research institute that he founded to monitor the impacts of regenerative farming practices on carbon capture.  

In 2017, Dobson brought hemp into the crop rotation because of its unique ability to clean the soil and prevent erosion while sequestering carbon. The farms now grow about 50 acres of medicinal hemp and have a GMP and organic certified extraction facility on site where the hemp is processed for CBD and other cannabinoids. 

Dobson credits his lifetime passion for the land to his mother, who raised him on a horse-powered homestead.

Founder and CEO, Remake

Ayesha Barenblat is a social entrepreneur with a passion for building sustainable supply chains that respect people and our planet. With over a decade of leadership experience promoting social justice and sustainability within the fashion industry, she founded Remake to ignite a conscious consumer movement. Remake’s films, stories, and immersive journeys rebuild human connections with the women who make our clothes. Barenblat is passionate about where things come from, who made them, and what their lives are like. She has worked with brands, governments, and labor advocates to improve the lives of the women who make our clothes. 

Barenblat led brand engagement at Better Work, a World Bank and United Nations partnership that sought to ensure safe and decent working conditions within garment factories around the world. She was head of consumer products at BSR, providing strategic advice to brands including H&M, Levi Strauss & Co., Marks and Spencer, Nike, the Walt Disney Company, and Pou Chen on the design and integration of sustainability into business. She holds a master’s in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Founder and CEO, Everybody & Everyone

Veronica Chou built the eco-innovative, inclusive, everyday women’s wear brand Everybody & Everyone from the ground up, considering its full environmental impact with the goal of creating affordable and versatile essentials to help make life easier for women.

Chou’s past experience includes investing in and growing the Karl Lagerfeld brand into a global lifestyle business with multiple product expansions, including hotels. As founder and president of Iconix China from 2008 to 2015, she successfully launched 12 brands in the Greater China market and opened over 1,000 stores. Her many business successes earned her the title of one of Asia’s “Most Powerful Business Women to Watch” by Forbes magazine.

Chou has led investments in a wide range of Chinese and American businesses that include TheTot, Refinery29, Eloquii, Thousand Fell, Dirty Labs, and Carbon Engineering. As a testament to her continued focus on improving the apparel industry, Chou joined the Copenhagen Fashion Summit in 2017 in the role of special advisor. She is also a mother to twin boys.

Founder and Creative Director, Senza Tempo

Kristen Fanarakis is the founder and creative director of Senza Tempo, a classically inspired luxury collection for women made in America. The collection uses only natural fabrics and is made at a single atelier in downtown Los Angeles. She spent 13 years working on Wall Street in foreign exchange investments and trading in Boston and New York City prior to launching Senza Tempo.

Founder and CEO, TripleWin Advisory

Kate Gaertner brings 20 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience to her current organizational sustainability work. She specializes in performing greenhouse gas inventories, mapping supply chains, facilitating stakeholder engagement, and developing financial business cases for the implementation of circular business models. She has held digital marketing management positions at XM Satellite Radio, Ziff Davis Media, and Time Inc.; worked as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies developing go-to-market strategies; founded a sustainable women’s activewear lifestyle brand, OMALA; and has been an adjunct instructor at FIT.

Gaertner holds an MSc in sustainable management, an MBA from the Wharton School, and an AB from Dartmouth College. She is the author of a book on climate change and sustainability and serves on the board of the XXcelerate Fund, a business-accelerator and capital fund for womxn entrepreneurs.

Founder and CEO, Repeat Roses 

Repeat Roses was launched in January 2014 after Grove spent a career as a wedding designer and corporate planner witnessing the enormous amounts of waste produced behind the scenes. Determined to find a solution to greatly reduce the waste for herself and all event planners, Grove launched Repeat Roses, the first of its kind zero-waste floral design and recycling service. To date, the company has diverted 200,000 pounds of waste from landfills across North America. Grove holds a BS in Fashion Merchandising Management and an AAS in Fashion Buying and Merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, where she is an active member of the FIT alumni community.

Founder, President and Creative Director, Mara Hoffman

Mara Hoffman founded her label in 2000 after graduating from Parsons School of Design in New York City. As president and creative director of her privately owned company, Hoffman hopes to foster mindful consumption habits and encourages consumers to reevaluate the relationship society has with clothing. The brand’s approach centers on sustainable materials, processes, and production in order to improve and extend each garment’s life. Hoffman commits to presenting collections devoted to color, each inspired by and in celebration of women.

Headquartered in New York, she is an active member of the CFDA and serves on the boards of the artisan-focused nonprofit Nest, the community organization Glam4Good, and the youth empowerment charity ArtStart. In 2017, Hoffman was awarded the 2017 Positive Impact Award for Brand Leadership in Advancing Sustainability by the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator. Originally from Buffalo, New York, Hoffman now lives in Brooklyn with her husband, artist Javier Piñon, and their son, Joaquin.

Environmental and Construction Manager, Waste Management

Jay Kaplan studied environmental science and marine ecology at Long Island University. He has worked for Waste Management as an environmental protection professional for 19 years in New York City. He has focused on the development of solid waste transportation infrastructure projects that have taken thousands of diesel powered trucks off the road. Kaplan sits on the board of the Newtown Creek Alliance and is an active leader in environmental and community improvement projects in New York City in addition to being a passionate environmentalist.

Multimedia Journalist and Video Director

Sophia Li is a New York–based multimedia journalist whose mission is to humanize a story, product, or character through immersive storytelling and conscious content, focusing on issues such as sustainability and global tech trends—redefining how news is communicated in the 21st century.

Sophia’s journalistic reporting has appeared on CNN, in Vogue, and at the United Nations. She has created and directed conscious campaign videos for brands such as Adidas, Maybelline, and Theory. Dubbed an innovative storyteller in the fashion industry and beyond, Li has interviewed notables spanning across fashion, tech, and culture from names like Arianna Huffington, Pharrell Williams, and Céline Dion to Nobel Peace Prize recipients. She is the former entertainment media editor at Vogue.com where she worked on creating and launching Vogue's social and digital voice as part of the founding team of Vogue.com.

Li is Chinese-American, growing up between four U.S. states and two countries as a child and finds herself most at home while on the road.

Founder, Noihsaf Bazaar

Kate Lindello is the founder of Noihsaf Bazaar, an online marketplace focused on the resale of independent and emerging fashion designs. She has been a stylist for over a decade and has been featured in The New York Times, Nylon, and the Toronto Star. She hails from the small city of Duluth, Minnesota, where she launched Noihsaf Bazaar from her basement in 2013. 

Lindello is also an advocate for postpartum depression awareness, wife, mother, dog lover, community organizer, and nature enthusiast. When she's not operating Noihsaf, you will find her escaping to Minnesota’s North Woods.

President and Co-Founder, Smallholder Farmers Alliance

Locke has developed a revolutionary agroforestry model that turns tree planting and reforestation undertaken by smallholder farmers into a means of financing increased farm productivity and village prosperity. Organic cotton grown by members of Locke’s Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) will appear in a new Timberland product line in spring 2021, and the company is also sponsoring the SFA to plant 25 million trees in Haiti over the next five years. Locke is the lead on a program with Columbia University and Timberland to develop a new data app designed to track and measure smallholder impacts including improvements in farmer resilience, increases in food security, successes in combating climate change, and progress in achieving gender equality.

Global Senior Director Purpose, Adidas

Chief Commercial Officer, Arch & Hook

Gertjan Meijer is chief commercial officer of Arch & Hook, the sustainable hanger brand.
Previously, Meijer worked in various capacities within the retail design and fixture manufacturing world. He is originally from the Netherlands and has lived and worked in different countries. He has a passion for design and sustainability and holds a BA degree in hospitality management.

Sustainable Materials and Transparency Manager, EILEEN FISHER Inc.

Megan Meiklejohn has been critical to EILEEN FISHER’s commitment to both sustainable materials—organic, regenerative, and responsible fibers—and its bigger commitment to addressing all aspects of a garment’s impact. Meiklejohn is part of a team that pioneered a responsible wool supply chain centered around Argentinian farmers who are using regenerative grazing to help restore 1.2 million acres of depleted grasslands.

Founder, Custom Collaborative

Ngozi Okaro advocates for a fashion industry that honors the planet and people. She founded Custom Collaborative to support immigrant and low-income women launching sustainable fashion careers. Custom Collaborative serves U.S. designers who want to design and produce locally, fashion-industry workers, and consumers who want ethical fashion. Among other distinctions, Okaro was named one of the 2020 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business by Conscious Company Media and Kate Spade; the NYC Fair Trade Coalition named her a 2019 Changemaker of the Year; and she was awarded the 2019 Spirit of Entrepreneurship award by New York Women's Foundation. 

She is certified by New York University’s Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, was a 2014 Environmental Leadership Program Fellow, and is a graduate of the Coro Leadership New York program. Okaro is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Morgan State University, and she is licensed to practice law in Louisiana and New York.

Professor, Science and Math, FIT

Karen Pearson, PhD, is a professor of Science and Math at FIT and is the co-chair of the college’s Sustainability Council. She has won a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, has been noted as one of the 100 most inspiring women in STEM, and is a recipient of FIT’s President’s Award for Excellence. Pearson has extensive work in the development of interdisciplinary STEAM curricula and programming at FIT and is the recipient of multiple research/program awards, including those from the National Science Foundation and National Endowment of the Arts. Her research outside of the classroom is focused on the design, synthesis, and application of new materials that have potential in low energy devices such as thin film transistors (TFTs) and light emitting diodes (LEDs).

Founder and CEO, Think Coffee

In the early ’90s, Jason Scherr was a corporate lawyer in Manhattan who launched Jason’s Cream Cheese during his free time, later moving to then-undiscovered Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he lived happily with his walk-in refrigerator full of packaged bagel toppings. Although his cream cheese business did not survive the ’90s, Scherr fell in love with his new neighborhood, which at the time was in dire need of a place for locals to gather. He started a small coffee shop on Bedford Avenue called Verb Cafe where he learned his new trade. The takeaway for Scherr from his experience at Verb Cafe was that coffee is a business based on creating goodwill with his customers, and with this in mind, he founded Think Coffee in 2006. 

Think Coffee now owns and operates 11 locations in New York City, including a bakery and roastery in Williamsburg. It also sources and imports all of its own coffee, and it does so in a responsible manner that Scherr believes is unparalleled in the industry.

Assistant Professor, FIT and Co-founding Scientific Director, AlgiKnit

Theanne Schiros guides students to rethink materials through nature, technology, circularity, and life cycle impact assessment. She is also a materials scientist exploring biofabrication of sustainable textiles. She has received international awards and recognition for her work, including the 2017 National Geographic Chasing Genius Award (Sustainable Planet), the 2018 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, and the overall prize in the 2016 International Biodesign Challenge Summit. She is a co-founder of AlgiKnit, a start-up that has developed a kelp-based bioyarn. 

Schiros is engaged in international sustainable development and educational outreach with Engineers Without Borders (Haiti), the Finca Morpho Permaculture collective (Costa Rica), and There Is No Limit Foundation (West Africa). Schiros has served as a United Nations ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Fellow for Sustainable Energy Engineering, a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA Fellow), and an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) Fellow at Columbia University, developing sustainable energy systems, photocatalysts and next generation solar energy technology.

Founder and CEO, Slow Factory

Céline Semaan uses fashion as a medium for social change; fashion activism is a term she coined in 2013. As an internationally recognized expert in sustainability and human rights, she writes, convenes, educates and inspires across industries. Her background is in design, communications, and media arts. Semaan has been an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, and her work has been acquired by and displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, de Young Museum, SFMoMA, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Semaan was born in a war in Lebanon where she and her family escaped as refugees to North America, then returned to live in Beirut. She has since become an ambassador for cultures in the East and West, exploring postcolonial theories and solutions inspired by indigenous knowledge and wisdom in engaging and mobilizing on climate and culture around the concept of social and environmental justice studied in tandem.

Chief Executive Officer, Tommy Hilfiger Americas

Gary Sheinbaum assumed his current role of CEO at Tommy Hilfiger Americas in September 2014. In this role, Sheinbaum leads the North American business and oversees Tommy Hilfiger’s Latin America operations.

Previously, he served as chief executive officer of Tommy Hilfiger, North America, beginning in 2009. Since joining the company in 1995, Sheinbaum has worked in various capacities including president of specialty retail, president of retail development for the U.S. wholesale business and group president, North America, for outlet, specialty, retail and e-commerce.

Prior to joining PVH, Sheinbaum was the president of J. Crew Retail for five years. Previous to J. Crew, he was the managing director of Polo Mansion on Madison Avenue. He spent the first eight years of his career at Macy’s New York in a variety of store line and buying positions.

He graduated from Bucknell University with a Bachelor of Arts in international business and Spanish. Sheinbaum is the chair of the board of the directors of the FIT Foundation.

Founder, Sustainble Fashion Forum

Passionate about the sustainable fashion industry but unsure where she fit in the conversation, Brittany Sierra recognized that there was a lack of events, conversation, and community among sustainable fashion enthusiasts and industry leaders. In 2017, Sierra responded by creating the Sustainable Fashion Forum, a wildly popular online platform, and growing national conference. Sierra's naturally curious and courageous nature, coupled with a background in public relations and digital marketing, resulted in the Sustainable Fashion Forum gaining global visibility within four years.  

With hundreds of attendees and speakers from brands such as Nordstrom, Adidas, Eileen Fisher Renew, Vogue, Athleta, The North Face, thredUp, Fast Company, For Days, and Mara Hoffman, the Sustainable Fashion Forum is a fully immersive and highly interactive conference for slow fashion advocates of all industry levels. Sierra is extremely passionate about creating digital and offline experiences that spark conversation and foster community.

Professor and Immediate Past Chairperson, Textile Develeopment and Marketing Department, Fashion Institute of Technology

Jeffrey Silberman is a professor and immediate past chair of the Textile Development and Marketing Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where he won the 2015–16 President's Award for Faculty Excellence. He simultaneously served as consultant to the International Cotton Advisory Committee Secretariat and served as executive director to the International Forum for Cotton Promotion from 2001 to 2016. He consults internationally, specializing in natural fiber program development and demand enhancement strategy and is the co-owner of Maple Shade Farm in Katonah, NY, which produces natural fibers and dyes for academic research. 

Silberman has designed and implemented textile development programs in over 15 countries, including Turkey, India, Armenia, Russia, Mongolia, and Nepal. Silberman was a core member of the team that developed and launched the Egyptian cotton logo and promotion program (CottonEgypt) for the government of Egypt. He built, managed, and was a site guide for the apparel and home textiles internet industry channel for About.com. 

Prior to his academic career and his consulting activities, Silberman was a director of marketing for Cotton Incorporated, and technical director for United Merchants and Manufacturers, Inc. 

Sustainability Advocate and Actress

Amber Valletta appeared on her first Vogue at age 18 and is one of the few top models that holds the record for the most U.S. Vogue covers in history—a total of 13. She has appeared as the face of Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Gucci, and Giorgio Armani, and also star in films like Hitch and What Lies Beneath, and TV shows such as Revenge and the recent Blood and Oil. Seeking to blend her love of fashion with her values led to the launch of Master & Muse by Amber Valletta, an online store that offers stylish, cutting-edge, responsibly made fashion, that is created and produced by sustainable designers. 

Capitalizing on the awareness building that Master & Muse brought to the world of sustainable fashion, Valletta began speaking at global conferences about fashion and sustainability. She has worked with international organizations and events such as the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award, Sustainable Brands Conference, and SXSW Eco. She also lends her mentorship to the CFDA Sustainable Fashion Initiative and is on the advisory boards of Cradle to Cradle (Fashion +), Environmental Media Association, and Nest.  

She co-founded A Squared Films LLC, producing projects to entertain, educate, and inspire social change. Her credits include Driving Fashion Forward for Lexus’s L/Studio; Who Made Your Clothes? a Fashion Revolution Week viral video; Reinventing Power for The Sierra Club; and The Changing Room, a global campaign and short film (in development) to ignite change.

Head of Sustainability, Rothy's

An environmental scientist with over a decade of experience in sustainable manufacturing and design, van Gendt is head of sustainability at Rothy’s, a global lifestyle brand best known for creating stylish, comfortable shoes from recycled plastic water bottles. At Rothy’s, van Gendt develops strategies to minimize the environmental impact that the Rothy’s supply chain has on the environment, advancing Rothy’s sustainable innovations in materials, production and fulfillment, and more. 

Prior to joining Rothy’s, van Gendt worked as senior director of sustainability at Method, a brand renowned for their clean, sustainable, and effective cleaning products. At Method, van Gendt implemented sustainability initiatives on the ground for the European business and at Method’s LEED-Platinum soap factory in Chicago. 

Van Gendt graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in environmental science. She currently lives in Oakland and enjoys travel, yoga, and vegetarian cooking.

Co-founders, Celsious

Theresa and Corinna Williams are the co-founders of Celsious, a premium sustainable garment care provider and New York’s first laundromat-café located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The sisters aim to make laundry day a fun, relaxing, and productive experience, and for the process itself to be as kind to the environment as possible.