Tag

circular economy

The Next Billion Sustainable Choices: How Payments Can Power the Circular Economy
Sustainability, VIDEO, SUSTAINABILITY

The Next Billion Sustainable Choices: How Payments Can Power the Circular Economy

March 24, 2025

Ellen Jackowski is Chief Sustainability Officer at Mastercard, where she is spearheading the integration of the company’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy into the organization and throughout its value chain.

As part of this work, she is driving climate leadership for Mastercard-wide programs and commitments, such as reaching net-zero emissions by 2040, accelerating the company’s impact in driving sustainable choices across the value chain, and advancing inclusive climate action. Mastercard’s ESG efforts, established more than a decade ago, are rooted in a belief of doing well by doing good in order to have true impact and enable both people and the planet to thrive.

Previously, Ellen served as Chief Impact Officer and Head of Sustainable Impact at HP. Her global team developed and delivered a wide range of programs focused on climate action, human rights and digital equity. Earlier in her career, she served in several management and consulting roles.

Ellen is part of the advisory board of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network, is a deputy advisor on the World Economic Forum’s Champions for Nature community and has served as a faculty member of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme at the University of Cambridge.

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Innovative Approaches to Resiliency and Circularity
Sustainability, VIDEO, SUSTAINABILITY

Innovative Approaches to Resiliency and Circularity

March 24, 2025

James Gowen is Sr. Vice President, Global Sourcing and Supply Chain, and Chief Sustainability Officer for Verizon. Since taking on the complementary roles of Supply Chain and Sustainability in 2009, his team has enlisted more than 65,000 Verizon employees in 50 countries around the globe in helping to reduce the company’s environmental footprint while increasing the efficiency of a growing enterprise.

Gowen is deeply involved in the advancement of innovative and sustainable technologies and spearheaded the launch of Verizon’s first ever green bond in 2019. Since then, Gowen has been instrumental in Verizon issuing five additional $1 billion green bonds with the net proceeds allocated toward renewable energy investments to accelerate the transition to greener electrical grids across the U.S. As one of the leading corporate buyers of U.S. renewable energy, Verizon has over 3.6 gigawatts of anticipated renewable energy capacity under contact and 37.6 megawatts of on-site green energy generation in operation at our facilities. Gowen oversees other green initiatives including setting Verizon’s approved science based emissions reduction targets, committing to operational net zero emissions, expanding recycling and waste reduction, and management of end-of-life-cycle material recovery.

In his supply chain and sourcing role, Gowen leads all inventory planning, logistics operations and sourcing globally. Gowen is responsible for the planning of over $35B of inventory and $70B of sourcing spend across all Verizon’s lines of business. Additionally, Gowen has responsibility for procurement, warehousing, transportation, quality, returns and end-of-life monetization.

In 2015, Gowen spearheaded the start-up of Verizon Services Ireland Limited in Dublin, Ireland. He was responsible for transitioning $15B in annual spend for strategic sourcing of Verizon’s Network and IT operations. Over 85 industry professionals were hired and a state-of-the-art center of excellence was built under Gowen’s leadership in less than 7 months.

Having held several positions of increasing levels of responsibility at Verizon, Gowen was the lead architect of the company’s supply chain strategy and led the strategic shift from a fixed to a variable inventory business model. While in corporate sourcing, he led the implementation of Verizon’s eProcurement effort, and the standardization of Verizon’s supply chain systems.

Gowen earned his master’s degree in business administration from Long Island University and his bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College. He is a member of Penn State University’s Smeal Sustainability Advisory Board. He is also the current Chairman of GeSI (Global eSustainability based out of Brussels), and a board member of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium. Gowen is located at Verizon Center in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

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Sustainability, VIDEO, SUSTAINABILITY

Embracing Circular Innovation

March 24, 2025

Jen Huffstetler is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Senior Vice President of Sustainable Impact and Compliance at HP. In this role, Jen is responsible for developing and leading the company’s integrated Sustainable Impact strategy to deliver sustainable computing for a sustainable future. She also leads product compliance and global technical regulations. She is a keynote speaker and expert on Sustainable AI and deployment of AI to achieve sustainability goals.

Previously, Jen was the Chief Product Sustainability Officer and Vice President/General Manager of Future Platform Strategy at Intel. Jen brings a diversity of business, marketing, supply chain, manufacturing, product development and engineering experience from her 25+ years at Intel spanning chips to software to data center systems.

Jen holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Babson College, F.W. Olin Graduate School in Corporate Entrepreneurship. She is also a certified Executive Leadership Coach from the Hudson Institute, a Korn-Ferry Interpreter, and Birkman Certified. She enjoys spending time with her husband, two adult daughters, and Malinois/Greyhound mix, traveling, Pilates, reading, volleyball, sailing, running, and cycling.

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Fireside Chat: Learnings from Diageo’s Approach to Building a Sustainable and Resilient Operation
FOOD MANUFACTURING, VIDEO, MANUFACTURING

Fireside Chat: Learnings from Diageo’s Approach to Building a Sustainable and Resilient Operation

October 16, 2024

Ray Reddrick is Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Distillation for Diageo North America. Diageo has an outstanding collection of more than 200 brands making the organization a global leader in the beverage alcohol industry. Jonnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit, Smirnoff, Cîroc, Ketel One, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray, and Guinness represent a sample of the consumer products reach Diageo has across more than 180 countries.

Mr. Reddrick has developed a diverse background across several industries in the manufacturing and CPG supply space. Prior to joining Diageo in January of 2023, Mr. Reddrick consulted supporting Diageo’s strategic growth strategy for their domestic and international business. Mr. Reddrick has held supply chain leadership roles with Heartland Coca-Cola as the Vice President of Supply Chain where he played a critical leadership role in the total enterprise start-up of a new $700 million dollar Coca-Cola beverage manufacturing and distribution franchise business. Additionally, Ray has held critical supply chain leadership roles as director of manufacturing for PepsiCo, Land O’ Lakes, Data replication leadership with Sony where he executed the manufacturing acceptance testing for Sony’s Play Station format and the manufacturing liaison for Harmon Motive a tier one supplier of high-end transducers branded as JBL, infinity and Harmon Kardon. The Harmon Kardon premium products were specially engineered for Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Land Rover, Toyota, GM, and Fords high end product offerings installed at site automotive assembly locations across the US and Canada. Mr. Reddrick has over 30 years of manufacturing and supply chain experience transforming supply networks to deliver world-class businesses and operations results throughout his career.

Mr. Reddrick has extended his leadership talents outside of the manufacturing space providing leadership guidance, governance and strategic thought leadership while serving on the following boards:

South Fulton Georgia Chamber of Commerce (2008 – 2013)

Board of Directors Member
Executive Board Member
American Red Cross – Georgia (20011 – 2013)

Diversity Recruitment Board Member
Fulton Industrial Community Improvement District (2010 – 2013)

Executive Board Member – Commissioner Appointment
Appointed by Commissioner William Bill Edwards – Vice Chairman Board of Commissioners – Atlanta, Ga
Coca-Cola National Product Supply Bord Member (2019 – 2021)

Southeastern Container Company Board Member (2020 – 2021)

Illinois Manufacturer’s Association Board Member (2023 – Current)

Mr. Reddrick earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Technology – Manufacturing Systems from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.

North America is the largest business unit and market for Diageo contributing over 50% of the company’s operating profit. Diageo North America’s supply organization represents the leading producer of alcoholic beverages distilled, blended, matured, barreled, brewed, bottled, and warehoused in the market. North America operates over 12 domestic facilities across the United States, Canada and U.S.V.I.

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PODCAST, SUPPLY CHAIN — NA, BLUEPRINT

bluEPrint 1- VR Innovations, Sustainable Practices and Keeping up with eCommerce

January 16, 2019

In the age of information overload, we believe in getting to the bottom line. That’s why Executive Platforms is launching bluEPrint, a regular supply chain news bulletin to streamline your reading and deliver global insights straight to you. As a reader, you can expect regular up-to-date content that outlines: Inside look at how other companies are optimizing their supply chains Updates on emerging technologies and customer habits A framework of ideas and methods for you to build upon Whether you’re a regular executive at our annual North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series, or new to our community, we want…

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