KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, Founder, President
KoAnn is a seasoned business-to-business media executive with a consistent track record of success over 18 years producing record-breaking business results across a wide variety of media and markets. Formerly Senior Vice President with Miller Freeman, Inc. now CMP media, she has successfully launched over 40 conferences, trade shows, magazines, websites, research studies and even books - the largest of which have attracted tens of thousands of people from around the world. Her involvement with business and the environment dates back to the mid-1980s when she launched international conferences on improving log utilization, reducing Waste Paper, and eliminating ozone-layer destroying chemicals (CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons).

Prior to founding Sustainable Life Media, KoAnn founded Organizations That Work, a management consultancy focused on her passion for helping companies deliver breakthrough financial performance through purpose-driven leadership practices and improved organizational alignment and learning. Since 2003, she has devoted her full attention to the emerging field of sustainability, helping various media entrepreneurs and NGO's such as Sierra Club, Greenbiz.com, ManyOne.net, eartheasy.com, green@work, Green Light Magazine, and others, establish their own paths to effectiveness and economic sustainability. In 2005, through SLM, she produced the first international conference on Cradle to Cradle Design in Practice with Bill McDonough, Michael Braungart, Peter Senge and others.

Having spent ten years building online and event franchises for emerging technology markets, she is keenly aware of how a neutral media platform can help catalyze a new marketplace. Through SLM, she and her team hope to provide an open space for many to benefit from innovating for sustainability. KoAnn lives with her entrepreneurial husband, Steve and their two sons, Josh and Jake on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Daniel Bruno, Events Coordinator
Danny is entering into his third year at UCLA as an Economics and Political Science major. He has worked for Arguedas, Cassman & Headly, LLP, UCLA Marketing & Communications, and Yoga of Los Altos. He trained for table tennis in China and pulled teeth in Africa before joining the SLM team.

Cynthia Blair, VP, Marketing & Partnership Development
Cynthia brings 20 years experience to SLM in branding, integrated marketing, communications and building innovative and award-winning media products such as magazines, websites, and conferences. As a publishing director at an international high-tech media company and vice president of education and outreach at a global corporate social responsibility non-profit, Cynthia has overseen marketing, strategic partnerships, sales, public educational campaigns, fundraising, event production, and overall business management. She has led the development of complex informational media for national and international professional audiences at organizations such as CMP, Business for Social Responsibility, Flex Your Power and the Public Library of Science, and developed strategic plans and raised capital for media start-ups. Cynthia has spent the last 10 years dedicated to sustainability, AIDS & HIV services, mental health treatment, open access to medical and scientific research, and other social justice issues.

Celia Canfield, VP Sales & Business Development
As a marketer with over 25 years of print and Web publishing experience, Celia Canfield is skilled at developing communication programs that reach diverse audiences and achieve measurable results for clients. After getting her feet wet at print publications as BassMaster and BusinessWeek's Careers, she launched an English-language magazine, Business Monthly, in Cairo, Egypt. Upon returning to the U.S., Celia assumed executive positions in high tech publishing at some of the industry's leading publishers:  M&T Publishing (now CMP Media), IDG, and Ziff Davis. In 1995, she led the launch and marketing of ZDNet, Ziff Davis' critically acclaimed website.

Subsequently, she co-founded a custom content creation agency, Tendo Communications, before leaving to start her own marketing consulting firm, Ecovertex. Celia has planned and developed communication programs for many successful global companies such as: Aon, Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, McKinsey, IBM, Motorola, MCI, Oracle, Adobe, and Honda.  She has a passion for combining her marketing knowledge with progressive policies and issues, having volunteered her marketing services to non-profit organizations such as National Partnership for Women and Families, Women Impacting Public Policy, Small Business Majority, and Small Business for Affordable Healthcare.

Her firsthand understanding of implementing green design and utilizing sustainable products and methods has come from renovating her home to make it LEED compliant. She has written about her green renovation experiences on a blog, www.ecovertex.blogspot.com. In addition to her work with Sustainable Life Media, she serves as an advisor to www.greenhomeguide.com.
 
A graduate of Troy University in Alabama, Celia completed graduate work in mass communications at the American University of Cairo and attended Jesus College, Oxford University, on scholarship in the English Speaking Union Program.

Emily Rabin Cowan, Managing Editor
Emily has been working in online media since its emergence in the late 1990s, primarily in the environmental and health sectors. For five years she served as Senior Editor at GreenBiz.com, one of the first online educational resources on business and the environment, where she managed daily news and features, and identified tools and resources to facilitate companies in their move toward sustainability. She also developed content for GreenBiz sister sites ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com, and GreenBizLeaders, all of which launched during her tenure. From 1998 to 2000 Emily was Associate Editor at Gazoontite.com, developing informational articles on asthma and allergy treatment. She later served as San Francisco Bureau Chief for Ontheroad.com, an arts and culture website geared toward business travelers. Emily graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1997. She and her husband Brian live in Newburyport, Mass.

Abby Monroe, Project Manager, Events
With experience in both the nonprofit and for-profit industries, Abby, specializes in large-scale event management, marketing and greening strategy.  Abby began her events career as an intern in the City of Chicago's Mayor's Office, where she was the Volunteer Coordinator for the United States Conference of Mayors. Ever since, Abby has continued to have a passion for creating high-impact, socially-minded events.

Most recently, Abby was the Conference Manager for the 2007 Net Impact Sustainable Business Conference, which took place in Nashville, Tenn. The conference convened over 1,900 business thought leaders to participate in a cutting-edge curriculum based on the following themes: Business and the Environment, the Business of Health, Corporate Impact, Leadership, the Social Sector and International Development. During her time at Net Impact, Abby also completed a year of service through the Americorps*VISTA program.

Originally from Chicago, Abby has been in the Bay Area for just over a year (and loves it!). She graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a B.S. in economics and marketing.

Carrie Nash, News Editor
Carrie has been following sustainable business practice trends for the last seven years after being introduced to the concept of Fairtrade, while studying International Economics at Harvard University. She began her writing career freelancing for several area newspapers while working in media relations at Business Wire’s Boston office. After spending five years in Norwich, England where she worked in local government developing policies promoting diversity in public service, Carrie has continued researching trends in sustainability in business around the world. Carrie has an M.A. in International Relations from the University of East Anglia, England and a B.A. in Communications from Regis College, Weston, MA. She resides in Massachusetts with her husband Peter and her son Zander.

Hunter Sasser, Project Manager, Events
For Sustainable Life Media, Hunter manages the Sustainable Brands Conference Series. Hunter has had a passion for the environment since she was a little girl hiking though the back woods with her family. She managed to mesh that interest with her love of business while at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She graduated in June, 2007 with her certificate in Public Management with a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility in addition to her MBA. While at Stanford Hunter participated in many clubs and activities, and was particularly proud to have won first place in the Stanford Social Entrepreneurship Business Plan Challenge in 2006. During the summer between her two years of business school Hunter worked as a marketing intern at Seventh Generation, Inc. in Burlington, Vermont. She also interned for World of Good traveling to Kenya to work with local fair trade handicraft artisans on product pricing and design.

Before matriculating at Stanford Hunter was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Armenia from 2003-2005. She served as an Environmental Education Volunteer in the small town of Goris in Southern Armenia. During her time in Armenia Hunter taught classes in a local school, spearheaded litter collection efforts, and created a summer environmental education program for children which was syndicated nationwide. However, what she found particularly fulfilling was working with local businesses on their environmental practices. Hunter received her B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies from the College of William and Mary in 2003.

Betsy Rosenberg, Contributor at Large
Betsy Rosenberg is an award-winning national broadcast journalist and a green media trailblazer with 25 years of radio news experience. Betsy worked as a CBS Radio journalist for two decades, first at KCBS in San Francisco and later as a CBS News anchor covering national and world news. On Earth Day 1997 Betsy launched EcoTalk, a regular green feature on KCBS. The show eventually moved to Air America Radio, where it grew to become the first syndicated environmental show on U.S. commercial radio and the only hourlong green program to air in a prime-time daily slot. Betsy left the network in 2007, making regular guest appearances on national television programs including CNN Headline News and Fox’s Hannity and Colmes. She lives with her husband Alan and daughter Jenna in Marin County, Calif.

Andrew Winston, Editor at Large
Andrew Winston is author of the recently released and widely acclaimed book Green to Gold, in which he chronicles three years of research on how environmental innovators such as 3M, GE, Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, and many others are establishing new value and competitive advantage through smart eco-strategy. Andrew is a nationally recognized expert on green business, and has written for or appeared in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Forbes, ABC News, National Public Radio, and CNBC's Power Lunch. Among other hands-on projects, Andrew has developed strategy for the environmental, quality and social stewardship functions at one of the worlds largest consumer brands and helped a large office products retailer understand its customers environmental needs. He serves on the Sustainability Advisory Council for a $7 billion division of Koch Industries.

Prior to focusing his efforts on business and sustainability, he served in senior marketing, strategy, and business development roles for an internet incubator and for media giants Viacom, Inc., and Time, Inc. and developed innovative strategies for Fortune 500 companies in the manufacturing, health care, telecom and education markets with the Boston Consulting Group. Andrew received his B.A., Economics, cum laude from Princeton University, his MBA from Columbias Graduate School of Business, and his Masters of Environmental Science from Yales School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. In addition to his role at SLM, Andrew is founder of Winston Eco-Strategies, a consultancy that works with organizations to help them build strategies for creating value and competitive advantage through sustainable innovation. Andrew lives with his wife and their two sons, Joshua and Jacob in lovely rural Connecticut.

Scott R. Broomfield, Co-founder, CFO, Secretary and Director
SLM co-founders KoAnn and Scott have known each other for well over half their lifetimes. While each has pursued different paths and logged individual successes, their shared passion for life and for learning about how the world works has always kept them in touch. Sustainable Life Media offers them the wonderful opportunity to apply complimentary skills and experience to an interest they both share successfully catalyzing the opportunity for companies to achieve bottom line success through sustainable innovation.

In addition to his role at Sustainable Life Media, Scott is a managing member of the board of directors of and EVP of Corporate Development at Sand Hill IT Security Acquisition Corp., where he oversees the development of business strategies, including leading company partnerships and strategic alliances. Prior to that he has held several CEO roles of both start up companies which he successfully sold and large public companies who's market caps he has driven to triple digit growth. In his early career, he served as Managing Partner of Hicky & Hill, a turn around consultancy where he was responsible for overseeing acquisitions, equity recapitalizations and divestitures for various companies. Scott holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and is a member of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), where he was the co-chair of BENS cyber security task force and Y2K initiatives. He lives with his beautiful wife Gwen and two lovely girls, Sarah, 10, and Alyssa, 6, on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Jason Kuhns, Esq., General Corporate Counsel
Jason's independent practice focuses on the representation of emerging growth companies, counseling them throughout their lifecycles on strategic business transactions such as formation, debt, and equity financings, mergers and acquisitions, and others. Jason also represents venture capital investors in private convertible debt and equity financings. Jason was a partner at Baker and McKenzie LLP in San Francisco from 2003 to 2005 and a senior associate at Brobeck, Phleger and Harrison LLP from 2000-2002, where he represented a number of technology-oriented companies in various M&A transactions, including Abbott Laboratories, Inc., Motorola, Inc., myCFO, Inc., Securant Technologies, Inc., Topica Inc., WebGain, Inc., and McKesson Corporation. During this time, Jason also advised either the issuer or investors in more than 30 venture capital financings. Jason received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991, his J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law in 1995, and his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University in 1996.

Anne Hiaring, Esq., Trademark Attorney
Anne has specialized in trademark and copyright law since 1981. She is Adjunct Professor of Trademark, Copyright, and International Intellectual Property Law at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California, and Bangkok, Thailand. She has served as President of the San Francisco Intellectual Property Law Association and Chair of the State Bar of California Intellectual Property Law Section. Anne received her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in 1979. After working at two large law firms, she was IP rights attorney for Pacific Telesis for five years, where she was responsible for all aspects of domestic and international trademark filing and enforcement, and all copyright and trade secret procedures. She founded her own firm in 1990.

Garry Whitfield, CPA, Accountant
Garry spent five years at KPMG Peat LLP, where he gained extensive experience in the personal financial planning field, as well as the technical corporate tax-consulting arena. In 1998 he co-founded Whitfield & Johnson, LLC. His areas of expertise include, but are not limited to: business formation and elections, multi-jurisdictional tax minimization strategies, and FICA and Medicare minimization strategies. He has also has extensive experience with executive compensation planning and business valuation principles and methods. Garry has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and General Business Administration from Lee University and a Master's of Science degree in Taxation from San Jose State University.