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As a young girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama I was full of wanderlust, a curious child who always wanted to go beyond the end of the block. Since my father worked for an aircraft company, it came to me naturally. He was always telling amazing tales of travel and adventure. I was 12 years old when I finally got my wish to take a big trip out of the US, with my family to Montreal for the World’s Fair. At the fair we were given “passports” and each time we entered a new pavilion we received a stamp. I remember promising myself, “one day I’m going to have a real passport and I'm going to travel to all these places!”
My mother Bernyce, my other great influence, was a devoted social worker. Through her dedicated service to others, I was schooled in the power of social responsibility. The coupling of these two passions has always driven my career and my personal endeavors.
Education
I was part of a group of young African American kids who integrated Ramsay High School in Birmingham, AL., Surprisingly I adjusted to these new surroundings and even became Features Editor of our high school newspaper. After graduating I attended Colorado Women’s College where I majored in French, studied journalism and was Editor in Chief of our campus newspaper, the Western Graphic. I graduated with a BA degree. Next I received a JD degree from Boston University School of Law and years later I added an MBA from the Bordeaux School of Management (now Kedge Business School) in France.
Career
My career began as a diplomat at the US State Dept in Washington DC where my law background came in handy in my embassy assignments abroad. My career blossomed when I took my skill set into the private sector, extending my experience into corporate public affairs, environmental sustainability, public relations, and communications. I have held leadership positions in top tier organizations; including The Eastman Kodak Company as vice president, where I led global public affairs and Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, as senior vice president over global Corporate Responsibility, ethical procurement, and the Starbucks Foundation.
From Coffee to Wine
During my years at Starbucks, I traveled extensively throughout Central and South America, East Africa and Indonesia – honing my palate to discern distinct regional differences, unique flavors, acidity and varietals of coffees and pursuing the importance of sustainable agriculture.. It was this work with the global world of coffee that helped develop and expand my decades-long avocation of wine: from growing to tasting to collecting. Knowing I wanted to pursue wine I took a detour back to academia and got my MBA from the prestigious Bordeaux School of Management.
Now I was ready to strike out on my own and I launched my company, Sustainable Business International LLC. My mission is to assist food and beverage and consumer products companies at various stages of environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice.
My First Book
As pressure was growing for corporations to adhere to sustainability practices, I found I was in demand for speaking engagements as well as requests for blogs and journal writing. It was then that I decided to write a book on sustainability, the corporate world, and the wine industry. I love writing and I suppose my style is journalistic. My first book, The Business of Sustainable Wine: How to Build Brand Equity in a 21st Century Wine Industry was released in July 2017. The book offers a view of how the wine industry can be an important actor in sustainable agriculture. Like fair trade cocoa and shade grown coffee, wine must, sooner or later, meet the powerful demands of social activists and the growing marketplace for ethical and organic products.
A CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO WINE AND SUSTAINABILITY
My new book is being published after 4 years of research and investigation. The purpose in writing this book comes from my firm belief that it is the consumer who will change the way wine is produced and selected. Just like with food and electric cars, it was the consumer who demanded the change from gas guzzlers to electric, from overly processed to organic.
The guide is structured in a way that it is easy for the consumer to find the wines they like, for a price they can afford, with 100% assurance that the wine is sustainable, to the standards of sustainability that are explained in the book.
From a young kid growing up in the deep South to the corporate world of big business, I have gone on quite a journey. But I am not done yet... So stay tuned!
