About CEF

Wayne S. Balta

Vice President, Corporate Environmental Affairs and Product Safety, IBM Corporation

Wayne Balta has global responsibility at IBM for environmental affairs, energy efficiency, chemical management and toxicology, as well as product safety and related hardware compliance functions. He joined IBM in 1984 as project manager for design and construction in the real estate and construction division. In 1989, he was appointed executive assistant to the corporate vice president in charge of real estate. In 1990, he became responsible for IBM’s corporate environmental plans and strategy. Two years later, in 1992, he became Director of Corporate Environmental Affairs. Mr. Balta became Vice President of Corporate Environmental Affairs & Product Safety in 2001.

Mr. Balta has also played a leadership role in a variety of other organizations. He is presently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the World Environment Center. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute. He is a member and past Chairman of The Conference Board's Chief Environment, Health & Safety Officers Council. He serves as IBM’s Liaison Delegate to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. He is also on the Executive Board of the Eco Patent Commons.

In addition, Mr. Balta is a member of the President’s Advisory Board for Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He also serves on the Dean’s Council for the College of Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon. He was the recipient of Carnegie-Mellon’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 2009.

Mr. Balta received a Bachelor of Science Degree in civil engineering with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 1982 and a Master of Science Degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Tau Beta Pi Fellow, in 1984. He was inducted into the Tau Beta Pi national engineering honor society, the Chi Epsilon national civil engineering honor society, and the Sigma Xi scientific research society.

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Steve Ellis

Executive Vice President, Wells Fargo Wholesale Services Group

Steve Ellis is Executive Vice President of Wells Fargo’s Wholesale Services Group (WSG), which includes Enterprise Payment Strategies, Health Benefit Services, Technology Services, and Treasury Management Products and Services. He is also responsible for Wholesale Banking operations and support areas including commercial loan services, customer analytics, marketing, and risk management. Part of the Wholesale Banking Group, WSG focuses on strengthening and deepening customer relationships by integrating products and services across all channels and businesses, giving customers a consistent experience at all touch points. The 3,500-plus team members sit nationwide, with large concentrations in Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. A 20-year company veteran, his previous responsibilities included starting up and running the Wholesale Internet Solutions group, which launched Wells Fargo’s award-winning Commercial Electronic Office internet portal in 2000. The fast pace of Wells Fargo's early move into online financial services was due in large part to his commitment to fostering workplace creativity. Prior to starting up Wholesale Internet Solutions, he held senior finance and operations roles in Wells Fargo’s Commercial Banking, Real Estate Group, and Wholesale Banking groups. He is chairperson of the board of directors for NACHA, The Electronic Payments Association.

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Paulette Frank

Vice President, Sustainability and Environment, Health & Safety, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc.

Paulette Frank currently serves as Vice President, Sustainability and Environment, Health & Safety for the Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies. In this role, she provides thought leadership and strategic direction to advance the organization’s sustainability mission. She also represents the company in external forums, providing a voice for the company’s values and aspirations in the sustainability space.

Paulette has been working in the fields of environmental protection, workplace safety, and sustainability for over 20 years. In 1997, she joined the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, where she has served in a number of roles within Sustainability and Operations across the enterprise.

Paulette earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Duke University and her Master of Environmental Studies degree from Yale University’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She serves as an advisory council member for the Center for Business and Environment at Yale and on the Board of Directors for Net Impact. She resides in the quiet countryside of Tewksbury, NJ with her husband, Scott, and the two reasons that inspire her passion for sustainability, her young sons Zach and Luke.

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Niel C. Hawkins, Sc.D

Vice President, Sustainability & EH&S, Dow Chemical Company

Dr. Neil Hawkins currently serves as Vice President, Sustainability & Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S) for The Dow Chemical Company. In this global role, he is responsible for driving Dow’s sustainability performance and governance, including implementation of Dow’s transformational 2015 Sustainability Goals. He is also accountable for Product Safety, Global Regulatory Affairs, Health Services, and Remediation. Hawkins joined Dow in 1988 and has previously held a wide range of Environment, Health & Safety, and Public Policy roles across the company. Hawkins serves on the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable for Sustainability Science and Technology and serves on the Green Chemistry Science Advisory Panels of both California and Michigan. Hawkins is a member of the International Advisory Board for The Nature Conservancy and Board member of the Keystone Center. He holds masters and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, School of Public Health, and a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Tech.

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Mitch Jackson

Vice President Environmental Affairs & Sustainability, FedEx

Mitch Jackson develops the sustainability strategy and vision to ensure that FedEx minimizes its environmental footprint while still delivering outstanding customer service. With FedEx for more than 20 years, Jackson was named to the 2010 Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America. He was also named to Ethisphere Institute’s 2009 list of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics and is a past chairman of the Global Environmental Management Initiative.

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Kevin Kramer

President, Wiring Division, Stoneridge

Kevin Kramer is President, Wiring Division, for Stoneridge. Previously he was President of Growth Initiatives for Alcoa. In this role, he was responsible for supporting commercialization strategies for organic growth, and identifying and developing new applications that respond to market trends and customers’ needs. In addition, Kramer supports the development and execution of global marketing programs for aluminum applications across existing and new markets. As part of this assignment, he will oversee the Alcoa Market Sector Teams. Most recently, Kramer was president of Alcoa Wheel & Transportation Products, responsible for forged wheels and aluminum structures. In this position, Kramer was also Executive Sponsor of the Ground Transportation Market Sector Team and a member of the Alcoa Employee Relations Council. He also acts as the Alcoa Sponsor for the Toyota relationship across all businesses.

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Ann R. Klee

Vice President of Corporate Environmental Programs, GE

Ann R. Klee leads GE’s global environmental, health and safety (EHS) programs and is responsible for ensuring that GE’s global operations comply with applicable EHS laws and regulations, managing the Company’s environmental litigation, and advising business leaders on environmental policy issues.

From 2004 to 2006, Ann was General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She is also the former Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) and served as the Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI). As General Counsel of EPA, Ann served as the agency lead on numerous Supreme Court and federal court briefs, including two landmark Supreme Court decisions concerning wetland protection under the Clean Water Act. From 2001-2004, Ann served as Counselor to the Secretary of DOI, where she was responsible for advising the Secretary and developing policy options on issues such as the Everglades, Endangered Species Act, Indian water rights settlements, off shore oil leasing and mining. Ann previously served as environmental counsel to Senator Dirk Kempthorne and Counsel to Senator Kempthorne’s Subcommittee on Drinking Water, Fisheries and Wildlife. She was one of the principal staff responsible for drafting and negotiating the Endangered Species Recovery Act of 1997.

Prior to joining GE in 2008, Ann was a partner and co-chair of Crowell & Moring’s Environment & Natural Resources Group in Washington, D.C., where she provided counseling, litigation and legislative representation to a wide range of companies and trade associations. Ann is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, and her B.A. with High Honors from Swarthmore College in 1983.

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James (Jim) R. Miller

Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Google, Inc.

Jim Miller joined Google in 2010. He previously was EVP of Sanmina-SCI Corporation where he has responsibility for their Industrial, CleanTech, MultiMedia and Automotive businesses. Prior to that, Jim served as EVP of Supply Chain and Product Management at First Solar, an industry-leading supplier of CdTe Thin Film Photovoltaic modules and systems.

Jim was formerly VP of Product Operations for Cisco’s worldwide supply chain organization, where he was responsible for new product introduction (NPI) and product lifecycle management for Cisco’s hardware and software products. He also was VP of Cisco’s Manufacturing Technology group, Supply Chain and Logistics organization and was the VP of the Midrange plant, where he had responsibility for the new product introduction and manufacturing for one-third of Cisco’s hardware and all of its software revenue. Before Cisco, Jim served as Amazon.com’s VP of Supply Chain, where he was responsible for the inception of Amazon.com’s supply chain organization and was a key contributor to Amazon’s rapid growth to a multi-billion dollar global company. Jim has also held key technical and production positions at IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation and Teledesic, a Seattle-based telecommunications startup.

Jim has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University and a Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a Master of Science Degree in Management from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a “MIT Leaders for Manufacturing” Fellow.

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Dr. Len Sauers

Vice President of Global Sustainability, Procter & Gamble

Dr. Len Sauers is Vice President of Global Sustainability for the Procter & Gamble Company (P&G). He has been employed at P&G for 20 years and has a PhD in toxicology. Prior to his current assignment, he held senior management positions in human & environmental safety, biotechnology, regulatory affairs, and technical external relations.

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Jason Schmitt

VP Corporate Strategy & Business Initiatives, The Jones Group

Jason Schmitt is the Vice-President of Corporate Strategy and Business Initiatives at the Jones Group a leader in the apparel and footwear industry. He was formerly the Fund Manager for the ArcelorMittal Clean Technology Fund. ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel company and a Fortune 100 global enterprise with 2007 revenues of $105 billion, EBITDA of $19 billion, 10% global market share, and 320,000 employees in 60 countries. Prior to joining ArcelorMittal in 2006, Mr. Schmitt was a consultant at McKinsey & Company focused on the e-commerce sector and served as Manager, Strategy and Business Development for Mattel, where he helped lead the turnaround of the Barbie brand. Mr. Schmitt holds a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Harvard College and a Juris Doctorate cum laude from Harvard Law School.

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Tony Scott

Corporate VP and CIO, Microsoft

Tony Scott joined Microsoft Corp. in February 2008 as corporate vice president and chief information officer (CIO). Under Scott’s leadership, Microsoft IT is responsible for security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications for all of Microsoft, including support of the product groups, the corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization. Scott is also the executive sponsor for Microsoft’s Operational Enterprise Risk Management efforts and supports the integration of management principles from the Quality & Business Excellence team, which drive continuous and breakthrough process improvements across the company. Scott helps ensure that Microsoft is the “first and best customer” of its own products. In addition to maintaining a globally integrated set of enterprise IT platforms built on Microsoft technology, his team deploys prerelease versions of Microsoft products throughout the company. Before joining Microsoft, Scott was the senior vice president and chief information officer for The Walt Disney Co., where he led planning, implementation and operations of Disney IT systems and infrastructure across the company. He also held the position of chief technology officer, Information Systems and Services, at General Motors Corp. (GM), where he was responsible for defining the information technology computing and telecommunications strategy, architecture, and standards across all of GM’s businesses globally.

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Jeff Seabright

Vice President for Environment and Water, The Coca Cola Company

Jeff Seabright is Vice President for Environment and Water at The Coca Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Jeff has held several positions in government and business, including as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department and as Legislative Assistant to US Senators Timothy E. Wirth and John D. Rockefeller IV. In 1993, he joined the U.S. Agency for International Development, later serving as Director of the Office of Energy, Environment & Technology. He moved to the White House in 1999 as Executive Director of the Climate Change Task Force where he helped negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and later joined Texaco, Inc. in New York as Vice President for Policy Planning. He serves on the Environmental Trade and Technology Advisory Committee to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Conservation International - International Leadership Council, World Environment Center, the Georgia Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy (Georgia), the Pace Academy in Atlanta, and the Sustainable Atlanta Advisory Council.

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Beth Stevens

Senior Vice President, Corporate Citizenship, Environment and Conservation, Walt Disney Company

As senior vice president of Corporate Citizenship for the Walt Disney Company, Beth Stevens is responsible for developing and enabling the implementation of the company’s environment and conservation programs. This includes the work to minimize the company’s footprint, conserve nature for future generations, and help kids develop lifelong conservation values through nature exploration. Stevens joined Disney to help open Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park. Her first role was as Conservation and Science Director, but ultimately was promoted to Vice President of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park and Disney’s Animal Programs division.

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Jean Sweeney

VP, Environmental, Health and Safety Operations, 3M

Jean Sweeney is Vice President for Environmental, Health, Safety and Sustainability at 3M. She has held a variety of positions with 3M including product development, manufacturing management, general manager, and two international assignments as Manufacturing Director for 3M Australia in Sydney and Managing Director of 3M Taiwan in Taipei. In her current position, Sweeney is responsible for 3M’s global environmental, health, safety, and sustainability programs. This includes technical and regulatory expertise in environmental, safety, ergonomics and industrial hygiene, and 3M’s governance framework for sustainability strategies.

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