Who We Are

Mary Jo Cook, Chief Impact Officer at Fair Trade USA, has led the nonprofit organization through two years of innovation designed to dramatically increase the impact of Fair Trade and better serve the needs of farmers, workers, industry and consumers. She was recently named one of Progressive Grocer’s 2012 Top Women in Grocery for her notable contributions to shifting the food industry’s relationship with its supply chain.

Before joining Fair Trade USA, Mary Jo was Vice President of Innovation at The Clorox Company where she created and led the company's first cross-functional innovation group which developed and launched products like GreenWorks from Clorox. She also established the position of Vice President of Sustainability to help Clorox use an environmental sustainability lens to both decrease its footprint and cost, as well as become a catalyst for growth. In 2006, BusinessWeek recognized her as one of the “Top 25 Innovation Champions.”

In addition to her business career, Mary Jo contributes her time to numerous local nonprofit organizations, including LeaderSpring, which provides leadership development and management training to Executive Directors.

Miguel came to Fair Trade USA with several years of experience working with small-scale farmers in agricultural production, commercialization, development, sales and research in Latin America. In Ecuador, his country of origin, Miguel worked in banana and fruit production and in sales of agricultural inputs. In Honduras, he worked with small-scale dry bean farmers in development projects after Hurricane Mitch.

Miguel began working at Fair Trade USA in early 2006. His work has focused on creating opportunities between U.S. buyers and coffee-growing communities around the world. His worked has helped to grow the U.S. market for Fair Trade coffee through the development of strategic opportunities with U.S. Fair Trade coffee buyers and the development and strengthening of Fair Trade supply chains. He is currently focused in bringing the benefits of Fair Trade to farm workers and unassociated producers in coffee.

Miguel speaks Portuguese, English and Spanish and has lived and worked in four countries. He is currently a member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Sustainability Council. He holds an Agronomist and Agricultural Engineering degrees from Zamorano University in Honduras and a Masters in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University.

Meghan comes to Fair Trade USA with a strong analytic background developed in the economic consulting industry.

In this portion of her career, she focused on providing analyses and supporting testimonies to state and federal agencies, such as the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, for the deregulation of the telecom industry and to promote competition. She has been active in supporting youth and women at home and abroad through volunteer efforts such as mentoring at-risk youth, helping develop women's cooperatives in Guatemala, and micro-finance efforts in Nicaragua. With nearly five years of experience in the Certification Department at Fair Trade USA, she has focused on building a strong team, strengthening compliance and corrective actions and driving the on-site audit program. Meghan also remains committed to better measuring the impact of Fair Trade and has presented at multiple international workshops towards this end. When Meghan is not at Fair Trade USA, she can usually be found either on her bicycle or doing any other outdoor activity.

Hannah joined Fair Trade USA in 2003 to pursue her passion of using business opportunities to transform the lives of farmers and farm-workers.

Before joining Fair Trade USA, Hannah led the corporate sales department of a natural bread company and got a taste for promoting products that support the health of consumers and of the entire supply chain. She recently completed her MBA at Portland State University and has a B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Studies from Seattle Pacific University. Her favorite part of her job is traveling with US buyers to introduce them to the farmers and communities behind their fresh produce & flowers. When she's not working, she can be found gardening, biking and fly fishing.

Sri Artham comes to Fair Trade USA after having spent several years burnishing his fair trade credentials as both a Pro Bono consultant and a contractor with Fair Trade USA advising on strategic, cross-functional issues.

Prior to joining Fair Trade USA full-time, Sri spent most of his career as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting advising Fortune 500 companies on strategic issues such as finding new growth and working across international markets. Sri is a native of Canada having received his BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo. In addition to North America, he has lived in Asia and Europe and has traveled extensively, including a year spent traveling the globe while earning his MBA at INSEAD and the Wharton School of Business.

As the Director of the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and a Volans Founding Partner, Pamela Hartigan brings over three decades of diverse international expertise to the board of Fair Trade USA.

Throughout her career, Dr. Hartigan has held numerous leadership positions in academia, the non-profit sector, and public health. In addition to being  named the first Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 2000, Pamela also ran the Department of Health Promotion at the World Health Organization (1999-2001); and was Programme Manager and Area Coordinator for Applied Field Research in the Special Programme on Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) of the World Bank, WHO, and UNDP (1997-1999). Additionally, between 1990 and 1997, she worked in WHO’s Regional Office for the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), as Chief of the Gender, Health and Development and Manager for Special Initiative in the HIV/AIDS Programme.

After spending the first 17 years of her life in Latin America, Dr. Hartigan went on to graduate from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She also holds a Masters degree in International Economics and a Masters in Education and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology. In addition to her current work with the Skoll Centre, Pamela is a frequent lecturer on social innovation and entrepreneurship at graduate schools of business in the USA, Europe and Asia, and is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia School of Business in New York City. She serves on the Board of five social enterprises and advises many more.

Her most recent book, co-authored with John Elkington, is entitled The Power of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World. It was published in 2008 by Harvard Business School Press.

For over 20 years, Erik Nicholson has been an activist for human rights and farm worker justice, serving as an organizer, trainer and advocate for farm workers at both the local and national levels. Currently, he is the National Vice President of UFW and a member of UFW’s National Executive Board, the largest farm workers union presently active in 10 states.  In this role, Erik oversees the development of UFW’s international infrastructure, improving advocacy on behalf of farm workers and creating meaningful change in workers’ lives, including fair wages, health coverage, retirement security and more.

Erik has extensive experience in areas relating to pesticide use, child labor, consumer outreach and education, and legislative issues. Most recently, Erik conducted field assessments of best practices on large Fair Trade Certified flower estates in Latin America. He is now helping Fair Trade USA to develop new farm worker training programs as they expand their model to empower and support farm worker communities in coffee and other commodities.    

Prior to joining the UFW, Erik worked for 12 years with Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United (PCUN), a farm worker union based in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. At PCUN he negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement covering farm workers in the history of Oregon agriculture. He has also served as one of two national farm worker representatives to the Environmental Protection Agency’s national pesticide advisory committee, the Pesticide Program Dialog Committee.  In addition, he has served on the Board of the Washington State ADRS Agricultural Employment Mediation Program, Washington State Farmworker Housing Trust, Washington State Department of Labor and Industries Stakeholder Advisory Committee on the Cholinesterase Monitoring Rule. Furthermore, Erik was an appointed member of the Governor's Industrial Safety & Health Conference.

In the late 1980s, he worked for two years in Central America documenting human rights abuses. Nicholson has a B.A. from Duke University.

William B. Rosenzweig has spent more than twenty years integrating the practices and perspectives of an entrepreneur, venture investor and educator. Will is co-founder and Managing Director of Physic Ventures, LP, the first venture capital firm dedicated to investing in keeping people healthy by providing capital and expertise to science based, consumerdriven health and sustainable living companies. Based in San Francisco, the firm’s strategy is to capitalize on major economic, social and political trends shaping the rapidly evolving landscape of personal and planetary health. As an entrepreneur, Will has been involved as a founder and executive of more than a dozen earlystage ventures. Will was founding CEO (and Minister of Progress) of The Republic of Tea, an award-winning specialty tea company that is credited with creating the premium tea category in the United States. He has played key leadership roles at Nakamichi, the TED Conference, Odwalla, Leapfrog Toys, Brand New Brands, Hambrecht Vineyards and Wineries, Kingdom of Herbs, and Winetasting.com.

At Physic Ventures, Will leads the firm’s venture origination activities and supports portfolio companies in the areas of entrepreneurial leadership, business design, brand strategy and consumer marketing. Will serves as a member of the board of directors of GoodGuide, Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, Attune Foods, EnergyHub, and Own.

From 1999-2008, Will served on the faculty of the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, where he taught the MBA courses in Social Entrepreneurship and Social Venture Development. He continues to serve as advisor to the Global Social Venture Competition and has been a visiting faculty member at London Business School. He has been a Price Kauffman fellow and has served as a mentor in the Kauffman Fellows program. From 2000-2004, Will was also a team member for the Rockefeller Foundation's ProVenEx Fund, an investment vehicle seeking "double bottom line returns" in for-profit businesses. He was the coproject director and co-author of Rockefeller Foundation sponsored research on Impact Assessment. Will co-authored the bestselling book The Republic of Tea: How an Idea Becomes a Business (Doubleday 1992, 1994), which was recently named one of the 100 best business books of all time.

Rick directs ShadeFund, The Conservation Fund’s (TCF) on-line crowd-funding site for small businesses in forest- and farm-dependent communities nationwide (www.shadefund.org). He also directs the North Carolina operations of the Natural Capital Investment Fund (NCIF) (www.ncifund.org), which provides patient capital to environmental and natural-resource based businesses in the Southeast.  ShadeFund and NCIF are the business lending arms of TCF, a national land and water conservation organization with a unique dual mission of environmental protection and economic development (www.conservationfund.org). 

His prior experience includes:  Managing Director of SJF Ventures, a $45 M mission-driven venture capital fund based in Durham, NC; National Director, REAL Enterprises, a nationwide entrepreneurship education program for rural youth and adults;  and shop floor supervisor and financial controller for the Cummins Engine Co.

 He is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School and a Lecturer at UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he teaches courses on Impact Investing and Financing Social Ventures.  Rick earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA in History and French from Amherst College.

Ron Cordes has been involved in the investment industry for 25+ years, having founded and sold over this period three companies involved in the real estate investment /management, mutual fund and investment advisory businesses.  Most recently, he sold AssetMark Investment Services to Genworth Financial (NYSE:GNW) in 2006, and currently serves as Co-chair of Genworth Financial Wealth Management, which is responsible for over $ 20 bb of assets under management for individual and institutional clients.

Ron is a co-author of “The Art of Investing & Portfolio Management,” published in 2004 by McGraw Hill, and was recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005.   He holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Ron is also Co-Founder of the Cordes Foundation which he established in 2006 with his wife Marty, and is a member of the Board of Regents for the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA, as well as Chairman of the Advisory Board for the University’s Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship.  In addition, he serves as Co-Chair of the Opportunity Collaboration, a global poverty business retreat,  and a board member of the Boards of the East Bay Community Foundation, MicroVest Capital Management, and the Sarona Frontier Markets Fund.