Topic: Conscious Capitalism

John Mackey

Keynote speaker John Mackey is Whole Foods Market’s co-founder and CEO. In 1978, Whole Foods Market started off as a small grocery store in Texas. This turned into a Fortune 500 company, which was then bought out by Amazon in 2017. Nowadays, Whole Foods Market has more than 500 stores throughout the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada.

John devotes himself to helping people eat the best quality foods that are both organic and natural. Additionally, he created Whole Planet Foundation to allow developing nations to put an end to poverty. He also founded the Global Animal Partnership’s rating scale to help treat farm animals in a humane way. Furthermore, he founded the Local Producer Loan Program to assist local food producers to grow their businesses.

Fortune considers speaker John Mackey to be one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders”, as well as “Businessperson of the year”. John has also received praise from MarketWatch, the Institutional Investor, Barron’s, and many more.

John is a big supporter of free market principles, and this is why he co-authored Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business. The purpose of the book is to reimagine and defend capitalism. He also co-founded the Conscious Capitalism Movement. In 2016, John reduced his salary to $1 and carried on working for Whole Foods Market out of a desire to see the business reach its full potential and for the positive rewards that come from managing such a great company.

Lately, John Mackey has concentrated on making clean eating and lifestyle decisions a central part of the company’s efforts. He created programs that emphasized health and wellbeing for team customers and team members. John co-wrote The Whole Foods Cookbook: 120 Delicious and Healthy Plant-Centered Recipes, and The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan for Health and Longevity.

Howard Behar

Howard Behar is a renowned business leader, author, speaker, and mentor who has influenced the lives of numerous men and women at all stages of their careers and at all levels and roles.

For 21 years Behar led Starbuck’s domestic business as President of North America, and he became the founding President of Starbucks International opening the very first store outside of North America in Japan, Tokyo. Following this historic opening, over the next three years he introduced the Starbucks brand across Asia and the United Kingdom. After a two-year hiatus, he returned to Starbucks as president of Starbucks North America until his retirement in January 2003. He was a director of the company from 1996 to 2008 and served as an advisor and coach at all levels.  During his tenure, he participated in the growth of the company from only 28 stores to over 15,000 stores spanning five continents.

Howard now serves on the boards of several for-profit and non-profit organizations, including Education Element, iD Tech, The School of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University.  He is on the advisory boards of Anthos Capital, University of Washington Foundation, and a Trustee for The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation.

Howard is committed to the development and education of our future leaders and has been a longtime advocate of the Servant Leadership Model.  He is the author of two popular business books, It’s Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks and The Magic Cup: A Business Parable About a Leader, a Team, and the Power of Putting People and Values First. Considered one of the finest examples of conscious capitalism, he is frequently sought by companies and leadership events to share his experiences building purpose-driven businesses and effectively engaging employees within large-scale corporations.