BASG events are convened by a volunteer team of organizers – Carol Baroudi, Holly Fowler, Tilly Pick, Eric Grunebaum, and Amy Perlmutter.
Carol Baroudi is a free-lance sustainability consultant. In this role, she works to help define and to drive sustainability initiatives including education, evangelizing and reporting. She is the lead-author of Green IT For Dummies, which gives organizations basic principles and guidance in moving toward sustainable IT.
For eight years Carol led Sustainability for Arrow Electronics’ End of Life business. She has worked as an industry analyst as Research Director of Sustainability and Green IT at Aberdeen Group, CEO of Baroudi Bloor International, and Vice President at Hurwitz Group, providing quantitative and qualitative research and marketing consulting. A best-selling author, Carol’s books have more than 7 million copies in print in more than 30 languages. Ms. Baroudi holds a B.A. from Colgate University and a post baccalaureate certificate in Sustainable Development from the University of Massachusetts.
Carol has co-led the Boston Area Sustainability Group since 2011, producing monthly programs aimed at furthering sustainability education, building collaborative networks, and driving sustainability forward.
Holly Fowler is the Co-founder & CEO of Northbound Ventures Consulting, LLC, based in Montpelier, VT. The firm focuses on building sustainable communities and food systems, with many projects oriented to assisting stakeholder networks to use food and place as catalysts for change. From 2008-2013, Holly served as the Senior Director of Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility for Sodexo North America from 2008-2013. In that role, she led development and deployment of best practices for carbon and energy reduction, water conservation, waste minimization, sustainable food and materials sourcing, and client engagement for 6,500 client locations encompassing FORTUNE 500 businesses, national health care networks, colleges and universities, public K-12 schools, government agencies, and cultural destinations.
In addition to co-leading the Boston Area Sustainability Group, Holly serves on the Board of Advisors for the Carrot Project and Superfrau and is an Advisory Board Member of CitySprouts. She is also a member of the International Living Future Institute, and chaired the inaugural Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council’s Food Services Technical Advisory Group. Holly holds an MBA from Babson College, a BA from Bowdoin College, and a Professional Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems Leadership from the University of Vermont.
Tilly Pick is a leader of getting things done (e.g. corporate expediter) with the unique ability to combine the big picture with a detail-oriented, operational mindset.
He is a Senior Project Manager at Deque and helps his institutional clients succeed in achieving their digital accessibility goals.
Prior to that, he spent five years at a Boston-based biotech Veritas Genetics bringing to market whole genome sequencing below $1,000 as a fundamental driver of change in how people make decisions about their health and lifestyles. In that role, Tilly wore both internal and external hats related to operational design, product development and digital customer experience implementation with institutional and individual customers.
Tilly’s career prior to Veritas includes leading brand marketing and advertising engagements, both independently and at Mullen, Carmichael Lynch, Fallon, J. Walter Thompson Worldwide, and EuroRSCG Tatham, with clients in financial services, consumer goods, automotive, aviation, higher education, and publishing.
As one of BASG’s three co-organizers and event curators, Tilly is particularly passionate about helping promote and more broadly project the story that is told at BASG’s event each month. Tilly also volunteers his time in community-level climate action activities.
Tilly holds a M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tilly and his family live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Eric Grunebaum is a consultant to clean energy companies, impact investors and clean energy funds. He cofounded TeraCool – an industrial ecology startup; he consulted on the U.S. expansion of Apeiron-Synthesis – a European green chemistry firm; advised Greentown Labs – the largest cleantech incubator in the U.S.; and via his company Cambridge Energy Advisors, assisted in the development of clean energy projects and deployment of impact investor funds.
Prior to energy work, Eric developed mixed-income housing and produced documentary films including The Last Mountain, focusing on a West Virginia community that proposed a wind-farm on a nearby mountain to stop a coal strip-mine. The film premiered at Sundance, was theatrically released and features Bobby Kennedy, Jr. Eric also produced A Life Among Whales on MacArthur “Genius” Roger Payne and The Price of Sugar which was short-listed for the Academy Award and won the Slow Food on Film Award.
Eric has organized and presented three BASG events as well as panels for Cambridge Innovation Center, Climate Action Business Association and in support of epidemiological research on the health co-benefits of carbon pricing. Eric received a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard College and still lives in Cambridge, Mass., his hometown.
Amy Perlmutter is an independent consultant whose practice includes strategy, stakeholder engagement, communications, and facilitation to build the green economy. She was an early pioneer in the recycling field and continues to be fascinated by trash. She was the Director of Solid Waste for Passaic County, New Jersey; Recycling Director of the City and County of San Francisco; and founding director of the Chelsea Center for Recycling and Economic Development, where she worked with businesses, researchers, and government to increase the use of recycled materials in manufacturing processes in Massachusetts. She is the lead consultant for the City of Boston’s Zero Waste Plan development, on the advisory board of Zero Waste USA, an advisor to the startup, Magnomer, and a Clean Tech Open mentor.