Michelle Lapinski is the President of SustainBiz, LCC, where she works with companies to value nature to improve business decision-making and outcomes. She is the lead advisor to the International Finance Corporation on the development of their natural capital program and is currently writing a report on how to scale natural capital and sustainable finance under a grant for the Rockefeller Foundation.

Over the past 19 years she has worked with the world’s largest companies across the Fortune 500 and into their supply chains worldwide, including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Shell, Dow and Starbucks. She has held management positions at Gap Inc., Business for Social Responsibility, Global Health & Safety Initiative, and The Nature Conservancy. Her strength lies in building new partnerships and business units from vision through growth to scale.

She has been published in the Harvard Business Review making the case that natural infrastructure can be a viable and cost effective alternative to traditional infrastructure, based on reports she co-authored with Dow, Shell, Unilever, McKinsey and The Nature Conservancy.

Michelle is on the Steering Groups of the Natural Capital Coalition and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership, and is the Board Chair of Young Women Social Entrepreneurs.

She has a Master of Science in environmental management from USF, a Bachelor’s degree in behavioral biology and public health from Johns Hopkins University, and has completed the Environmental Leadership Program fellowship.

@m_ellelapinski