Join Your Colleagues for a Night of Awards at the CRO Summit October 6, 2009 6:30pm-8:30pm at the Union League Club of Chicago.

The October 6, 2009 Awards Dinner at CRO Summit Union League Club Chicago Represents the Most Star-Studded Evening in the Corporate Responsibility Profession.  Don’t Miss It.

Our Dinner Keynote: Interface, Inc. Chairman Ray Anderson.

The story is now legend: the “spear in the chest” epiphany Ray Anderson experienced when he first read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, seeking inspiration for a speech to an Interface task force on the company’s environmental vision.  Fourteen years and a sea change later, Interface, Inc., is nearly 50 percent towards the vision of “Mission Zero,” the journey no one would have imagined for the company or the petroleum-intensive industry of carpet manufacturing which has been forever changed by Anderson’s vision.  “If we’re successful, we’ll spend the rest of our days harvesting yester-year’s carpets and other petrochemically derived products, and recycling them into new materials; and converting sunlight into energy; with zero scrap going to the landfill and zero emissions into the ecosystem.  And we’ll be doing well … very well … by doing good.  That’s the vision.” The once captain of industry has eschewed a luxury car for a Prius and built an off-the-grid home, authored a book chronicling his journey, Mid-Course Correction, and become an unlikely screen hero in the 2004 Canadian documentary, “The Corporation” and in the 2007 film by Leonardo DiCaprio, “The 11^th Hour.”  He was a master commentator on the Sundance Channel’s series, “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” and was named one of TIME magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2007, with a similar honor from Elle Magazine that year.  Interface has been named to CRO Magazine’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens List for three years, and in 2006 GlobeScan listed Interface #1 in the world for corporate sustainability. 

Awards Dinner Tickets.

Tickets to the CEO of the Year Awards Dinner are limited to 150, first-come, first-served, at $250 each for non-CROA Members ($2500/table of 10) and $125 each for CROA Members ($1250/table of 10).  Please contact Vince Albergato at VAlbergato@CrossingMedia.com or Adam Bleifeld at adam.bleifeld@sharedxpertise.org to get yours.

The Awards. 

We will announce each of the Awards in all 8 categories at the dinner.  2009 nominees are as follows (see the Summer, 2009 issue of CRO Magazine, or online at www.thecro.com, for full profile of each nominee):  

Large Market (public companies with $1 billion+ revenues)

2008 Winner:  Paul Otellini CEO Intel Corp.

2009 Nominees:

• John Hess CEO Hess
• Sam Palmisano CEO IBM  
• Ken Powell CEO General Mills

Mid-Market (public companies with $100 million-$999 million revenues)

2008 Winner:  Marc Benioff CEO Salesforce.com

2009 Nominees:

• Daniel Hendrix CEO Interface Inc.
• Tom Werner CEO SunPower Inc.
• Lawrence Blanford CEO Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

Small Market: (public companies with <$100 million in revenues)

2008 Winner: Neil Eckhart CEO Climate Exchange PLC

2009 Nominees:

• William Saxelby CEO Landauer Inc.
• James Herbert CEO Neogen
• Neil Eckhart CEO Climate Exchange PLC

Private Companies

2008 Winner:  New category for 2009

2009 Nominees:

• Scott Lang CEO Silver Spring Networks
• Ian Davis Managing Director McKinsey & Co.
• Al Gore Chairman Generation Investment Management & Partner Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers

Non Profit/NGO

2008 Winner: Charles Moore Executive Director Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy

2009 Nominees:

• Mindy Lubber CEO Ceres
• Paul Dickinson CEO Carbon Disclosure Project
• Tensie Whelan President Rainforest Alliance

Government/Regulatory

2008 Winner:  Richard Daley Mayor Chicago

2009 Nominees:

• Sheila Bair Chairwoman Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Lisa Jackson Administrator United States Environmental Protection Agency
• Richard Daley Mayor Chicago

Corporate Foundation (CECP member or must be endowed at $10 million annual level in cash or in-kind)

2008 Winner:  Stanley Litow President IBM International Foundation

2009 Nominees:

• Stanley Litow President IBM International Foundation & Vice President Corporate Citizenship
• Megan Smith Executive Director Google.org & Vice President New Business Development Google.com
• Catherine Babington President Abbott Fund

Social Entrepreneur (leveraged non-profit, hybrid non-profit or social business)

2008 Winner: Jeffrey Hollender President & Chief Inspired Protagonist Seventh Generation

2009 Nominees:

• Jeffrey Skoll Founder Skoll Foundation
• John Mackey CEO Whole Foods
• Michael Eckhart President American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)