AZENTIVE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Economist
- Founder & CEO of the Disruptive Factory
Cynthia A. Phillips is the Founder & CEO of The Disruptive Factory. Phillips is an economist/agricultural economist as well as a business consultant to for-profit and social enterprises with over 25 years of experience in the areas of strategic planning, marketing, branding, analytics, big data, business development and global expansion.
Former Director of International Marketing & Risk Management at American Express and consults with technology companies and start-ups such as Cisco Systems, BioSerie and Riverbed. She currently serves as the interim CMO for Ascalon, LLC, a disruptive consumer and commercial bio-based products company. Phillips sits on several nonprofit boards and advisory boards of start-ups including OROECO and accelerators such as Think Beyond Plastic. Phillips is a champion of the 17 UN SDGs and supports nonprofit organizations as well as companies of any scale to integrate the SDGs into their business planning, Business Intelligence, ESG and CSR. She is the founder of GlobalShiftTV, G Media Partners, and The Experience Factory as well as a co-founder. A writer and producer, she has several projects in development including a feature on the life and legacy of Florence Nightingale.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director and Founder of BEAPLAS
Dr Roland Gesche is Managing Director and Founder of BEAPLAS, as well as Founder of Aurion Anlagentechnik. He is an expert in plasma processes, electromagnetic field theory and RF technology with 40 years professional experience in industry and scientific research institutes.
He received a PhD from the University of Darmstadt for mathematical methods to calculate electromagnetic fields in waveguide structures. After several positions in the vacuum equipment industry, he became leader of a center of competence for thin film display coating equipment. Subsequently he became co-founder and co-owner of Aurion Anlagentechnik GmbH, BeMiTec (Berlin Microwaves Technology) AG and BEAPLAS GmbH, active in the fields of thin-film technology, plasma technology and high power RF semiconductors.
Dr. Gesche's main professional interests are new innovative technologies for resource and energy- efficient production of high-tech products. He has published 30 scientific papers and 180 patents. Roland also plays clarinet and saxophone in several ensembles from jazz to classic.
Dr. Kat A. Donnelly is the CEO, Founder, and majority owner of AZENTIVE. She holds a PhD and dual MS degrees from MIT in Engineering Systems focused on four systems - technology, policy, business, and human systems - to integrate and implement large-scale food, wellness, clean energy, energy efficiency, and behavioral change programs. Like her business partner, SUN, she espouses the principles of using biomimicry and holistic approaches to produce healthy plants, healthy people, healthy profits, healthy planet™ (and won't repeat from SUN's bio here).
With more than 30 years of work experience, Dr. Kat has founded three successful startups, had a long career leading large-scale transit projects at the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) w/ budgets up to $60M, and worked in the health insurance industry processing health claims and programming software for six years. To date, she has bootstrapped her three companies, including previous company, Empower Efficiency to $7.2M in 2.5 years, investing the proceeds into AZENTIVE.
One of Dr. Kat's specialties is orchestrating the participation of diverse stakeholders to find powerful points of leadership and leverage to inspire whole communities to take action. She served as program co-designer and evaluator for a $4.2 million Department of Energy (DOE) project: Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge (which was also the subject of her PhD dissertation). At the same time, she co-led the marketing, strategy, and engagement design for Duke Energy's Smart Energy Now® commercial behavior program, which later became part of Envision Charlotte, with energy savings of 6.5% across 21M square feet.
From there, Dr. Kat expanded her West Coast team, overseeing two large-scale PG&E energy efficiency behavior/culture change pilots, engaging community members, community groups, businesses, and institutions in three medium-sized cities for residential energy savings and two large cities for commercial building energy savings. All of these programs incorporated Community-Based Social Marketing strategies and tactics, surpassing their goals for engagement and culture change. Throughout her career and in graduate school, she has studied and worked on emerging technology projects in transit, traffic, mixed-use developments, renewable energy, energy efficiency, commercial and residential building technologies (sensors, Home Energy Networks, mobile and web feedback applications), and fusion lighting technologies for the past five years, and more.
Dr. Kat is passionate about educating people about how everything is connected, and how what they are eating and consuming affects their well-being and the well-being of the planet. Her journey from sickly to healthy required a holistic approach that started first with getting pesticides and preservatives out of her diet, and then focusing on her mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. Her mom says she was born a vegetarian, and after pushing back against her acupuncturist and kinesiologist for years, she begrudgingly went gluten-free. Now a vegan, she's faithfully stayed away from gluten and glyphosate for many years now, and as a result acquired a whole new lease on life and her wellness in general!
Jeff Lowenfels is an award winning author and lecturer spreading the word about the science behind organic gardening to eliminate the use of chemicals. He is the former President of the Garden Writers of America, a GWA Fellow and in 2005 was inducted into the GWA Hall of Fame, the highest honor a garden writer can achieve.
Jeff Lowenfels has become a leader in the organic gardening/sustainability movement as a result of his two best selling books. His talks have converted tens of thousands of gardeners at venues throughout North and South America. Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to The Soil Food Web was reviewed as the most important new gardening book in 25 years. It is now out in a Revised Edition, and has been translated into 7 languages. His second book, also an award winning best seller is "Teaming With Nutrients - The Organic Gardener's Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition."
AZENTIVE's Director of Operations, Jennifer Cundiff leads the team's Finance, HR, and Project Management systems. As co-founder of two startup companies and with over a decade of experience in leading operations and financial functions, by building departments from the ground up, she also assists the team in business strategy, organization, and creating efficiency.
Jennifer has spent time in the nonprofit sector in the roles of Director of Finance and COO. There, she honed skills in people management and operationalizing positive impact in communities in need of healing. She has a passion for mission-based work that supports all life on its healing journey. In her spare time she discovers and studies different healing methods and modalities, loves being outdoors, and just being.
Joachim Scherer graduated with a Dipl.-Ing. in electrical engineering from the University of Applied Sciences Gießen-Friedberg in 1987, and was immediately drawn to plasma technologies. From 1988 to 1994 he worked on setting up and servicing plasma systems worldwide, including 2 years of field service in the United States.
Joachim's next role was as a Project Manager for a center of competence for magnetic data storage, supporting multinational enterprises in Europe, Asia, and the US, and later becoming General Manager of the strategic business unit "Hard Disk Systems" between the years of 2000 and 2002.
In 2003 he took on the role of Managing Director at Aurion, who have been leaders in the field of plasma technologies for over 20 years.
Outside of his professional pursuits, Joachim enjoys dancing, hiking, travelling and reading a good book.
Skip Laitner is an economist and researcher with over 48 years experience in the energy and environmental policy arenas. He worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for over ten years, followed by research work focused on developing a more robust characterization of energy efficiency resources within energy and climate policy analyses. He now works on new energy data and metrics to build the positive case for the "Economic Imperative of Energy Efficiency."
Juanita is a relationship builder. As a trusted confidant to U.S. and foreign government, business, and community leaders, she has technical knowledge of integrated political systems. She has the ability to predict stages of government when a consolidation of growth will occur and maneuver regulatory challenges. Serving as a guide to several industries, her expertise in the corporate, political, and Cannabis Industry has allowed the successful creation of strategic alliances between U.S. and international companies to ensure successful rollups. She has worked and appeared on the Senate Floor alongside U.S. Senator Michael Bennett (CSPAN) during testimony for the 2018 Federal Farm Bill.
Currently, her involvement in the cannabis industry is reflected in several states through legalization and legislation beginning with Utah, Kansas, Washington State, Arizona, California, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado. She is engaged in upcoming legislation in Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, and the Cayman Islands. Under her leadership, she is known for creating bi-national and bi-state joint ventures, and for her ability to design unique public-private partnerships. She designed and launched the United States Pandemic Response Center (USPRC) and the Center for Botanical Innovation Research and Development (CBIRD), located in Parsons, Kansas. As a global citizen, she is a mother of three daughters, four grandchildren, and two very special Bichon/Coton de Tulears.
Richard A. DiSanto specializes in operations, human resource management, and strategic planning. He loves to listen to Jazz and House music, is a self-proclaimed foodie moving into vegetarian mode, and is an art aficionado with interests in art, architecture, interior design, furniture, Persian rugs and sculpture.
As AZENTIVE's President, Richard works closely with the CEO and oversees day-to-day operations of the company, ensuring everything runs smoothly and efficiently with optimum performance.He draws on over 30 years of experience in the consulting, advertising, sales and marketing, and thin film industries, with responsibility for administration; human resources; strategy, planning and operations management; financial planning; program and project management; key enterprise account management; quality assurance/ISO implementation; customer satisfaction; and team development and mentoring.