CrisisIbility® is the concept that within every crisis, there lies possibility.
The CrisisIbility® podcast is hosted by Devry Boughner Vorwerk, Steve Young, Michael Wright, and Johanna Mendelson Forman, PhD.
Devry Boughner Vorwerk
CEO, DevryBV Sustainable Strategies
Devry Boughner Vorwerk
Devry is the Founder and CEO of DevryBV Sustainable Strategies, a company that inspires businesses to courageously serve humanity.
Devry is a well-known international business leader with 20 years of combined government and private sector experience. In her most recent role, she served as Chief Communications Officer and Corporate Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs for a Fortune50 global food company. Devry was the youngest female corporate officer elected in the company’s 150+ year history and the youngest executive in the C-suite of the company, reporting directly to the CEO.
In her career, Devry served as Consultant at the World Bank; International Trade Analyst in the Office of Industries and Chief Economist for the Chairwoman of the United States International Trade Commission; Senior Economist in the Office of Agriculture of the U.S. Trade Representative; and Senior Policy Advisor at the prestigious law firm of Akin Gump in Washington, DC.
A passionate advocate for change, Devry serves on the board of Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture, University of California Agriculture Issues Center, The Caux Roundtable, the US-Mexico Foundation, the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., and is involved in the social gastronomy movement.
In 2014, she was named a Young Global Leader by the WEF and named to the Holmes Report’s Influence 100 list in 2017, 2018 and 2019. She is a member of the Arthur Page Society, a Senior Fellow at The Conference Board for Communications and Marketing, and Senior Advisor to Global Citizen.
Steve Young
Global Executive Director, Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism
Steve Young
Steve is the Global Executive Director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT). Young has published Moral Capitalism and The Road to Moral Capitalism, two well-received books written as a guide to implement the CRT ethical and socially responsible Principles for Business. In her 2008 book, The Difference Makers, Professor Sandra Waddock listed Young among the 23 persons who created the corporate social responsibility movement.
Young was educated at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He served as an Assistant Dean at the Harvard Law School and as the third Dean of the Hamline University School of Law. He has taught at the University of Minnesota and at the SASIN Graduate School of Management in Bangkok and spoken at many workshops and conferences on corporate social responsibility and business ethics.
Young has also taught at the University of Minnesota Law School, Carlson School of Management, the College of Liberal Arts and Minnesota State University – Mankato. He has written numerous opinion articles for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota Journal on Law and Politics, St. Paul Legal Ledger and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and the Washington Post.
Michael Wright
Founder and Partner, Intercepting Horizons
Michael Wright
Michael is Founder and Partner of Intercepting Horizons.
Michael is the former President of Entegris, Inc. (ENTG), a leading supplier to semiconductor device manufacturers and package suppliers. On his watch Entegris profitably grew from $210 million in revenue to ~ $700 million.
Michael has contributed corporate leadership in a broad range of senior executive management positions at such flagship semiconductor related technology companies as Integrated Air Systems, General Signal, GCA, Ultratech, CH2MHill/IDC, Integrated Solutions and Empak. He is also the founder of WWK.com.
Michael’s board experience includes publicly traded, privately held and non-profit organizations. Among them are Rudolph Technologies, (RTEC), August Technologies (AUGT), Starview Technologies, the UMN Technological Leadership Institute (TLI), MHTA,WWK and several international subsidiaries and joint ventures. He also served as a member and Chairman of SEMI's Industry Strategy Symposium and is a past member of SEMATECH's competitive analysis group (CAG). He has worked as a private turn around CEO for public and privately held companies. He taught Strategic Leadership at the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management, holds two patents in microfluidics and is the recipient of the IABC Excel award for his leadership in business.
Johanna Mendelson Forman, PhD
Distinguished Fellow, Stimson Center
Johanna Mendelson Forman, PhD
Johanna is an Adjunct Professor at American University’s School of International Service. She is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she heads the Food Security Program.
Her groundbreaking work on food in conflict zones is derived from her distinguished career as a practitioner and policymaker in the United States government, the United Nations and the World Bank. This frontline experience as a policy maker on conflict and stabilization efforts drove her interest in connecting the role of food in conflict, resulting in the creation of Conflict Cuisine®: An Introduction to War and Peace Around the Dinner Table. She is highly regarded as a regional expert on Latin America and the Caribbean, with extensive field experience in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Central America Colombia and Brazil. Most recently, she has focused on the ongoing food crisis in Venezuela.
Today her research focuses on gastrodiplomacy and social gastronomy, the use of food as a means of social impact and investment to communities at risk. As a participant in the Livelihoods In Food Entrepreneurship Project (LIFE), a consortium of organizations under the Center for Private and International Enterprise, she is managing the gastrodiplomacy component of the program to support Syrian refugees in Turkey who are using food as a tool for social integration. In 2019 she co-edited the LIFE Project cookbook of recipes contributed by refugees, The Cuisines of Life: Stories and Recipes of the New Food Entrepreneurs of Turkey (www.lifeforentrepreneurs.com).
Mendelson Forman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a member of Les Dames d ’Escoffier. She holds a J.D. from Washington College of Law at American University, a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Washington University, St. Louis, and a Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia University in New York.
