Changemakers

After founding Energy Lighting Services in 2010 in Nashville, CEO Jason Duncan and his team have completed four of the world's largest LED retrofits. The commercial lighting company has saved companies like Saint Thomas Hospitals, Gap stores and Adventure Science Center up to 33 percent on their electric bills, and up to a 75 percent reduction in their energy consumption.

Jason lives in Gallatin, Tennessee with his wife and two children. Jason enjoys playing guitar, boating, riding his Harley-Davidson, playing racquetball, backpacking, & camping with his family. He is a lifelong resident of Sumner County and an alumnus of White House High School (1993). Jason serves as a leader in his local faith community (www.eikonhouse.com), serves on the executive board for the Gallatin Area Chamber of Commerce, and serves on the board of the Sumner County Museum Association. He is a member of the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA) and the Tennessee Hospital Engineers Association (THEA). In 2014, Jason was awarded the Tennessee Small Business Development Center's Rising Star Award, was nominated in the Nashville Business Journal's Sumner County Impact Awards as well as the 2015 40 Under 40 Awards.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanjason/

Josh McManus is a problem-solver working in post-industrial cities with entrepreneurs, corporations, and foundations to help people positively transform the places that they love. Josh’s experience spans 20 years as a serial social and business entrepreneur. An innovator in entrepreneurial ecosystems, creative economic development and combatting population loss, Josh is obsessed with place-based change. An autodidactic learner on subjects ranging from invention laboratories to neuroscience to game theory, Josh designs and implements projects that aim to disrupt how people in places think of themselves and their community and maximize the potential of all citizens who reside there.

Nationally, Josh is a Marshall Memorial Fellow and a Next American Vanguard. Locally, he has helped found multiple organizations and has served on a variety of institutional boards in his collection of adopted hometowns including Chattanooga, Tennessee; Detroit; and Bar Harbor, Maine. His thoughts have been featured by Forbes, Fast Company, The Economist, Entrepreneur, GOOD, USA Today, The Huffington Post and Garden and Gun.

Follow Josh: @JoshinDetroit

As Porter-Leath’s vice president of development, Rob Hughes has many responsibilities, ranging from planning the annual Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival to driving Toy Truck donations and assisting in a capital campaign for the organization’s Early Childhood Academy.

A native Memphian, Hughes always knew he wanted to make an impact in children’s lives and envisioned a future career in law. After earning both his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Christian Brothers University, he realized a career in nonprofits was a fit.

Hughes joined Porter-Leath in 2009 as development coordinator. He was promoted to development manager in 2010, development director in 2014 and, most recently, to vice president of development. His most important responsibility is funding programs and services for the 12,000 local children and families Porter-Leath serves.

H2Growth Strategies LLC, founded by Linda C. Hartley and Vivien Hoexter, advises executive staff and board members to improve performance, build leadership, and increase revenues for sustainable growth and impact. Working with mission-driven clients, H2Growth leverages its expertise and talents to create a more enlightened world. Services include strategic and succession planning, board development, leadership and CSR training, executive coaching, fundraising and advocacy.

Their recent book, Big Impact: Insights & Stories from America's Non-Profit Leaders, is the topic of today's ChangeMakers podcast.

You can order the book online at www.http://h2growthstrategies.com/

Linda C. Hartley, Principal

Hartley combines an MBA in management (NYU-Stern) with over 35 years experience working with boards and staff to achieve their strategic and financial goals. Through board building and development initiatives, she has helped U.S. and international organizations raise over $800 million.

Vivien Hoexter, Principal

Hoexter combines an MBA in marketing (Wharton-UPENN) with over 20 years experience working with nonprofits and foundations to develop strategic plans, refine strategies, market more effectively, and increase both contributed and earned revenues. She also coaches executives currently in leadership roles and/or transitioning to new ones.

Michelle Gielan, national CBS News anchor turned positive psychology researcher, is the best-selling author of Broadcasting Happiness. Michelle is the Founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research and holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is an Executive Producer of “The Happiness Advantage” Special on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course. Her research and advice have received attention from The New York Times, Washington Post, FORBES, CNN, FOX, and Harvard Business Review.

Learn more: www.broadcastinghappiness.com

Carla Javits is President and CEO of REDF (The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund), a pioneering venture philanthropy galvanizing a national movement of social enterprises—purpose-driven, revenue-generating businesses that help people striving to overcome employment barriers get good jobs, keep those jobs, and build better lives. Through her stewardship, REDF has invested in more than 100 social enterprises in 21 states. These businesses have generated $327 million in revenue and employed 21,000 people—and counting. REDF’s goal is to see 50,000 people employed by 2020, contributing their skills and talents to our communities and helping to build a stronger, more inclusive society.

Inspired by the leadership of REDF’s founder, George R. Roberts, Carla focuses on achieving measurable results by leveraging the business community’s knowledge, networks, and resources, and the mission of the nonprofit sector to address some of our country’s most pressing challenges. In fighting to create a more inclusive society, Carla is carrying on the legacy of her father, New York Senator Jacob Javits.

In overseeing strategy, relationship building, and fundraising, Carla Javits works directly with the leadership team as well as the Board of Directors and Advisory Council which are instrumental to REDF’s success. In leading REDF’s national expansion, Carla has laid the foundation for REDF to dramatically increase the number of people whose lives are transformed by social enterprise.

Under Carla’s leadership, REDF was awarded two federal Social Innovation Fund grants by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Additionally the Los Angeles Business Times awarded REDF the Nonprofit Social Enterprise of the Year award in 2013. San Francisco Magazine recognized Carla in their list of innovative Bay Area Philanthropists. Carla is called on frequently to share her expertise at a variety of domestic and international conferences and speaking engagements, including the Social Enterprise World Forum in Milan, Italy, the Social Traders Master Conference in Melbourne, Australia, and most recently, as part of the American Enterprise Institute “Disruptor” Series in Washington, DC.

Before joining REDF, Carla was the national President and CEO of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, where she was responsible for providing grants, loans, and technical assistance to service-enriched housing initiatives that ended homelessness for tens of thousands. She was Program Analyst with the California Office of the Legislative Analyst and Director of Policy and Planning for the San Francisco Department of Social Services.

Carla holds a BA and Master’s in Public Policy from UC Berkeley. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Melville Charitable Trust and as an Advisor to the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University. Carla is President of the Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation; and a member of the Advisory Committee of The Philanthropic Initiative as well as the Insight Center for Community Economic Development’s National Advisory Board.

Away from work, Carla likes spending time with her partner, her grown children, and her dog. She enjoys music, movies, theater, cooking, and being outdoors.

Learn more about REDF here: http://redf.org/

There is more than one way for a child to come up missing, at least in the eyes of Ret. Memphis Police Sgt. Len Edwards. As executive director of Memphis-based Commission on Missing and Exploited Children (COMEC), he works not only with parents to find children who go missing physically, but also children who might be sitting with the family every evening but somehow are missing mentally or emotionally.

Moira Forbes is the President and Publisher of ForbesWoman, a multi-media platform dedicated to successful women in business and leadership. She is also the Executive Vice President of Forbes Media where she is responsible for programming and branding Forbes events worldwide and driving new business initiatives across the company’s diverse media platforms. She is currently the host of Success with Moira Forbes, a video series on the Forbes Video Network featuring candid, one-on-one interviews with today’s top women leaders.

Launched by Forbes Media in 2008, ForbesWoman includes a robust website, a global digital community and a variety of content-rich live forums and events. Across these diverse media, ForbesWoman examines the unique experiences of professionally successful women, affirms their ambitions and achievements, and sets the agenda for purposeful discourse on the topics that matter most to them.

Moira joined Forbes Media in 2001 in its London office, overseeing research and marketing for Forbes’ European edition, in addition to developing business opportunities on behalf of all the company divisions. She came to the New York office and was named Associate Publisher of Forbes’ dedicated lifestyle magazine, ForbesLife, in February of 2004, and President and Publisher, ForbesWoman, in 2008. In 2010, Moira founded the Forbes Executive Women’s Board, an organization dedicated to harnessing the collective power of women in business to drive sustainable change. In 2013 and 2014, Moira hosted the Forbes Women’s Summit in New York City. This annual gathering brings together 250 of the world’s female leaders to discuss and solve the world’s most intractable issues. Moira was also named Forbes Media’s Executive Vice President in 2014.

Moira graduated cum laude with a BA in Art History from Princeton University, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School program for Leadership Development.

Life for Nick & Giles English changed significantly one clear day in March 1995. Nick was practicing for an air display with their father Euan. But the 1942 WWII Harvard aircraft they were flying was involved in an accident. Giles, waiting to take off for the next sortie was told that his father had been killed. His brother had broken over 30 bones and probably wouldn't make it.

Six months later, however, Nick was back in the air and being flown by Giles. But things would never be the same again. Life was too short to waste. The two brothers decided to pursue what they enjoyed most: a life crafting beautifully engineered mechanical devices.

When they weren't flying old aircraft, Nick & Giles had spent most of their childhood making things in the workshop of their gifted father - an ex-RAF pilot with a PHD in Aeronautical Engineering. Models. Restored cars. They even helped him to build an aircraft they still fly to this day. Euan was also passionate about mechanical timepieces. He would often bring home an old clock from an auction for the brothers to try and get going again. The passion lives on in the classic curve of a Bremont timepiece.

In the late 1990s, Nick & Giles were flying across France in their 1930's biplane. The weather was closing in. A rough-running engine forced them to make an emergency landing. Keen to avoid the French authorities, the brothers were more than happy to accept the gracious help of the farmer whose field they had landed in. They stayed in his home, the aircraft took cover in the barn. It transpired their host had flown aircraft during the war, as well as being a gifted engineer. Half-restored wall clocks lay everywhere, together with numerous engine parts. The farmer still even wore his own father's wristwatch. The brothers promised that his warm hospitality would never be forgotten. His name? Antoine Bremont.

Learn more: https://www.bremont.com

In June 2014, Jason Little became only the fifth person since 1912 to serve as Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation's president and CEO. Since joining Baptist in 2002, Little has held a number of leadership positions, including administrator and CEO of three Baptist Memorial hospitals, vice president and head of metro-Memphis operations and executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Little received his bachelor's degree in health administration from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and master's degrees in business administration and health care administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Little was an operations administrator for the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, before joining Baptist.

A recipient of the Early Career Healthcare Executive Award from the American College of Healthcare Executives, Little serves on the boards of the Tennessee Hospital Association, Memphis Regional Chamber of Commerce, Memphis Tomorrow, the New Memphis Institute and the Industry Council for the Federal Reserve Branch at St. Louis.

Learn more about Baptist here: https://www.baptistonline.org