JOERG GEIER(MBA)
SHORT BIO
Sustainability and regeneration strategist Joerg Geier challenges people to envision a future that works for all. As a Fulbright scholar, MBA, creative thinker, applied researcher and program designer, Joerg has, on behalf of start-ups, corporations and think tanks, developed projects and initiatives in the areas of cleantech/sustainability, education and impact investing.
Currently, Joerg dedicates his time to a start-up focused on regenerative solutions that he co-founded together with Ilaria Forte. He consults on sustainability-driven ecosystems and how to develop corresponding strategies. Workshops and leadership programs, which he runs together with partners, focus on transformation both from a (environmental, social and financial) sustainability and a personal angle.
Joerg is a founding member and advisory board member of the Arts & Nature Social Club, a member club whose mission it is to sensitize leaders for challenges to our planet. As such, he is responsible for program curation and development.
As a member of the Club of Rome and former Deputy Secretary General, he has initiated or coordinated projects questioning society's status quo, broadly focused on issues concerning environmental sustainability and interdisciplinarity. In his speeches, he offers alternative perspectives on how to build a future based on long-term thinking (incorporating frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs).
It is Joerg's firm belief that thinking in systems and networks is needed to deal with complexity. Facilitated interactions between key stakeholders is the basis for lasting transformation.
LONG BIO
Joerg Geier has a strong international background having lived and worked in Germany (Berlin/Hamburg), the US (San Francisco/Los Angeles), and the UK (Cambridge/London), and implemented projects in countries spanning three continents. Joerg's focus is on impact-driven projects in sustainable development, leadership education, and capacity building. His talent is to connect people, projects and organizations intuitively and creatively based on an understanding of different disciplines and cultures.
Joerg's vision is to contribute to a transformation of our unsustainable systems based on environmental and social innovations. In his speeches, he offers alternative perspectives on how to build a future based on long-term thinking (incorporating frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs).
Joerg brings together unique insights from a business and scientific perspective and draws on his experience and skills gained from the start-up world and leadership education.
At Cambridge University's Judge Business School, as director of executive education, Joerg was in charge of international and customized leadership programs and had budget responsibility. He helped drive capacity building initiatives in cities such as Abu Dhabi and Karachi.
As the Associate Director, Joerg coordinated and operationalized Watershed, a water conference held at the Vatican, jointly hosted by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture and the Club of Rome on March 21-23, 2017.
At Lucid Berlin, a strategy and media agency fostering environmental and social change through design processes, Joerg led on business development and facilitates partnerships.
He has been a mentor to founders and ventures at groups such as Founder Institute, a pre-seed accelerator; SAP.iO Venture Studio, SAP‘s Intrapreneurship accelerator for impact start-ups; and Allianz Explorer Camp | Climate Edition. He is a member of the Energy Academy, a think tank of the energy industry focused on the transition to renewables. It assembles experts from different sectors and industries to exchange views on key issues and challenges. Joerg has been serving as a judge in UC Berkeley’s prestigious Big Ideas@Berkeley contest since 2013. He has been advising companies such as Benjamin GmbH (Fluid Logistics), an industrial IoT start-up, and Berliner Strategen, a corporate finance and consulting company, on venture capital acquisition and project development with a wider aim of connecting German and Silicon Valley-based companies and ecosystems. For an open social learning ("MOOC") platform, he had developed a business plan, business growth strategy, and compiled investment proposals.
Joerg is an advisory board member of the Arts & Nature Social Club, a member club dedicated to the transformation of leadership through the connection of the arts (the heart) and science (the mind). He is responsible for program curation and development.
Joerg is a member and former Deputy Secretary General of the Club of Rome, an international think tank of eminent scholars focused on long-term forecasts.
From his former San Francisco base, on behalf of the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (Berlin), Joerg researched innovation strategies leading to the development of sustainable future markets and contributed to an EU research project on the transformation of entrepreneurship support systems toward sustainability. As Global Innovation Director for the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator's (LACI) Network for Global Innovation, Joerg supported global market entry of international cleantech start-ups and provided access to customers/investors. Previously, at Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, he led on the development of an executive leadership program Pathways to Impact Investing.
Joerg has appeared on German national television (ARD Frühstücksfernsehen) and published scientific and popular articles focused on the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability as well as future development issues.
He has been serving in numerous honorary roles, including selection committee member of the German American Fulbright Commission (Berlin) and the program committee of the World Affairs Council's International Forum (San Francisco). He was as a student mentor at San Francisco Art and Film for Teenagers, a non-profit program dedicated to arts education.
Joerg obtained an MBA from Golden Gate University, San Francisco and an BA (Hons.) in European Business from the University of Portsmouth (UK) and Münster University of Applied Sciences in a joint degree program.