GEORGE NOROIAN

I am a business mentor and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience managing in organizations ranging from start-ups to large companies. Since 2003 I have mentored dozens of CEOs and management teams faced with the challenges of growing profitably. I focus on helping business leaders get clear about where they are going and then support them getting there. The entrepreneur in me looks for opportunities to nurture companies with new approaches to solving old problems in the areas of energy and material use – in short, to make sustainability profitable.

From 1999 to 2002, I was President and CEO of Happy Planet Foods, and helped Happy Planet double sales by extending its reach from Vancouver across Canada and down the US west coast, while significantly improving operational efficiency. From 1997 to 1998, I was President of Portola Packaging Canada, where in addition to growing sales by 50% in less than 2 years, I forged the 3 businesses Portola had bought in Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal into a unified national company.

Earlier in my career, I spent 8 fascinating years as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, cut my teeth in management consulting at Strategic Decisions Group in Menlo Park, California, was Product Manager and Senior Science Editor for the textbook division of Addison-Wesley Publishing Company and Board President at Our Health Center in Palo Alto, California. I have an MBA, a master’s degree in biology, and a bachelor’s degree in history, all from Stanford University. I also hold the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in economics from the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. Currently I oversee my family’s 54-acre organic peach farm in California.