Over the course of a 25-year career spanning Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and foundations, Amy has worked to reimagine the systems that deliver clean water, sustainable food and low carbon energy to society. Amy has a proven track record of helping businesses and nonprofits alike increase and sharpen their impact, grow their revenue and deepen their collaboration with stakeholders and employees. She has worked domestically and internationally at every point in the food-fuel-fiber value chain, advancing new paradigms for a healthy, thriving society and planet.
She currently serves as President of Trust In Food, a purpose-driven business accelerating the adoption of regenerative agriculture across the U.S., and America’s Conservation Ag Movement, one of the largest and most diverse public-private partnerships in conservation agriculture’s history. Trust In Food is a division of Farm Journal, U.S. agriculture’s leading business intelligence and communications company.
Amy joined Farm Journal after serving as managing director of The Water Main, a social impact enterprise of American Public Media, which connected with over 8 million Americans to build and measure public will for clean, accessible, affordable water. While there, she launched the groundbreaking farmer to farmer sustainable ag podcast “Field Work,” the first ever nationally representative study of how Americans think, feel and take action on water, and “In Deep,” a program exploring the labyrinth of how our water is cleaned, managed and delivered from toilet to tap.
Before joining APMG, she was the founder of a strategic advisory firm focused on redefining the relationship between people, planet and the global economy. As part of this work, she served as the founding chair of the Sustainable Growth Coalition, a group of over 30 global businesses and organizations collaborating to drive a circular economy, regenerative and sustainable by design.
Earlier in her career, she served as vice president, sustainability for Pentair, a $7-billion global water tech company, and executive director of the Pentair Foundation, leading an integrated program of upstream agricultural practices, payments for ecosystem services and downstream water quality interventions. Before that, she served as the head of sustainability for eBay Inc., propelling eBay to the Newsweek’s Top 100 Green Companies.
Amy started her career at Conservation International (CI), where she forged some of the earliest collaborations between environmentalists and the private sector. Over the course of 13 years, she was a leader in CI’s efforts to design and build best environmental and social practices across key industrial sectors, including global agriculture, forestry, energy, mining and the built environment. This work took her around the world, from the cloud forests of Mexico to the savannahs of Africa and included a two-year posting in Brazil.
A frequent speaker and presenter, Amy is the author of numerous articles and blog posts on social innovation, the science of behavioral change and sustainable development, including co-editor of “Footprints in the Jungle,” published by Oxford University Press. She holds an MBA from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in environmental policy from Vanderbilt. She currently serves as the vice chair of the Great Plains Institute for Sustainable Development, on the expert advisory board for Ensia magazine from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Environment, and in an ongoing advisory role for American Public Media. After living and working on both coasts and in Brazil, she now calls Minneapolis, Minn., home, where she lives with her husband, two school-aged children and a mischievous dog.
