Please welcome  –

Mark Ayzenshtat

Mark is the Head of Data Products for Evernote. Mark is a former EIR at Greylock Partners. In that role, he co-founded TellApart, a predictive customer analytics company. TellApart helps e-commerce companies manage and harness the power of customer data to massively enhance their online marketing.

Previously, Mark was a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he started and led several high profile projects including the Android Market, the AdWords API, and natural language processing improvements within the core Search Quality team. Today, the AdWords API is the world’s largest commercial API and interacts with well over half of Google’s total revenue; it went on to win the Executive Management Group award. Android later won the Founders’ Award, Google’s most prestigious project honor.

Christopher Elam

Chris is executive director of Inform, which makes short videos that explore the environmental impact of everyday objects. He was co-creator and producer of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Robert Kenner’s (Food Inc.) new social action project, Fix Food. Before that he was director of the Meatless Monday campaign. Completing his graduate work at Oxford University, Chris became a writer/producer at MTV where he created and produced the new music show Alternative Nation. From there he worked as a copywriter at J Walter Thompson while at the same founding ArtKrush, the art magazine online, which he eventually sold to Flavorpill.

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser is an entrepreneur and best-selling author. She is a co-founder of Food52 and has been named one of the 50 most influential women in food by Gourmet. While at the New York Times, Hesser wrote more than 750 stories and was the food editor at the Times Magazine. She has written the award-winning books Cooking for Mr. Latte and The Cook and the Gardener, and edited the essay collection Eat, Memory. Her last book, a Times bestseller and the winner of a James Beard award, is The Essential New York Times Cookbook. Hesser is a trustee of Awesome Food and an advisor for the restaurant app Fondu. (Photo credit: Sarah Shatz)

Stephanie Izard

Recently nominated for the “Best Chef: Great Lakes Area” Award by the James Beard Foundation and one of Food & Wine Best New Chefs of 2011, Stephanie Izard is the Executive Chef/Partner of the Chicago restaurant Girl & the Goat. Stephanie is currently busy planning for the opening of her next Chicago restaurant, Little Goat, which is scheduled to open Summer 2012.

A 2011 James Beard ‘Best New Restaurant’ nominee, Girl & the Goat has been praised by many high-profile publications.  Stephanie is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, and has worked in some of the most respected kitchens in Chicago including La Tache, Spring, and Vong.

She previously owned the highly acclaimed restaurant Scylla, which she sold just prior to appearing on and winning Season four of Bravo’s “Top Chef.”  Izard’s first book, Girl in the Kitchen, was released in the fall of 2011 (Chronicle). To learn more about Stephanie visit www.stephanieizard.com or follow her on Twitter @StephAndTheGoat.

Merrill Stubbs

Merrill Stubbs has worked for over a decade in the food industry, as a private chef, cooking instructor and writer/editor. She has written for the New York Times’ T Living, Edible Brooklyn, Body+Soul, and Culinate.com, among others, and she was the food editor at Herb Quarterly. She is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of FOOD52.com.

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Ari Weinzweig

Ari Weinzweig is CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which includes Zingerman’s Delicatessen, Bakehouse, Creamery, Catering, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Coffee Company, Roadhouse and the newest business—Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory. Zingerman’s produces and sells all sorts of full flavored, traditional foods in its home of Ann Arbor, Michigan to the tune of $38,000,000 a year in annual sales. Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the 2006 James Beard Foundation and has awarded a Bon Appetit Lifetime Achievement Award among many recognitions.

Ari is the author of a number of articles and books, including “Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon” (Zingerman’s Press), “Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service” (Hyperion), “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating” (Houghton Mifflin), and “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business.” His most recent book is “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 2: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Being a Better Leader.” (Photo credit: Benjamin Weatherston)

Paul Willis

Paul Willis, founder and manager of Niman Ranch Pork Company, is also the owner and operator of the Willis Free Range Pig Farm in Thornton, Iowa, where he still lives on the farm where he grew up and raises pigs on open pasture with his wife Phyllis and daughter, Sarah.  For years he sold his hogs in the conventional market, before he met Bill Niman in 1994, when Paul and Bill discovered their shared dedication to sustainable farming and strict animal husbandry standards, and the belief that the humane treatment of animals results in better tasting meat. Willis and Niman formed a ground-breaking partnership in 1998 establishing the Niman Ranch Pork Company.

Paul has since been the subject of numerous feature-length articles in nationally acclaimed publications as well as books and even television shows including his recent appearance on the Martha Stewart Show where he discussed the importance of farm animal welfare and Global Animal Partnership. He continues his work on environmental and social sustainability issues as a member of the committee convened by the National Academy of Sciences, serves as a board member for Global Animal Partnership among numerous others in addition to his work as cofounder of Food Democracy Now -a grassroots community dedicated to building a sustainable food system that protects our natural environment, sustains farmers and nourishes families.