How Organic, Natural Products & Clean Beauty Women Leaders Are Changing the World

The skincare, herbal, coffee/tea, and cosmetic businesses that shine thanks to strong, innovative women.

Women leaders today have so many opportunities, and so many hurdles. In her 30 years launching, directing and selling natural product businesses, herbalist and award-winning entrepreneur Holly Bellebuono has seen the organics industry grow in positive ways, in part thanks to strong women.

In this talk, she discusses big-picture ideas about how women are claiming their entrepreneurial identity in ways that benefit the Earth and society, and how feminism as a core business value will better our planet.

Takeaways from this talk:

•  Explore BOLD values such as feminism and women-centered leadership, equity and advancement supports growth
•  Understand how leaders can build purpose-driven company culture
•  Learn how women can buck traditions and trends in powerful ways
•  Learn how women can revolutionize corporate culture through women’s priorities in mission, vision & values

Raising the Chocolate Bar: Business On Purpose

Why Every Company Should Embrace a Strong Mission

Does your business have a purpose? Do your team members know it? Can your customers see it? In this talk, Holly shares examples of purpose-driven companies, identifies a variety of commitments such as B-Corp and Certified Organic, and especially discusses why today’s business leaders should commit to social and environmental standards. 

Be inspired with stories about a wide variety of natural and organic product businesses who are changing the game. Holly explains that crafting a simple mission statement isn’t enough, and why implementing purpose throughout your company, large or small, should be a cornerstone of your business plan.

Takeaways from this talk:

•  Get inspired to work with your team to develop a mission & strong purpose
•  Learn how other companies are creatively pushing purpose boundaries
•  Discover what Gen Z customers require for authenticity and transparency
•  How to grow the excitement around creating a valuable purpose through your brand

A Journey of Personal and Professional Transformation

Fresh Insights into the Hero’s (& Heroine’s) Journey—from Holly’s New Book Once Upon a Place: Forests, Caverns, & Other Places of Transformation in Myth, Fairy Tale and Film

For thousands of years, storytellers have shared messages of personal growth through myths, fairy tales, and even now in modern film. These “transformation stories” are central to our understanding of the process of human growth, and many draw on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and his stages along which a person matures. Author Holly Bellebuono adds to this context by exploring the location, which is intimately tied to the challenges faced, setting the tone for the entire journey. In her book, she identifies 5 locations: the Cavern, the Deep, the Vessel, the Forest, and the Labyrinth. These places uniquely position the Hero or Heroine to overcome terrifying hardships and become a stronger person, something we all must grapple with in our lives.

In the broader context of the world’s traditions, Bellebuono invites the reader into what she terms the “World Journey” to explore humanity’s most fascinating transformative symbols. With downplayed wit and curiosity, she explores truly epic images from the dual concepts of Chaos and Void, and The Beast and The Guide, to the colorfully mundane (such as common kitchen cups and cauldrons). How do YOU overcome challenges? Do you descend? And how do you rise?

Takeaways from this talk:

•  Discover inspiring stories of transformation from around the world
•  Explore the concept of descent and why we try to avoid it
•  Identify events that you can relate with in your own journey, such as divorce, losing a job, failing, or any hardship personally or professionally
•  Discuss mentorship and the value of having a guide in your life
•  What would a “thread” look like for you? How can you offer a thread to someone else?