Sheri Salata
Sheri Salata is the author of The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence and Transformation. Named an Amazon best-selling new release and an Apple Must Listen audio book, the memoir has touched thousands of readers and inspired them to reimagine their lives.
Sheri is the cohost of The Sheri + Nancy Show, a popular podcast about living the life of your dreams, and the cofounder of the aspirational lifestyle brand, The Pillar Life, a guidance system focused on 8 foundational areas of living. Health + Wellness. Spirituality + Happiness. Romance + Sex. Family + Friends. Creativity + Innovation. Adventure + Discovery. Sanctuary + Beauty. Money + Abundance.
Sheri has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Happier in Hollywood, The Good Life Project, Marie Forleo, and Almost 30.
Sheri’s new venture in media is the evolution from her life-altering 20-year career with Oprah Winfrey. Sheri’s day-to-day hits and misses as the final Executive Producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show were featured in the docu-series Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes. Sheri served as President of Harpo Studios and OWN.
Sheri has been named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business and The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Power 100.
3 words to describe Nature?
Awe-full. Humbling. Holy.
3 things Nature taught you?
Beauty is in everything.
Everything is alive.
There are a gazillion shades of green.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Hawai'ian Islands
Lake of the Woods, Canada
Napa Valley
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
The ocean makes me feel on the edge of a great big mystery. How gigantic creatures can live submerged but still sing their songs for me. How the waves come in and out in rhythmic perfection without missing a beat. I feel wild and messy and sacred and beautiful as I take it all in.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
When I see a forest, it makes me feel like I am in the cathedral of all cathedrals.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Like Mama Earth is sending a message.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like the Universe is blessing me.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Safe and secure in my humanness
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like crying
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I am an ocean mountain forest person with a little desert on the side.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I am a tiny thing dipping my toes in the pacific ocean for the first time and it feels like my home.
Swan Sit
Swan Sit is an independent consultant specializing in digital, marketing and strategy. Having spent the past decade of her career accelerating digital into legacy companies, she held 2 key roles as a Vice President at Nike — overseeing Global Digital Marketing during the Emmy-winning “Dream Crazy” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, and running Digital Operations, Product, Supply Chain and Service for a $3B e-commerce business during the Air Jordan 11 Concord launch, the largest in online history. She led digital at Revlon and Elizabeth Arden, using it to pull them out of a turnaround, and ran online strategy for Esteé Lauder, increasing their global footprint from 165 to 435 websites in 5 years. From modernizing 100-year-old brands and partnering with unexpected influencers like Chelsea Handler, Iris Apfel and Gigi Gorgeous, to launching augmented reality makeovers and driving double-digit growth, Swan has demonstrated both the left- and right-brain skills required for a marketer that drives revenue. She was selected as a Brand Innovators 40 under 40 and Marketing Woman to Watch, and took home both Best Social Campaign and Best in Show at the Glossy Awards. You might recognize her as one of the faces in Twitter’s national “She Inspires Me” campaign during the Oscars.
Prior to beauty, Swan was a management consultant at Bain, owned an ad agency focused on emotional branding, was a product manager at Newell (she launched a factory in China during SARS) and created infamous marketing campaigns at Trilogy Software during the dotcom boom. Swan graduated with a BA in Economics from Harvard and an MBA from Columbia.
Swan does speaking engagements around the world on Marketing, Digital Transformation and Leadership in the Digital Age. She is a Board Director of a publicly-traded pharmaceuticals company, advises a variety of businesses and sits on the boards of industry and philanthropic organizations including AdWeek's Diversity and Inclusion Council, L2 Digital Think Tank, Women in Retail, Consumer Goods Technology Council, Impact Network, Foundation Rwanda and Worldview’s space think tank. Having traveled to 85+ countries, her favorites include Antarctica, North Korea, Mongolia, Rwanda, Bhutan, Myanmar and Tanzania for Kilimanjaro. She can often be found smashing a volleyball and chasing restaurant openings, or flying around on skis and horses - her two newest hobbies.
3 words to describe Nature?
Stilling. Wondrous. Challenging
3 things Nature taught you?
Self-reliance
Humility
Interconnectivity
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Any ocean or summit
Antarctica
Palawan
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Alive, calm, emotional
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Fresh, awake, adventurous
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Excited, nervous and... hot? :) I've ventured inside a (mostly) dormant one before
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Grateful, enchanted, like I should be grabbing my camera phone (though the pics never do it justice so we should just enjoy the show)
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Excited, full of anticipation, ready to dance
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cozy, cuddly and craving a fireplace
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean, which is odd because I can't even swim! But it hasn't stopped me from scuba diving, snorkeling, wake boarding... basically I'm willing to do anything that has air or floatation, but surfing still evades me. The ocean makes me feel alive and whole; living by it is a life-long dream for me
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
8... not necessary in a constant daily state, but periodic ventures to a coast or the top of a mountain, or even the smell of nature or the ocean resets my soul
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was 4 years old, my father took me outside during a typhoon in Hong Kong. We didn't venture far - just out the front door - but I remember the howling wind and warm but slicing rain. And the indescribable smell of the storm I remember to this day. It was electric. I remember hanging onto my father's neck with both arms, my little body flapping in the raging wind. I was scared but also couldn't stop giggling. That's how I still feel going into all my adventures today.
Pravin Pillay
Prav Pillay is the co-founder of Humanitas Smart Planet Fund, founder of Emergent Performance Consulting, and an artist, researcher, and educator whose creative practice explores how we locate ourselves through the politics of place, culture, and ecology. He has more than 35 years of experience as a social entrepreneur leading, developing and coaching high-performance teams and organizations working on progressive and challenging projects across private, public and not-for-profit sectors. He specializes in Progressive Tech orientation developed over almost 4 decades of involvement in mainframe operations, national data network management, new media and video streaming tech, robotics, AI, SAAS, military-grade surveillance and security, and social tech initiatives.
For several years, Prav was a co-facilitator of Media That Matters - a gathering of media change makers at Hollyhock a leading educational facility on west coast of Canada and more recently served as the Artist and Community Strategist in Residence with R.A.V.E.N. (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs), sessional instructor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and also an Executive in Residence with VIATEC - a technology incubator in Victoria, BC.
Prav holds a B. Arts and Science from McMaster University, a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, an MBA from McGill University and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. During his MFA, Prav sought to understand the nature of systems based artworks and collaborated with engineers in Human-Computer interaction to conduct art-science experiments that played in the intersection of art, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
3 words to describe Nature?
Truth. Beauty. Goodness
3 things Nature taught you?
The meaning of Truth
Beauty
Goodness
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The seasonal waterfall in the temperate rainforest near my island home in the Pacific North West
A particular island in a glacier-fed lake in the Xeni Gwet'in territory of British Columbia, Canada
A particular mountain top in the Sinai Desert
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
At home
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
At home
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
If active - I am in awe. If dormant - pensive.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
The beingness of the temporal moment in the vastness of time
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Alive and awake
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Clean inside
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Each biome is equally compelling. The call is towards deep wild places.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Raising monarch butterfly caterpillars. First collecting the caterpillars and milkweed from under the bleachers of the suburban high school near my home. Then caring for the caterpillars and observing them undergo metamorphosis to chrysalid form and then to butterfly. Finally releasing the butterflies to nature.
Carina Bauer
Carina Bauer is the CEO of the IMEX Group. Having graduated from Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1998, Bauer began her career by setting up and running GoodBean Coffee, a family owned chain of coffee shops located throughout the South of England. As Managing Director, Carina was in charge of the running of the business which grew to 13 stores in three years and was sold to a publicly listed company in December 2001. She joined IMEX in 2002 as Marketing and Operations Director and became its CEO in 2009.
Carina won the Smart Women in Meetings Award in 2018 & 2019, the ICCA Inspirational Women Awards and the Timothy S.Y. Lam Foundation Spirit of Collaboration Award in 2018, was recognised as ‘One of the 25 Most Influential People in the Incentive Industry’ by the Northstar Meetings Group, ‘One of the 25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry’ by Successful Meetings Magazine and ‘One of the Top 25 Women in the Meetings Industry’ by M&C Magazine. Carina is currently President Elect for the SITE International Foundation.
3 words to describe Nature?
Calming. Powerful. Life
3 things Nature taught you?
That everything has a purpose
That, despite our high opinion of ourselves, really we are very small cogs in a very big wheel.
That it is the boss!
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The Alps
Sion National Park, Utah
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Small
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Calm
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Excited
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Happy
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Fearful
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Soothed
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountain
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I used to go and visit my grandparents in Switzerland most summer and winter holidays. One of my favourite memories was when they took us to the country-side around Geneva and we used to go for walks in wheat fields, where the what was taller than me – I just loved walking through those fields!