Debbie Millman
Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, curator, and host of the podcast Design Matters, one of the world’s first and longest-running podcasts and listed as one of the best podcasts in the world by Business Insider.
Debbie is the author of six books is currently working on an illustrated book for HarperCollins titled Why Design Matters, which will be published in 2020, along with and a documentary about the making of the book, produced by Adobe. She was a writer for the world’s first design blog, Speak Up, the Editorial and Creative Director of Print Magazine, and a columnist for N Magazine.
In 2009 Debbie co-founded the world’s first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Now in its ninth year, the program has achieved international acclaim.
Her illustrations have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, Design Observer, and Fast Company and her artwork is included in the Boston Biennale, Chicago Design Museum, Anderson University, School of Visual Arts, Long Island University, The Wolfsonion Museum and the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art.
For 20 years, Debbie was the President of Sterling Brands and was instrumental in the firm’s acquisition by Omnicom in 2008. While there she worked on the logo and brand identity for Burger King, Hershey’s, Haagen Dazs, Tropicana, Star Wars, Gillette, and the No More movement.
She is also President Emeritus of AIGA, one of five women to hold the position in the organization’s 100-year history. She is a frequent speaker on design and branding throughout the world and has been a juror for competitions including Cannes Lions, The Clio’s, the One Club, and many, many more. This year she will be the Jury President for the branding competition for the D&AD Awards in London.
Debbie is currently working with Law & Order SVU actor and activist Mariska Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation to eradicate sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and the rape-kit backlog.
3 words to describe Nature?
Cosmic. Magical. Breathtaking
3 things Nature taught you?
Patience
Scale
Humility
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Pacific Northwest, United States
Machu Pichu, Peru
Easter Island, Chile
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Powerful
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Peaceful
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Curious
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Safe
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Dramatic
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
All!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I was at a sleep-away summer camp; it was mid-late August, very early evening. I was in a meadow in upstate New York with my campmates. It had rained and the grass was wet. We all ran outside when we realized that a rainbow had suddenly appeared. We were in awe. I might have been wearing pajamas.
Anne Kreamer
Anne Kreamer is the author of “It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace” and “Going Gray: What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters.” Hew latest book, “Risk/Reward: Why Intelligent Leaps and Daring Choices Are the Best Career Moves You Can Make,” decodes what it takes to get ahead and achieve satisfaction in today’s unpredictable new workscape.
Anne has also worked as a columnist for Fast Company and Martha Stewart Living, and has written frequently for Harvard Business Review. Her work has appeared in Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Real Simple, and Travel + Leisure. Previously, Anne was Executive Vice President and Worldwide Creative Director for the television channels Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite and part of the team that launched SPY magazine. As the Associate Director for the International Television Group for Sesame Workshop, she was integral to building Sesame Street into the pre-eminent global children’s brand.
In 2019, with her daughter, Lucy Andersen, Anne launched Wild & Rare (wildandrare.com) an accessories business showcasing endangered wildlife. By shining a light on individual plants and animals, they hope that Wild & Rare products will function as miniature billboards, focusing our attention on the smaller, more manageable parts of the environmental crisis. 100% of the profits go to organizations working toward the same goal.
Anne graduated from Harvard College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer, Kurt Andersen.
3 words to describe Nature?
Grounding. Transcendent. Powerful.
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Patience
Resilience
3 most treasured Nature spots?
My Brooklyn backyard, touching the Dawn Sequoia I planted 20 years ago, now 100 feet tall.
The Housatonic River, Connecticut
Lucy Vincent Beach, Martha’s Vineyard
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Clean and bright
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Euphoric
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe-struck
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Joyful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Excited
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Anxious
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Forest
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Sitting on a bluff in the Flint Hills of Kansas with my father watching enormous thunderstorms roll into the Plains from Colorado. It was primal.
Courtney Boyd Myers
Courtney Boyd Myers is a community builder, writer, and entrepreneur. She is the cofounder of AKUA, a sustainable food company that created the world’s first Kelp Jerky, a vegan snack made from regeneratively ocean-farmed kelp that was recognized by Fast Company as a World Changing Idea and by Time Magazine as an Invention of the Year.
For six years, Courtney known as “CBM” has helped build the Summit Community, a global network of founders, creatives, and innovators. And most recently, she has helped start a private home-sharing network called MyPlace. Previously, she helped market companies such as Four Sigmatic, Raya, General Assembly, SecondHome, and Transferwise. She began her career as a journalist at Forbes Magazine, The Next Web, and The Huffington Post. Courtney has also been recognized as one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business, and one of Business Insider’s 30 Most Important Women Under 30 in Technology.
3 words to describe Nature?
Heavenly. Powerful. Vulnerable.
3 things Nature taught you?
Everything we need is all around us.
Stay present and have faith that it's all going to be okay.
We need to be kind to our fellow Earthlings.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Big Bay, a kite spot just outside of Cape Town, South Africa
San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, where you can spend your days warm water surfing and your nights sleeping in the jungle.
Lake George, NY where I am currently quarantined!
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
At home
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Child-like
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Strong
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Grateful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Romantic
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Excited
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
The Little Mermaid came out when I was 5 years old and my life forever changed. I remember the feeling of being 5, 6, 7, 8 years old and every summer just staring at my legs in the swimming pool, and wishing I could grow fins. All these years later, and I am still trying to figure out how to be a mermaid.
Amy Webb
Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist and a bestselling, award-winning author. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures. Webb is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University’s Säid School of Business, a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center, a Fellow in the United States-Japan Leadership Program and a Foresight Fellow in the U.S. Government Accountability Office Center for Strategic Foresight. She was a Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where her research received a national Sigma Delta Chi award. She was also a Delegate on the former U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, where she worked on the future of technology, media and international diplomacy. Webb has advised CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies, three-star generals and admirals and executive government leadership on strategy and technology. She is the author of several popular books, including The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, which was longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award, shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award, and won the 2020 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology, and The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream, which won the Thinkers50 Radar Award, was selected as one of Fast Company’s Best Books of 2016, Amazon’s best books 2016, and was the recipient of the 2017 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology. Her bestselling memoir Data, A Love Story is about finding love via algorithms. Her TED talk about Data has been viewed more than 8 million times and is being adapted as a feature film, which is currently in production. Webb was named by Forbes as one of the five women changing the world, listed as the BBC’s 100 Women of 2020, and the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led.
Amy serves on a script consultant for films and shows about artificial intelligence, technology and the future. Most recently, she worked on The First, a sci-fi drama about the first humans to travel to Mars. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and has served as a Blue Ribbon Emmy award judge.
3 words to describe Nature?
Essential. Quantifiable. Mysterious.
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility. Humility. Humility. (Seriously!)
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The hiking paths of Mt. Hayachine, which is part of the Kitakami range in northern Japan.
Walking among the giant redwoods of Sequoia National Park.
Hiking the foothills of Stowe, Vermont, especially in fall.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Concerned. The oceans are a vast ecosystem that we've ignored and polluted.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
At home. There is a concept in Japan known as "shinrin-yoku," which is loosely defined as taking a forest bath. Connecting with trees and the sounds of a forest, breathing in the air, and taking time for contemplation and reflection are ways to improve mental clarity, emotional health and physical stamina.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Curious.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Spirited. Some of my fondest memories are of canoeing and camping in Big Bend National Park in Texas and waking up with the sunrise. Even in the summer, the air is fresh and cool, and there's both a calmness and a sense of anticipation for a new day.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Like I'm at work. When I'm researching, reading and writing, I listen to brown noise, which has lower, thicker tones than white noise. Some of the brown noise tracks I listen to include a continuous stream of rumbling thunder.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cold. Even if it's not actually cold.
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?
There was a small lake near our house, and it was fully alive: snakes, butterflies, fish, frogs, weeds, flowers, trees, and all sorts of bugs. My dad used to take me there just to walk around, look at tadpoles, and observe nature. One afternoon we found a beehive beneath a pile of boulders. We climbed on top and spent hours watching the bees do their work.
Yancey Strickler
Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, and the creator of Bentoism. Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. He cofounded the artist resource The Creative Independent and the record label eMusic Selects. Yancey grew up in Clover Hollow, Virginia, and began his career as a music critic in New York City. The London Spectator called him "one of the least obnoxious tech evangelists ever."
3 words to describe Nature?
Shhhwwwwwwww (wind through the trees)
tckltckltckltckltckl (leaves on the ground)
grglgrglgrglgrgl (water falling from a rocky cave)
3 things Nature taught you?
How to hide
What it means to be healthy
The upside of death
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Canopied forests with pine needles on the ground
Any beach
The farm where I grew up
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Infinite
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Taller
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Side-eyed
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like a George Harrison song
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Five years old
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Small
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
E) All of the above
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Age twelve waiting for the bus when a deer, wounded by a hunter's bullet, came staggering out of the woods and collapsed across the street from me. I stayed with it and spoke with it until its eyes went blank.
Alisa Miller
Alisa Miller seeks to transform and invent media and technology that positively impacts people’s lives. Recently, she was the executive chairman of PRI-PRX, the broadcast network formed when Public Radio International (PRI) merged with Public Radio Exchange (PRX). She led this first-ever public media network merger and created an organization that reaches more than 28.5 million users each month and has more than 58 million monthly podcast downloads - within the top three podcast sources in the US.
She was named CEO of PRI in 2006, the first woman and youngest CEO to head a major public radio network. Before her time with PRI, Alisa headed new digital business development for Sesame Street.
Alisa speaks on how media and technology shapes our lives and on building purpose-driven companies and careers. Her TED Talk on media's power to shape knowledge and action has been viewed 2 million times and been translated into 48 languages. She was named by Fast Company as a Most Influential Woman in Technology, is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and in 2015 won the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
She’s a proud Cornhusker and holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Nebraska and a master’s degrees in business administration and public policy, both from the University of Chicago.
When Alisa isn't working or with her kids, she can be found singing or hiking on a mountain trail somewhere.
3 words to describe Nature?
Space. Time. Standstill (I find that the power of nature connects and touches me in these powerful moments — time literally standstill. Its about being awestruck by the scale, beauty and rawness of it.)
3 things Nature taught you?
We are temporary
We are small
Make it matter
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Bridal Veil Falls, Rocky Mountain National Park. My family has had a 3, now 4 generation affair with the Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park. Bridal Veil Falls is a hike I first walked as a child and each time I go back, it is not only beautiful but reminds me of family roots and connectedness.
Crescent Meadow, Sequoia National Park. This place literally shimmers and those trees, those ancient trees, are magical.
Sneffles Range, Colorado. The air, the sun, the exertion to get there and to the top. Worth it.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Calm, humble
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Life, hushed
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awestruck and a touch of fear
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Reflective, grateful to breathe
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Like a little kid
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Alone
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?
Floating.
Summer rays.
In a prairie freshwater lake.
Watching the bubbles come out of my nose. Diving and feeling the water cool ....
as it becomes darker and deeper.
Down further.
Holding my breath.
Watching fish watch me.
Currents pulsing through my fingers. Freedom
Wallace J Nichols
Dr. Wallace "J" Nichols - called a “Keeper of the Sea" by GQ Magazine, “a visionary" by Outside Magazine, a "water warrior" by AQUATICS International and a "friend of the sea" by Experience Life Magazine - is an innovative, silo-busting, entrepreneurial scientist, movement maker, renown marine biologist, voracious Earth and idea explorer, wild water advocate, bestselling author, sought after lecturer, and fun-loving Dad. He also likes turtles (a lot).
In 2010 Nichols delivered the commencement address at DePauw University where he also received an honorary doctorate in science. In 2011 he was inducted as a Fellow National member of the Explorers Club. In 2014 he received the University of Arizona's Global Achievement Award. And in 2017, he was presented by Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama the Champion of Change Award at the World Oceans Festival on Governor’s Island, New York.
Nichols has authored more than 200 scientific papers, technical reports, book chapters, and popular publications; lectured in more than 30 countries and nearly all 50 states; and appeared in hundreds of print, film, radio, and television media outlets including NPR, BBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Time, Newsweek, GQ, Outside Magazine, USA Today, Elle, Vogue, Fast Company, Surfer Magazine, Scientific American, and New Scientist, among many others.
His book Blue Mind, published in summer 2014 by Little, Brown & Company, quickly became a national bestseller and has been translated to numerous languages and inspired a wave of media and practical application.
J. is currently Chief Evangelist for Water (CEH2O) at Bouy Labs, a Senior Fellow at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies' Center for the Blue Economy, a Research Associate at California Academy of Sciences and co-founder of Ocean Revolution, an international network of young ocean advocates, SEE the WILD, a conservation travel network, Grupo Tortuguero, an international sea turtle conservation network, and Blue Mind a global "movement of movements" sharing the new story of water.
He co-mentors a motivated group of international graduate students and serves as an advisor to numerous non-profit boards and committees as part of his commitment to building a more creative, stronger, more progressive, and connected environmental community.
J. lives with his partner Dana, two daughters and some cats, dogs, and chickens on California's Slow Coast, a rural stretch of coastal mountains overlooking the Monterey Bay where organic strawberries rule, mountain lions roam and their motto is "In Slow We Trust". The Nichols chose to settle down in this area after trekking the entire 1,800 kilometer coast from Oregon to Mexico.
3 words to describe Nature?
Primal. Creative. Home
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Solitude
Confidence
3 most treasured Nature spots?
50 miles offshore and 50 feet deep from Bahia Magdalena, BCS Mexico
The source of Mill Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains
Greyhound Rock
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Optimistic
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Connected
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Hopeful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Warm
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Nostalgic
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Yes on all!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
11
Share with us a childhood nature memory.
Backpacking to Deep Lake, in Wyoming, when I was 11 and feeling like I wanted to feel that way a lot more throughout my life. The origins of “blue mind” research, practice, philosophy and the growing global movement.
Miki Agrawal
Miki Agrawal was named 2018 Fast Company’s “Most Creative People”, 2017 “Young Global Leader” by World Economic Forum, “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” by the World Technology Summit, “Top 20 millennials on a mission” by Forbes, and was one of INC Magazine’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs of 2016.” That year, she made the cover of both Entrepreneur Magazine and Crain’s Magazine. She is the recipient of the Tribeca Innovation Award and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture in 2017 by the Brooklyn Magazine.
She co-founded THINX, a high-tech, period-proof underwear brand and led the company as CEO to a valuation of over $150 Million and to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2017, all while helping tens of millions of women period better.
She also founded TUSHY, a company that is revolutionizing the American toilet category with a modern, affordable, designer bidet attachment that both upgrades human health & hygiene as well as the environment from wasteful toilet paper consumption. She and her team are also helping fight the global sanitation crisis by bringing clean latrines to underserved communities in India through their partnership with Samagra. SNL covered TUSHY after its subway campaign was banned. Watch the clip here.
She is the founder of the acclaimed farm-to-table, alternative pizza concept called WILD with 3 locations in New York City, one in Guatemala and more on the way.
Additionally, Harper Collins published her first book entitled "DO COOL SH*T" on entrepreneurship and lifestyle design. Hay House published her second book “Disrupt-Her”.
3 words to describe Nature?
Alive. Present. Symbiotic
3 things Nature taught you?
That we are tiny specs of dust that are here for a short amount of time, so we must add more to nature than take away from it.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The Catskills
My backyard garden
Redwood forest in California
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Ever-present
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Meditative
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Powerful
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
Rejuvenated
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Energetic
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Alive
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Forest
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Going camping in Stowe with my family and climbing Mt Orford at 3 years old and feeling very accomplished :-)
Amanda Slavin
During her career as an educator, Amanda realized that any platform can be a classroom with the right perspective. She learned to listen deeply to the young minds around her, and applied her teacher’s appetite for active, informative engagement to develop the award-winning brand consulting firm CatalystCreativ. As Founder & CEO of CatalystCreativ, Amanda has counseled global, national, and local organizations in planning for and achieving their branding goals. Through projects with Coca Cola, The Raiders, Google, WeWork, NPR, The Nature Conservancy, and the New York City Ballet, Amanda was featured as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree in Advertising and Marketing.
Amanda guides brands to do good for the world without having to sacrifice their bottom line. To do this, she utilizes her well-tested proprietary method for quantifying and scaling engagement for employees and customers. Known as the Seventh Level Engagement Framework, this technique springs from Amanda’s expertise marketing to Millennials, Gen Z and what she has coined "the Millennial Minded." She’s spoken at SXSW, TED, Summit Series, and INBOUND about how The Seventh Level Engagement Framework is the future of meaningful, personal connections. Amanda’s groundbreaking thought leadership has been covered by Inc Magazine, Forbes, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine.
3 words to describe Nature?
Majestic. Important. Emotional
3 things Nature taught you?
How to give myself permission to let my imagination lead me
How to remember how small I am in comparison to the tallest of trees and the highest of mountains
To appreciate quiet
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Sedona, Arizona
Hana, Hawaii
Makhtesh, Israel
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
At peace from the sound, in awe of the power
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Completely at home
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Lack of control, the importance to surrender
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like a kid again, to remember the little moments in life to be thankful for
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Scared but also kind of excited
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
If i'm inside a warm home, it makes me thankful to be in warmth
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Forest
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
My 95 year old grandma recalls no matter how many toys I was given, I would always go outside and prefer to play with "my tree." There was a big tree outside my window that I thought was my tree, and I remember pretending to be a witch and stirring the wood chips around the tree as a part of my witch couldron, (I definitely had a big imagination!)
Scott Carney
Photo credit: Jake Holschuh
Investigative journalist and anthropologist Scott Carney (scottcarney.com) has worked in some of the most dangerous and unlikely corners of the world. His work blends narrative non-fiction with ethnography. Currently, he is a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism and a 2016-17 Scripps Fellow at the Center for Environmental Journalism in Boulder, Colorado. His books include the New York Times best seller "What Doesn't Kill Us" as well as "The Red Market" and "The Enlightenment Trap”.
Carney was a contributing editor at Wired for five years and his writing also appears in Mother Jones, Men's Journal, Playboy, Foreign Policy, Discover, Outside and Fast Company. His work has been the subject of a variety of radio and television programs, including on NPR and National Geographic TV. In 2010, he won the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism for his story "Meet the Parents”, which tracked an international kidnapping-to-adoption ring. Carney has spent extensive time in South Asia and speaks Hindi.
3 words to describe Nature?
Stunning. Brutal. Fair.
3 things Nature taught you?
That there is no division between ourselves and nature.
That the outside world is also the inside world
How we think about the environment is also how we think about ourselves.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The Nubble Westport, MA
Hampi, India
Outside Iquitos, Peru
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Calm, like the horizon has no limits.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Like there will be something unexpected just around the next bend
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
In awe of the power of the earth.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like I'm at the beginning or end.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Usually a little surprised. I count the seconds between the flash and the clap to try to figure out how far away it is. The other day I got stuck in a thunderstorm and the bolts crashed fifteen feet from me. It was pretty terrifying. My instinct was to lie flat on the ground.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
IT depends where I am. If I'm inside a house watching a storm pass it's a strangely comforting feeling. If I'm outside it can be brutal.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
I am nature. And so are you. 10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I remember climbing up the Nubble, a small but high rock that guards the Harbor in Westport, MA, while my mother yelled at me to get down. She was scared I would fall, but I just had to make it to the top.
Tina Wells
Tina Wells is the CEO and founder of Buzz Marketing Group, a marketing agency that creates strategies for clients within the beauty, entertainment, fashion, financial, and lifestyle sectors. For more than two decades, Tina has connected thousands of influencers and consumers to brand clients. Since founding her company, she’s developed and managed 30,000 “buzzSpotters” and 7,000 “momSpotters” –influencer and research networks for her clients that include Dell, The Oprah Winfrey Network, and American Eagle Outfitters.
Tina sits on the board of the Young Entrepreneurs Council, the United Nations Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurs Council (emeritus), and the Council of Emeritus Directors of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association. She currently chairs the Programs, Marketing, and Business Development committee of The Franklin Institute where she also serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee.
She is a member of the 2017 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute and the Academic Director (Practicum) of Wharton’s Leadership in the Business World program at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018, Wells also joined the board of THINX. Her list of honors includes The Girl Scouts’ Woman of Distinction, Cosmopolitan’s Fun Fearless Phenom Award, Essence’s 40 Under 40, Billboard’s 30 Under 30, Inc’s 30 Under 30, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business.
Wells is the author of the best-selling tween fiction series Mackenzie Blue and the marketing handbook Chasing Youth Culture And Getting It Right. Wells’ writing has appeared in the Huffington Post,he Journal of the American College of Radiology, Inc, Black Enterprise, Media Post, and Retail Merchandiser Magazine.
3 words to describe Nature?
Peaceful. Vibrant. Majestic.
3 things Nature taught you?
That there is something much bigger than me and any problem I think I might have. Also, there’s a rhythm to the world and things continue to move in their cycles and serve their purpose.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Lancaster, PA - where I’m from. Gorgeous pastures, rolling hills, absolutely stunning.
Maasai Mara, Kenya - my first safari and trip to Africa, the most beautiful place I’ve ever been
Tuscany, Italy - my brother has lived here for almost 10 years with his wife. I visit often and fall in love all over again each time.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Calm. Just hearing the ocean calms me.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Safe and secure. I also feel in awe at the enormity of it all.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awestruck...but a little helpless and scared too.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Happy. A sunrise or sunset is an instant mood booster for me.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Curious.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Scared by the power of it.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountain, for sure!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9. When I purchased my home 11 years ago I planted some trees that are now enormous. Just seeing them every single day, in every season makes me feel so happy.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I’m the eldest of six children, and growing up my dad would take all of the kids in the neighborhood on nature hikes and trips to the park. I grew up in the part of southern New Jersey that is known for its farms. I still live there and see deer almost every night. Those park trips with all of my siblings and our friends were the best.