Americas

John Suhar is a sustainability and community impact executive with two decades of experience at the intersection of sports, conservation, and social impact. He currently serves as Director of Operations at Save the Waves Coalition, and completed Executive Education in Sustainability Leadership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Previously, he spent seven years leading social impact and philanthropy at the World Surf League, where he helped establish the WSL as one of the Most Impactful sports leagues and led over 20 award-winning initiatives. John was recognized in Leaders in Sport’s 40 Under 40 (2023) and received the Shorty Impact Award for Community Builder of the Year (2024).

An avid skier, traveler, and lover of the outdoors, Gabrielle designs solutions for how we will live, work, and play in a net-zero and climate adaptive world. She led Sustainability Hospitality at On Location for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, focusing on impact in all 16 venues. She previously led investment stewardship at Soros Fund Management and was Operating Principal at JetBlue Ventures. She supports climate startups with their commercialization strategies and advises organizations on how to create financially-driven sustainability strategies that deliver real-world impact.

Katie Vincent is a Canadian Olympic Champion, World Champion, and senior canoe sprint athlete who has represented Team Canada at the highest level of international competition. A two-time Olympian and three-time Olympic medalist, Vincent won gold in the women’s C-1 200m at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and bronze in the C-2 500m at both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She is also an eight-time Senior World Championship gold medalist and has earned more than 30 World Cup medals across individual and team events.

A member of the Canadian National Canoe Sprint Team since 2012, Vincent has built a decade-long career in high-performance sport while becoming an advocate for gender equity, youth empowerment, climate action, and mental wellness. She was involved in advocacy surrounding the inclusion of women’s canoeing in the Olympic Programme and has continued to use her platform to support a more equitable, ethical, and sustainable sporting system.

Vincent holds a Bachelor of Arts with Specialized Honours in Kinesiology and Health Science from York University and is pursuing graduate studies in kinesiology at the University of Toronto, with a focus on Physical Cultural Studies with Dr. Maddy Orr in the Sport Ecology Lab. Her research interests include the relationships between climate change, waterway governance, athlete safety, training environments, and Olympic performance preparation.

Beyond competition, Vincent serves as an elected member of the Paddle Worldwide Athlete Board and the Canadian Olympic Committee Athletes Commission. She also mentors young female athletes and speaks on equity in sport, mental performance, and the broader power of sport and is preparing for the LA28 Olympic Games.

Ovidia Stanoi is a postdoctoral fellow in the Communication Neuroscience Lab and in the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCMSS) at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ovidia examines the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying how people connect with one another, perceive social information, and coordinate to reach common goals. She draws on methods from different disciplines to study these complex social dynamics in real-world contexts. Her work has been published in top-tier journals, including PNAS, Emotion, Scientific Reports, and presented at numerous international conferences.

More recently, Ovidia has investigated what motivates people to engage in conversations about climate change with others in their social circles or remain silent. Her work shows that people often avoid expressing their thoughts about climate change because of miscalibrated expectations: they overestimate the social and emotional costs of these conversations and underestimate their potential rewards.

She is now designing interventions to test how conversations can change behavioral norms. Before joining Penn, Ovidia completed a Ph.D. in Psychology at Columbia University and a B.A. in International Relations at Brown University.

Monika Dharia never set out to build a company. She set out to solve a problem: why was every rain poncho made from petroleum-based plastic that gets used once and thrown away? Today, she’s the founder and CEO of GreenGear Supply Company, a Certified B Corporation making sustainable rain ponchos and bags for events, retail, and attractions. GreenGear’s EcoRain® Ponchos and EcoBags, made from renewable sugarcane instead of petroleum plastic, are trusted by organizations including the Philadelphia Eagles, Live Nation Canada, and the Boston Marathon.

Monika first identified the problem as an engineering student at Duke University, where daily thunderstorms and a lack of sustainable rain gear sparked the idea for what would become the EcoRain® Poncho. She graduated in 2019 with a degree in Environmental Engineering and an Economics minor and won the Sabin Sustainable Venture Prize at Yale. She went on to spend two years at Bain & Company before going all-in on GreenGear in 2022.

Under her leadership, GreenGear continues to advance its sugarcane-based materials and circularity models, pushing every generation of product toward better performance and a smaller environmental footprint.

After years of vision and work, GreenGear recently launched its social impact production model in partnership with Goodwill Legacy Group. Ponchos are now produced by a U.S.-based Goodwill Legacy Group team, giving people facing employment barriers an opportunity for steady work, with proceeds reinvested into financial coaching, stable housing, accessible healthcare and other supportive services.

For Monika, business is a tool for change: every product should protect the planet and lift up the people who make it.

Head of Sponsorships and Sports Projects at the BTC Company and a member of the Organising Committee of the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup for Women in Ljubno, where he is responsible for financial planning, marketing and sustainability.

A former elite artistic gymnast European Games Champion, multiple European medalist and World Cup winner, who has transitioned from high-performance sport into sports management and international sports governance. He currently serves as Chair of the Athletes’ Commission and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Committee of Mediterranean Games, as well as Vice President of the Gymnastics Federation of Slovenia.

In Ljubno, he established and leads the sustainability initiative Responsible Ljubno, which aims to embed environmental, social and governance principles into the organisation of the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup event. The initiative is built around a comprehensive sustainability action plan, measurable objectives, transparent reporting and active engagement with sponsors, athletes, spectators, local community and other relevant stakeholders, with the ambition of creating a practical and replicable model for the future

Maddie Plank is the Senior Sustainability Project Coordinator for Pacers Sports & Entertainment, where she leads sustainability strategy and initiatives across the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever. A former collegiate basketball player with a background in Environmental Science, Maddie has built a career at the intersection of sport, sustainability, and community impact. She is passionate about harnessing the reach and influence of sports to advance environmental responsibility and create meaningful change in Indiana communities.

Aly Criscuolo is determined to make sports and organizations more sustainable. She was appointed as the first Head of Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility at New York Road Runners, where she develops and implements sustainability strategy for the world’s largest marathon, 50+ annual races, and multiple facilities. She launched NYRR Team for Climate – the first entry method tied to sustainability efforts by a major marathon that has raised over $1.9 million for climate.

She has worked with organizations such as the ESPY Awards, Kickstarter, and General Electric, founded the NYC Sports Sustainability Network, leads the Abbott World Marathon Majors Sustainability Working Group and was honored as one of GreenBiz’s 30 Under 30 in 2019. Aly has an MBA in Sustainability from Bard College and an undergraduate degree from Fairfield University. She was a Division I swimmer and enjoys competing in road races and triathlons.

Pierre is the F1 & Sport Sustainability Lead at the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), where he oversees the development and delivery of environmental strategies across global motorsport.

He brings over 7 years of experience in sustainability, including previous work at Procter & Gamble on large-scale environmental and product lifecycle initiatives in the FMCG sector.

At the FIA, Pierre supports major championships like Formula 1, WRC, Formula E, and WEC, focusing on carbon reduction, sustainable event operations, and circular economy. He plays a key role in advancing the FIA Environmental Accreditation Programme, driving the adoption of renewable energy, sustainable fuels, low-carbon logistics, and biodiversity protection across motor sport.”