GlobalECHO Foundation

Philippe Cousteau

Chairman & Founding Board Member

Explorer, social entrepreneur and environmental advocate, Philippe Cousteau is the 31-year-old son of Jan and Philippe Cousteau Sr., and the grandson of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau. As a member of the legendary family, Philippe is continuing the work of his father through EarthEcho International (www.earthecho.org), the non-profit organization he founded with his sister and mother and of which he serves as President. His goal is to engage and empower people to take action for a brighter future. His tools are simple—education, balanced advocacy and a commitment to action.

In addition to his work with EarthEcho International, Philippe is co-founder of Azure Worldwide (www.azureworldwide.com), a strategic environmental design, development and marketing company. Projects include work in green site design/planning, eco-tourism and new media. Through an alliance with the University of Virginia, where he is an OpenGrounds Fellow, Philippe is aiding in the development and promotion of a revolutionary interactive game that simulates the impact of individuals and communities on the health of critical water resources.

Most recently, Philippe announced a partnership with AdvisorShares Investments to launch the Global Echo Exchange Traded Fund on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: GIVE) as well as the formation of Global Echo Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) of which he serves as Co-founder and Chairman. The Global Echo Foundation will provide resources to solve many of the challenges facing the world community from social issues impacting women and children to environmental conservation, as well as supporting social entrepreneurship.

Philippe is a special correspondent for CNN International where he hosts documentaries and reports on environmental and humanitarian stories including an exploration of the extreme science of climate change deep in the frozen arctic. Philippe hosted Oceans Blue, a High Definition Discovery networks/BBC series which premiered in the U.S. on Planet Green in August 2010. In addition, he is the Chief Spokesperson for Environmental Education for Discovery Education, the #1 provider of K–12 broadband-delivered educational content to U.S. schools and lectures to over 100,000 K-12 students a year. Philippe is also the coauthor, with Cathryn Berger Kaye, of Going Blue, A Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands (Free Spirit Publishing), which was released in the summer of 2010 and has been awarded Learning Magazine's 2011 Teachers' Choice Award for the Family, a Gold Nautilus Award and a 2010 ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Gold Award, amongst others.

Philippe has been featured in television, online, radio and is a regular speaker at conferences around the world. He has written articles for many publications including Sport Diver Magazine and National Geographic Magazine and has lectured at such institutions as The United Nations, Harvard University, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and for companies such as Google, Intel, Tyco, and more. He is a frequent contributor to CNN.com, the Huffington Post and TreeHugger.com.

Philippe and his sister Alexandra were named to Vanity Fair magazine's 2010 Next Establishment list in recognition of their contributions as environmental advocates.

Philippe serves on the Board of Directors of The Ocean Conservancy, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, and the National Environmental Education Foundation, and the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund. Philippe has also testified to Congress on issues of ocean management and off-shore drilling. Most recently, he was appointed founder and co-chair of the Gulf Action Network for the Clinton Global Initiative.

Philippe's travels have taken him diving, rock climbing, trekking, and snowboarding around the world. From expeditions in the highlands of Papua New Guinea to war-torn Sarajevo, where he provided humanitarian aid, he has learned that exploring the connections between humans and the environment are as important as exploring nature itself. He holds a Master's degree in history from the University of St. Andrews.

Ambassador J. Douglas Holladay

Co-founder & Founding Board Member

J. Douglas Holladay is a co-founder of Park Avenue Equity Partners, L.P. with offices in New York and Washington. Park Avenue Equity Partners is a private equity fund which makes equity investments in operating companies with revenues between $50-350 million. Prior to co-founding Park Avenue, Mr. Holladay was Chairman of the Thornton Group, LLC, which he founded in 1995 to make opportunistic direct equity investments in a range of smaller companies.

While Mr. Holladay continues as an active investor, including the acquisition of Elgin Energy, the main focus of his time is on several important not-for-profit efforts, including PathNorth, which helps business owners and CEOs define success more broadly, the Buxton Initiative, an interfaith dialogue organization, and ABC² (Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure), working to find a cure for brain cancer.

Mr. Holladay was formerly a senior officer with the international investment banking firm, Goldman, Sachs and Company, headquartered in New York. At Goldman Sachs, he worked in the Investment Banking Division on a range of matters, strategic and administrative as well as on certain international transactions with a governmental component. While with Goldman Sachs, he served as founding President of One to One Mentoring Partnership, an initiative of the New York financial community to bring imaginative solutions to some of our nation's most pressing urban youth challenges.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Mr. Holladay held senior positions in both the White House and the Department of State. After working under White House Chief of Staff, James A. Baker III, Mr. Holladay was appointed by the President to the personal rank of Special Ambassador, charged to coordinate major aspects of the U.S. public response to the challenges posed by South Africa prior to the dramatic release of Nelson Mandela.

Mr. Holladay has advised several Presidents and numerous corporate leaders and has explained and debated public policy issues on national television. He has contributed to several books on a broad range of issues, foreign policy, culture, theology and 19th C. history and has placed articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today and other influential journals. He has delivered public speeches to leadership gatherings in more than 40 states and 10 nations.

Service has characterized Mr. Holladay's career path causing him to promote change and understanding in settings as diverse as East and South Africa, the White House and on Wall Street. Noted author, Gail Sheehy, in her best seller, Pathfinders, described Holladay as an influential layman who "excelled in all that he touched."

Mr. Holladay has served on numerous Boards, Councils and Presidential Commissions, including the Presidential Commission on Drug Prevention, Presidential Commission on Small Business, Morehouse College, Sunrise Senior Living, Inc., Miraval Resorts, Neogenix Oncology, Inc, Elgin Energy, LLC, CNL Hotels and Resorts Inc., Trinity Forum, United Way International, One to One Mentoring Partnership, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, Contrasting Perspectives, Harvard University Divinity for the Study of Values in Public Life, the Ethiopia Opportunity Fund, NorthStar Companies Inc., Oxford Analytica, Ltd., University of North Carolina School of Public Health Advisory Board, and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. He has served as a key advisor to a number of public and private companies including Heidrick and Struggles, Hughes Supply, Service Master and Providence Capital. Mr. Holladay's pro-bono work includes serving as Executive Producer of a film documentary for public television, The Question of God, with an award-winning director, contrasting the world views of Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis. Mr. Holladay further served as a judge of the 2005 Emmy Awards. He currently serves as a Fellow with the Case Foundation, which is based in Washington.

Mr. Holladay holds degrees from the University of North Carolina, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Oxford University in England, holds an honorary doctorate in law, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia and guest lecturer at Williams College. Mr. Holladay was a White House Fellow finalist and played Division I Varsity Lacrosse as an undergraduate.

David Sontag

Founding Board Member

David Sontag was, until this past June, the Wesley Wallace Professor of Communication Studies and the Director of the Writing for the Screen and Stage Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a degree program that he created for the University. He is an award-winning writer and producer and has written for Columbia Pictures, MGM, and Hollywood Pictures among others. Mr. Sontag has held important creative and executive positions at NBC, CBS Films and ABC. At ABC, he was Executive Producer of the Network and in charge of all Specials. Among the many shows, he was responsible for while there were Truman Capote's "A CHRISTMAS MEMORY" and "SHINDIG" which he created and developed. In addition to his numerous television and film credits, Mr. Sontag was Senior Vice-President and creative head of 20th Century Fox Television. During his stay at Fox, he was responsible for some of our most outstanding television such as MASH and Maya Angelou's SISTER – SISTER as well as creating and developing the critically acclaimed television series JAMES AT FIFTEEN and THE PAPER CHASE

Mr. Sontag has been a consultant to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, were he helped develop a film, theater, and media BFA program for the University. In addition, he was a member of the Faculty at the American Film Institute and has lectured and been a Resource Scholar at such institutions as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Study, The University of Southern California, The University of Colorado, The University of New Mexico, The College of Santa Fe, The Institute for American Indian Art.

Mr. Sontag is on the National Advisory Board of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and is the past President of the board of the Festival. In addition, he is Vice Chairman of EarthEcho International the environmental non-profit headed by Philippe Cousteau, Jr. Mr. Sontag was the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Symphony and a member of the Executive, Strategic Planning and Program Committees of the Symphony. Mr. Sontag is the Founder of the Native Americas International Film Exposition and has been on the Advisory Board for the College of Santa Fe's Greer Garson Studios as well as a past Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Aspen Music Festival. Mr. Sontag, a nominee for both the Writers' Guild and Humanitas awards, is listed in Who's Who in Entertainment, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World.

Jill Belasco

Founding Board Member

Jill Belasco is an accomplished entrepreneur and corporate executive whose leadership and impact are widely recognized in the cosmetic and fragrance industry. She also is a spirited advocate and philanthropist for clean water, the environment, education, and mentoring.

Early in her career, Jill spent twenty years in senior sales management and marketing positions in the cosmetic, fragrance, and accessory industries. During that time she held national management positions for some of the world's leading fragrance companies and retail chains, including Halston - Orlane, Charles of the Ritz, and May Department Stores.

Thanks to that success Jill began her entrepreneurial journey by founding Latitudes International Fragrance and went on to establish the company as an innovative designer and manufacturer of high-quality home fragrance products. Clients included Pier 1, Bath & Body Works, Pottery Barn, The Body Shop, Estee Lauder, Williams Sonoma, Old Navy, Crabtree & Evelyn, Trish McEvoy, Starwood Hotels, and Frederick's of Hollywood. In 2007, Ms. Belasco engineered the sale of Latitudes to the Maesa Group, where she was appointed and served as CEO. Then as CEO of the Maesa Group (www.maesa.com), a French publicly-traded company that designs, manufactures, and distributes private-label cosmetics, personal care, fragrance, and gift products for retailers and brands around the world, Jill was chiefly responsible for strategy, growth, and innovation across Maesa's four divisions: Maesa Beauty, Maesa Home, Maesa Packaging, and Maesa Studio. Most recently, Jill founded and serves as the CEO of Coscentrix (www.coscentrix.com), a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of private label home fragrances and personal care products. She also founded and leads Soap and Water, a mission-based business that designs and produces branded soaps, shampoos, and other products, profits from which are directed to water and environmental organizations. The company's mantra is "Soap and Water, Clean Water Through Soap."

Jill has received numerous awards including Entrepreneur Magazine "Woman of the Year" in 2005, Cosmetic Executive Women, Achiever Award 2012, Finalist, Los Angeles Business Journal's "Women Who Make a Difference," in 2005 and 2006. Jill serves on numerous boards including: Chairwoman, Fragrance Foundation, Cosmetic Executive Women, EarthEcho International, National Association of Women Business Owners, is the Former Chairwoman of The Mentoring Connection, and current chairwoman of the Belasco Family Foundation.

Nick Segal

Founding Board Member

Nick Segal is a director of Seavest Capital Partners ("Seavest"), a private investment company that invests in early and growth-stage companies primarily in the education, healthcare, consumer technology and media sectors. Representing investments of Seavest, Mr. Segal serves on the board of directors of TherapeuticsMD, a developer of specialty pharmaceutical products for the women's healthcare market, and as an observer to the board of directors of Tout, a social platform for video communication, and Autonet Mobile, a technology company that has developed the first Internet-based service platform for the automotive transportation market. Nick is also the founder and CEO of Polar Generation, a start-up consumer products company.

Lyndon Haviland

Board Member

With more than 25 years' experience in domestic and international public health, Dr. Haviland brings broad expertise in management consulting, health policy, advocacy, social marketing, corporate social responsibility, and branding, as well as applied research design and evaluation.

A passionate advocate for social justice and women's and children's health around the world, Dr. Haviland acted as a Senior Project Leader for the UN Secretary-General's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health. This initiative helped to align hundreds of world actors around a common strategy for saving more than 16 million lives and raised more than $40 billion in new resources for women and children.

Dr. Haviland serves as senior strategy counsel to the Aspen Institute program on Global Health and Development. In this capacity, Dr. Haviland has helped to launch the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health, authoring numerous public statements for the Council and producing major policy events to highlight the central role of family planning in economic and social development.

Dr. Haviland has directed programs in philanthropy, HIV/AIDS care, maternal and child health care, community-based participatory research, vaccines and tobacco prevention and cessation services. She has also worked in a broad range of professional environments spanning domestic, academic, multinational and multilateral organizations and including the Aspen Institute, GAVI, UNAIDS, the UN Executive Offices of the Secretary General, the UN Department of Public Information, the UN Foundation, HRSA and SPNS projects, UNDP, WHO, the International Medical Corps, the American Legacy Foundation, and the award winning truth® campaign against smoking which won both a gold and silver Effie award during her tenure.

Dr. Haviland serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Pact, where she is leading an effort to fund microfinance programs for impoverished women worldwide and recently completed a rotation on the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association where she was awarded two of their highest honors.

She holds a masters and a doctorate degree in public health, and has completed Advanced Management & Leadership training at the Harvard Business School. An accomplished writer and public speaker, Dr. Haviland has published more than 25 peer reviewed publications and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business School Alumni magazine.