Sandra Taylor is president and CEO of Sustainable Business International LLC (SBI), a consulting business she launched in 2008. SBI assists companies at various stages of environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice. Taylor’s expertise provides innovative approaches to CSR strategy, including supply chain sustainability, strategic philanthropy and partnerships for social investments.
Previously Taylor was senior vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, Washington (2003 – 2008), where she led the strategic development and day-to-day direction of all global corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, including: community affairs; the Starbucks Foundation; disaster relief support; development of responsible, ethical and sustainable standards for procurement of coffee, tea, cocoa and manufactured goods; reduction of the environmental impact of business operations; and the publication of the company’s award-winning CSR annual report. During her Starbucks tenure Taylor also developed cause-marketing programs featured in Starbucks stores. This supported access to clean drinking water in Africa, Central America and India, and the promotion of volunteers to work with literacy efforts for children in low-income communities in the United States.
From 1996 until 2003, Taylor served as vice president and director of global public affairs for Eastman Kodak Company. As a corporate officer, she had overall responsibility for public affairs, international trade strategy, including directing the company’s pursuit of a WTO case against the government of Japan and Fuji. She also led corporate citizenship worldwide. Additionally, Taylor has held several senior leadership positions at top-tier organizations, such as vice president of public affairs for ICI Americas Inc. (the U.S. subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries Plc., a London-based chemical company). She also served as a legislative assistant in the United States Senate, focusing on international trade policy and legislation and worked as a Foreign Service Officer in the United States Department of State. She speaks French.
Ms. Taylor serves on many nonprofit boards, including the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Landesa (formerly Rural Development Institute) in Seattle, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Arena Stage of Washington DC. Taylor serves as an expert in residence at Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. In April 2009, she was selected as a Fellow for Aspen Institute’s First Mover Fellowship in the inaugural class. From 2006-2011 she was a corporate director of Capella Education Company located in Minneapolis, a for-profit online education company traded on the NASDAQ. In June 2012 she joined the board of directors of D. E. Master Blenders 1753, an international coffee company headquartered in Amsterdam, where she served on the Sustainability Committee and Remuneration Committee. Taylor has a Bachelor of Arts in French and a Juris Doctorate from Boston University School of Law. In 2012 she earned a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Wine Management from the Bordeaux School of Management in France.
In her spare time, Taylor volunteers for and supports numerous organizations devoted to the empowerment of women in Africa. Taylor is a wine collector, wine educator and founder of Fine Wine Divas, a monthly course for women on the origins of wine grapes, geography, terroir, and techniques for tasting fine wine. Her first book, The Business of Sustainable Wine, will be published in the summer of 2017. She is a public speaker on wine, most recently at Harper’s Wine Vision 2014 in London. She is also a member of the prestigious Magnum Club, based in Europe, composed of women leaders in the global wine business, including winery owners, wine distributors, writers and critics, importers, and retailers, who strive to create a useful platform for finding solutions to questions of importance in the wine industry, as well as to support and inspire women in the industry worldwide.