A diplomat who changed how the world buys coffee.
Sandra E. Taylor began in the public sector — a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. State Department, then international trade counsel in the U.S. Senate. She moved into industry at ICI Americas and Eastman Kodak, running global public affairs and corporate citizenship worldwide, and in 2003 became Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Starbucks. There she led the creation of C.A.F.E. Practices, the code of conduct that reset how the coffee industry buys from farmers, and built store programmes funding clean water in Africa, Central America and India.
She founded Sustainable Business International in 2008 to bring that discipline to companies at every stage of sustainability practice. She has taught in the Falk School of Sustainability and the Environment at Chatham University, was a Fellow of the Aspen Institute's First Movers programme, and serves on the boards of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Island Press. She holds a JD from Boston University School of Law and an MBA in Wine Management from the Bordeaux School of Management.
Then wine. A French Wine Scholar and columnist for Wine Review Online, she founded Fine Wine Divas of Washington, DC, created the Wine Sustainability Quotient rating system, and has written two books on the subject — the same lens, turned on one of the most agricultural industries there is.
