Jonathan Greenblatt
Lecturer
Anderson School of Management
UCLA Anderson, D419
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
(310) 206-5861
jonathan.greenblatt@anderson.ucla.edu
Education
MBA 1999, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
B.A. 1992, Tufts University
Interests
Social Entrepreneurship, Enterprise-Based Development Strategies, Microfinance, Political Economy, Capital Markets, Emerging Markets, Post-Conflict Economies, Poverty, Inequality, Sustainability, LOHAS, Natural Capital, Climate Change, Global Water and Sanitation Issues, Social Movements, Brand Marketing, Consumer Packaged Goods, Beverage/Food/Retail Marketing, Double/Triple Bottom Line, Corporate Social Responsibility
Jonathan Greenblatt is an experienced corporate executive and social entrepreneur, a member of the faculty at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and an acknowledged thought leader on corporate social responsibility, ethical branding and social entrepreneurship. He is well known for his work in international economics and global development, particularly global water and sanitation issues and market-driven models to alleviating global poverty.
Greenblatt is the founder and president of Our Good Works, the nonprofit organization responsible for All for Good. All for Good (AFG) is the landmark open source, web based platform developed to enable American to serve. It is the largest database of service opportunities ever assembled. Incubated at Google, AFG is supported by a coalition of leading companies, nonprofits and government agencies, all of whom share a vision of increasing the number of Americans that participate in service and volunteerism. In December 2010, the Points of Light Institute announced that it planned to acquire AFG.
Greenblatt is the founding Director of the Impact Economy Initiative, a program of the Aspen Institute. It convenes corporate executives, elected officials and though leaders to explore how public policy can create an enabling environment to increase impact investing and social enterprise. The initiative has been launched with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation under the auspices of The Aspen Institute, a leading nonprofit organization whose mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues.
Jonathan formerly served as CEO of GOOD Worldwide where he oversaw its growth from a small publishing company into a diversified media company and lifestyle brand. Founded in 2006, GOOD creates media at the intersection of entertainment and relevance. Its products currently include the award-winning print title, GOOD Magazine; an online destination updated daily with fresh editorial and short-form video features; and a series of custom publishing products including The GOOD Sheet distributed exclusively in Starbucks locations across the US.
Prior to his appointment to GOOD, Greenblatt co-founded Ethos Brands, the business that launched Ethos Water, the premium bottled water that helps children around the world get clean water. In 2005, Starbucks Coffee Company acquired Ethos Water, making it one of only a handful of non-coffee businesses the company has purchased in its 30-plus year history. Greenblatt served as vice president of consumer products, scaling Ethos through more than 6,000 Starbucks stores across the US. Greenblatt also co-founded Ethos International, the nonprofit arm of Ethos, and served on the board of directors of the Starbucks Foundation where he developed Ethos’ global investment strategy that has invested millions of dollars to bring clean water to communities in need around the world, including Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Honduras, India and Kenya.
Jonathan has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to public service. He recently worked on the Technology and Innovation Team of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition effort. In this role, he helped to shape the agenda for the incoming administration on issues related to civic engagement, national service and social entrepreneurship. He also served as an aide in the Clinton White House and US Department of Commerce, focusing on economics and commercial trends in emerging markets in Asia and Latin America as well as post-conflict economies. This work took him around the world where he saw firsthand the world water crisis and how this issue impacts the lives of millions of people in the developing world. Before joining the Clinton Administration, Greenblatt worked in Little Rock, Ark. on Gov. Bill Clinton’s first successful presidential campaign in 1992.
Along with his public service and work in private industry, Greenblatt has been a leader in the non-profit sector. He has served as a senior advisor on global development and water issues to international institutions and nonprofit organizations. He developed the strategy for the United Nations Foundation’s Global Water Challenge, the landmark cross-sector initiative developed to create interdisciplinary models to address the global water and sanitation crisis. He also led the effort to design a worldwide prize to break the cycle of global poverty for the X PRIZE Foundation, the leading nonprofit organization in the world specializing in prize philanthropy. In this work, Jonathan focused on the design of a global competition that would inspire teams to create sustainable delivery of essential services such as power and water to isolated and impoverished communities.
Greenblatt participates on several corporate and nonprofit boards, including the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, KaBOOM! and water.org. Greenblatt was appointed to the UNICEF Global Water and Sanitation Task Force in 2006 and serves as chairman of the Equitable Globalization Committee of the Pacific Council on International Policy. He is a member of the 2007 Class of Henry Crown Fellows of the Aspen Institute and was named a Next Generation Fellow by the American Assembly. He also serves on the Advisory Boards of The Corporate Sustainability Initiative at Duke University, The Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University, and The Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.
Greenblatt can be found on Twitter and in the blogosphere where he serves as a contributor to the award-winning blog, Worldchanging.com and writes regularly for The Huffington Post. He has been interviewed and profiled in diverse media including Business Week, CNN, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He recently co-hosted Collaboration Now, a CNBC special on corporate social responsibility, with television personality Donnie Deutsche.
Greenblatt is a member of the faculty at UCLA Anderson School of Management where he developed and currently teaches its course on social entrepreneurship. A frequent public speaker, Greenblatt has delivered remarks at numerous high-profile events including the 2006 Aspen Ideas Festival; the 2007 Social Entrepreneur Summit of the World Economic Forum; the 2008 PUSH the Future conference, the 2008 Sustainable Brands International Conference, the 2009 MIT/Caltech Enterprise Forum.
Greenblatt earned a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Tufts University.
He lives with his wife and their three sons in Los Angeles, Calif. He is a proud member of Red Sox Nation (West) and considers his greatest professional achievement to be his work as an umpire for the 1989 Little League World Champions who hailed from his hometown of Trumbull, Connecticut.