As the co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, Inc., John Mackey is a leading practitioner of empowerment management and has helped build a $12 billion Fortune 300 company, now one of the top 20 supermarket companies in America.

John and the Whole Foods Market leadership team recently offered $10 million in low-interest loans to local farmers and food producers to help them expand their enterprises, launching the Whole Planet Foundation to help end poverty in developing nations with micro credit, creating a platform in the marketplace to improve welfare for food animals, creating transparency in seafood sustainability, and promoting healthy eating education.

John is the co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, a non-profit organization with the tagline “Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good” and the co-author of Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, a Wall Street Journal bestseller. About his heritage, John says: “My sense of humor and playfulness probably come from my Irish side! I love being both Irish and Scottish.”