Jean Cunningham is co-author of Real Numbers: Management Accounting in a Lean Organization, 2004 Shingo Prize for Research recipient and Easier, Simpler, Faster: System Strategy for Lean IT, 2008 Shingo Prize for Research recipient.  

Jean is the founder and president of Jean Cunningham Consulting which has clients throughout the U.S. and provides business strategy and business process improvement services that drive lean principles throughout the enterprise. She is currently the CFO at Stiles Associates, the premier executive retain search firm focused on lean. Jean is also the CFO and a Director-at-Large for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence.  She is the former Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Company Services, at both Lantech, LLC and Marshfield DoorSystems, Inc. 

From 1991 through 2004, Jean was a leader in Lantech’s evolution of a small, family owned business to a lean industry leader. Lantech’s Lean Journey was chronicled in the best seller, Lean Thinking. 

Jean joined the continuous improvement effort at Lantech from their first kaizen, and took the revolution of lean from the manufacturing floor to the business office of this Louisville, Kentucky manufacturer of packaging equipment. She was actively involved with Lantech's product expansion efforts through acquisition and product development.   

Prior to joining Lantech, Jean was a finance professional with Digital Equipment Corporation and Westinghouse Electric. She cut her teeth in the business world in her mother’s business from age 12, later teaching school and managing a restaurant, which provided a base of practical experience. 

In addition to co-authoring her two books, she has contributed to several publications related to lean accounting and lean.  A former instructor of Operations Management in the Boston University MBA program, Jean has lectured on Lean Accounting and Operations Management on many occasions.   

Jean has a BS in Accounting from Indiana University and an MBA from Northeastern University's Executive Program. She lives in Chicago area with her husband, Alan Riggs, and has two sons.

Gil Friend is founder, president & CEO of Natural Logic Inc, providing advisory services in strategy, design, operations and information systems that help clients build economic advantage through exceptional environmental performance – Sustainable performance you can take to the bank™

 

Clients have included APS, Auberge Resorts, Agilent Technologies, Dean Foods, Ex’pression Center for New Media, General Mills, Gilead Sciences, Granite Construction, Green Mountain Energy, Hewlett Packard, Levi Straus & Co, Nike, Odwalla, Pacific Gas & Electric, Sun Microsystems, the US General Services Administration and many others.

 

A systems ecologist and business strategist with 36 years experience in business, communications and environmental innovation, Friend combines broad business experience with unique content experience spanning strategy, systems ecology, economic development, management cybernetics, and public policy. Tomorrow Magazine called him “One of the country’s leading environmental management consultants — a real expert who combines theoretical sophistication with hands-on, in-the-trenches know-how.”

 

He is a founding board member of the Sustainable Business Alliance, Sustainable Berkeley, and the California Sustainable Business Council, and serves on the executive board of OpenEco.org and the advisory boards of CleanFish, WattBot, Green World Campaign and (past) San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's Clean Tech Advisory Council. He was a founding board member of internet pioneer Institute for Global Communications, and was Co-founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, one of the nation's leading urban ecology and economic development “think-and-do tanks,” where he pioneered the current “green roof” trend more than 35 years ago.

 

Friend lectures widely on business strategy and environmental policy, and currently writes "The New Bottom Line" (http://www.natlogic.com/new-bottom-line) offering strategic perspectives on business and environment, and an irregular weblog on strategic sustainability and other matters of interest at (http://blogs.natlogic.com/friend). He wrote the "Ask the Experts" feature at GreenBiz.com, and a "Sustainability Sundays" column for WorldChanging.com. He has contributed chapters to several books, including Worldchanging: A Users Guide to the 21st Century, Sustainable Enterprise Report, Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook, and is the author of the forthcoming books: The Truth About Green Business (FT Press) and Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility and the Laws of Nature.

 

He holds an MS in Systems Ecology from Antioch University, a black belt in Aikido, and is a seasoned practitioner of "The Natural Step" environmental management system.