Jessica Rolph | |
---|---|
Born | Jessica Alleman Thacher Crolick 1974 (age 49–50) Hennepin, Minnesota |
Education | B.A., Cornell University M.A., Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell |
Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur Businesswoman |
Title | CEO, Lovevery former COO, Happy family |
Children | 3 |
Jessica Rolph (born 1974) is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is the CEO and co-founder of Lovevery, co-founder and former chief operating officer of Happy Family, and co-founder of the Climate Collaborative.
Rolph was born in 1974 in Minneapolis, the daughter of George Crolick and Sue (née Thatcher) Crolick. [1] [2] She lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband Decker and their three children. [3]
Rolph earned a 1997 B.A. in anthropology at Cornell University and 2004 M.B.A. cum laude from the university's Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. [4] [5]
In 2005, with Shazi Visram, Rolph was a founding partner of Happy Family, the leading organic baby food brand, and she served as its chief operating officer. [5] [6] Happy Family was ranked the 68th-fastest-growing private company in America on the "Inc. 500" in 2011. [2] [7] The Kellogg Foundation made a $4.6 million investment in the company in 2012. [8] [9] The Danone Group purchased Happy Family from Visram and Rolph in 2013, with the Financial Times estimating its value at between $250 million and $300 million. [10]
Rolph co-founded Lovevery in 2015 with Roderick Morris, [11] [12] focusing on age appropriate, educational developmental toys and play kits, [13] with the first product released in 2017. [14] The products are based on Rolph's initial research into infant brain development, the toys she made on her own, and input from child development experts. [15] In 2021, the company raised $100M in Series C funding and announced their expansion with the launch of the Lovevery mobile app. [14]
At both companies, Rolph has focused on sustainability, environmentalism, inclusion and equal access. [15]
Rolph co-founded the Climate Collaborative, launched in March 2017, in partnership with Lara Dickinson, Nancy Hirshberg (sister of Gary Hirshberg), and Katherine DiMatteo of the Sustainable Food Trade Association (SFTA). [14] [16] [17] Stonyfield, Numi Organic Tea, Happy Family, Nature's Path Foods and other companies have joined the Collaborative's environmental efforts. [18]
Rolph is a Park Leadership Fellow alumna, [5] and a 2013 Henry Crown Aspen Institute Fellow, as well as a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. [19]
In 2020, Rolph was listed as one of Entrepreneur magazine's 100 Powerful Women. [20] She and Morris were awarded Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Utah division in 2021. [21] Rolph was named Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021, given to "a Cornellian who exemplifies entrepreneurial achievement, community service and high ethical standards." [22] She was also listed in 2021 as one of Inc.'s100 Female Founders. [23]
Danone S.A. is a French multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in 1919 in Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris, where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock market index. Some of the company's products are branded Dannon in the United States.
Evian is a French brand that bottles mineral water from several sources near Évian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake Geneva.
WinCo Foods, Inc. is a privately held, majority employee-owned American supermarket chain based in Boise, Idaho, with retail stores in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington. It was founded in 1967 as a no-frills warehouse-style store with low prices. The stores feature extensive bulk food sections.
John Richard Simplot was an American entrepreneur and businessman best known as the founder of the J. R. Simplot Company, a Boise, Idaho–based agricultural supplier specializing in potato products. In 2007, he was estimated to be the 89th-richest person in the United States, at $3.6 billion. At the time of his death at age 99 in May 2008, he was the oldest billionaire on the Forbes 400.
Amy's Kitchen, Inc., doing business as Amy's, is a family-owned, privately-held American company based in Petaluma, California, that manufactures organic and non-GMO convenience and frozen foods. Founded in 1987 by Andy and Rachel Berliner, and incorporated in 1988, the company took its name from their daughter, Amy. All of Amy's 250+ products are vegetarian and made with organic ingredients. The company also operates a chain of three vegetarian fast food restaurants in California called Amy's Drive Thru.
Silk is an American brand of dairy-substitute products currently owned by Danone after it purchased WhiteWave Foods in 2016.
Gary Hirshberg is an American businessman. He is the former chief executive officer of Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt producer, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He joined the company just after its founding in 1983 and stepped down in 2011, but continues to serve as Chairman. He frequently speaks on topics including sustainability, organic agriculture and the profitability of green business.
Groupe Lactalis S.A. is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A.
Happy Family is an organic and baby food company in the US. It was ranked No. 2 in Inc. Magazine's 2011 list of the 500 Fastest-Growing Companies, in the food industry category.
Hamdi Ulukaya is a Turkish billionaire businessman, activist, philanthropist of Kurdish ethnicity and based in the United States. Ulukaya is the owner, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Chobani, the #1-selling strained yogurt brand in the US. He established production facilities first in upstate New York, and since then has expanded. According to Forbes, his net worth as of October 2022 is US$2.1 billion. On 26 April 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani.
Anya Fernald is an American entrepreneur, chef, and sustainable agriculture expert based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She founded Live Culture Co., a business and marketing consulting company, the Eat Real Festival Company, and Belcampo Meat Co., a producer of sustainably sourced meats headquartered in Oakland, California, of which she was founding CEO. She has published a cookbook and appeared as a judge on the Food Network's Iron Chef America, Iron Chef Gauntlet, and The Next Iron Chef.
The Honest Company, Inc. is an American digital-first consumer goods company, based in Los Angeles and founded by actress Jessica Alba, Christopher Gavigan, and Brian Lee. The company had $319 million in 2021 sales, and was valued at roughly $550 million as of February 2022. Chief Executive Officer Carla Vernón is one of the first Afro-Latina CEOs of a U.S. publicly traded company. The Honest Company has raised multiple rounds of venture capital, and went public via initial public offering in May 2021, generating over $100 million in capital. Honest serves the United States, China, Canada, and Europe.
Shazi Visram is an American entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, best known as the founder, CEO, and Chief Mom of Happy Family Brands. In 2013, she was acknowledged by President Barack Obama as "not only an outstanding businesswoman, but also a leader that all of us can emulate."
Gayle Jennings-O'Byrne is a venture capitalist and founder of the Wocstar Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in women of color ("WOC") and diverse inclusive teams in the tech sector. She is best known for her work to empower women of color startups and help build wealth in communities of color and diversity. Her management and consulting company managed the iNTENT Manifesto campaign to mobilize women startups and allies across the globe.
Nature's Fynd is a company that develops microbe-based proteins for meat substitutes and dairy substitutes. The protein is produced by a fungus first identified in geothermal springs in Yellowstone National Park.
Bagley Argentina S.A. is an Argentine food company with its main plant located in Buenos Aires. Established by U.S.-born entrepreneur Melville Sewell Bagley in 1864, the company had a wide variety of brands, having specialised in the production of crackers and cookies.
Lovevery is an American company based in Boise, Idaho that produces Montessori-inspired toys and play-kit subscription boxes for children. It is a certified B Corporation.
Sue Crolick is an American art director, graphic designer and founder of the nonprofit Creatives for Causes, now Art Buddies. She is considered to be the first female advertising agency art director in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul market.