Women shine at GoGreen

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Christina Williams is the editor of Sustainable Business Oregon.

We've come a long way since the days where women in leadership positions were oddities.

But there's no denying that when it comes to executive ranks — in many industries anyway — it's still a male dominated world.

But I find it interesting that in the broad field of sustainability, there are so many women leading the charge.

When I sat down with Joel Makower of GreenBiz earlier this month, he mentioned that more than half of the sustainability leaders in his organization's GreenBiz Executive Network are women. And the lineup of keynote speakers at next week's GoGreen conference in Portland highlights two of Oregon's brightest stars in sustainable business leadership: Hannah Jones, Nike's vice president of sustainable business and innovation and Lori Wigle, Intel's general manager of eco-technology.

I asked Ericka Dickey-Nelson, founder of Social Enterprises Inc. and the GoGreen conference series, for her perspective on the dominance — or not — of women in positions of sustainability leadership.

"It's not actually the case in all the states we're in," Dickey-Nelson said. "In Phoenix it is still very much a male-dominated field."

"The thing about women, though, is that we're naturally such good connectors," she continued.

In sustainability, which as Jones pointed out so eloquently in her interview published earlier this week, is dependent on cooperation, that ability to connect is a key to success.

Dickey-Nelson described a series of meetings she had with the sustainability leaders across 50 departments in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration.

"None of them knew each other," she said. "They weren't talking."

Dickey-Nelson is herself a force to be dealt with on the sustainable business scene. Having grown her company to 10 employees, she is producing four GoGreen conferences this year — in Portland, Seattle, Phoenix and Austin. Next year she'll add Denver and New York City to the roster and Dickey-Nelson also has her eye on going international in Vancouver, B.C.

@SustainableBzOR | christinawilliams@bizjournals.com | 503.219.3438