Net Impact

Social Enterprise Conference

Business and Society: Building A Sustainable Future

October 7th, 2005
 

Columbia Business School

 
 

   

Speaker Biographies

Ella Silverman

Cocoa Accounts Manager, TransFair USA

Ella Silverman is the Cocoa Accounts Manager for TransFair USA, the only third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States. She received a Bachelor's Degree in Cultural Anthropology from the State University of New York at Albany and a Master's Degree in Special Education from the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. After graduating, she taught special education for several years. In 1998, Ella started an award-winning bakery in a transitional neighborhood in Athens, GA. She then sold the bakery in 2003 so that she could attend Cornell University to study City & Regional Planning. Her Masters' thesis at Cornell examined retail availability of fresh & healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods in New York City.