Bio

With over 15 years of board level Sustainability Strategy experience with public and private companies, Karl advises large corporations across multiple industries. He has led Sustainability Strategy creation and execution for well-known brands such as DHL, McDonald’s, Del Monte, BAT, and LG. Karl combines this with an in depth understanding of the real world usefulness of a plethora of different sustainable technologies. Karl defines his mission : “I’m not an environmentalist, I am just trying to help corporates save our species.” Since starting his first company with six friends in 1990, (sold to Microsoft in 1995), Karl has enjoyed a long history of successfully guiding companies through the different stages of growth. He has built and sold six companies, most recently in 2009 to global logistics company Deutsche Post DHL, and led two companies to their Initial Public Offering. A British national who moved with his family to Dubai in 2009, Karl has experience conducting business in 51 countries, and has established subsidiaries in over 20. Karl has active business interests spanning South Africa, the UK, US, India, New Zealand, and the GCC. Having founded the first biofuels refinery in the Middle East over a decade ago, he is the acknowledged regional expert on supply chain sustainability and biofuels. Karl and his companies have won many domestic and international awards in recognition of their pioneering work. Karl was the first Adjunct Lecturer at the Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi and has worked as a Catalyst at Hult International Business School in both Dubai and San Francisco. Karl holds a B.Eng. (Hons.) in Industrial Engineering, an executive MBA, and is writing his Doctoral thesis on “Psychological profiling of start-up teams.”