Briski

Susan Briski

Background

Susan Briski is Principal and founder of Sustainable Progress Consulting and Partner in CircadiaOne, which provide consulting services to leading organizations to help them create a sustainable future and improve their triple-bottom-line performance; where business, the environment, and people prosper. She helps people understand and apply sustainability principles in practical, common sense ways, and provides systematic approaches to produce measurable improvement. Her clients include businesses, colleges, nonprofits, and community groups. Susan has 20 years of experience in high-tech corporations, including Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies, as an engineer, project manager, and manager in Manufacturing and Research and Development.

She is a member of the Sustainable Enterprise Coalition, which designs and implements sustainability conferences and workshops in Northern California. Susan is a fellow of the Leadership Institute of Ecology and the Economy, where she has been active in designing and delivering classes to incoming participants. She was also actively involved in Sustainable Sonoma County, holding sustainability workshops and working with companies to implement sustainability management systems. Susan graduated with a Green MBA in May of 2003. She also holds an M.A. in Humanities and Leadership with an emphasis in Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community; and a BS in Mechanical Engineering.

Susan has been teaching Eco-Commerce Models and mentoring in the Green MBA since 2006.

Areas of Specialty

Susan is knowledgeable about the latest business environmental and sustainability trends, models and practices and has expertise in:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Protocols, foot-printing and reduction strategies;
Environmental and Sustainability Management Systems including ISO 14001;
The Natural Step (a framework for organizational improvement);
The Ecological Footprint;
The Global Reporting Initiative;
Cradle to Cradle concepts
Bay Area Green Business Program certification process and practices

Mentoring Approach

This program is unique and is about "transforming yourself, transforming business, and transforming the world." So the work we do together focuses around identifying work that will really have meaning for you (which will undoubtedly make the world a better place), and then figuring out steps needed to help manifest that. This will mean both figuring out how to have a successful academic experience while you're in the program, and being intentional about setting yourself up for a meaningful and successful career.

I generally use a systematic approach to help you with your academic and career needs - including the setting goals and helping you remain accountable to them. Because the mentoring process is dynamic we will come up with ways to tackle things as needed, but some of the typical activities we may do together include:

Discussing your background, goals, what might be needed to optimize your academic experience and career plans, and how these relate to the mentoring process
Identifying additional course-work, tutoring, study circles, counseling or other services that you may need as you adjust to and navigate through graduate school
Using the Green MBA Career Planning worksheet and the Green MBA Career Planning Guide as a guide for the career-related work
Helping you identify and articulate your higher purpose/ passions/ work desires as well as your strengths and development opportunities. We draw on the work you do in the Critical Thinking for Business Redesign course as well as other courses for this.
Reviewing and honing your resume throughout the program (you can add many of your course projects as experience, and your idea of what you want to do may evolve)
Helping you target and identify what course projects, internships or jobs will help you learn and build your network in your areas of interests
Helping you identify other ways to build your network including identifying individuals for regular informational interviews, attending conferences with particular goals in mind, etc.
Helping you with interviewing skills, including the possibility of videotaping and critiquing you in a mock interview