Rachel Calomeni is the SVP, Growth & Innovation at HowGood, the world’s largest product sustainability database. HowGood’s platform helps brands measure their environmental and social impact, as well as identify opportunities to improve sourcing practices to create products that are better for our planet. Rachel has 25 years’ experience working in or alongside consumer goods companies, such as Procter & Gamble and Boehringer Ingelheim, and holds Marketing and Law Degrees from the University of Western Sydney and an MBA from Fairfield University. Her passion for preserving our planet stems from her childhood, where she grew up in the picturesque Blue Mountains in Australia, a UNESCO World Heritage Listed site.

Richard Vevers is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Agency, an ocean conservation non-profit accelerating ocean science and conservation through big ideas, creative communication, and powerful collaboration. He is a fellow of The Explorers Club and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Rhode Island. He is best known for pioneering underwater 360-degree panoramic photography and taking Google Street View underwater as well as his leading role in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Chasing Coral on Netflix, revealing the impact of climate change on coral reefs. His work has been featured in over 10,000 media articles and numerous documentaries.

Before diving into ocean and coral reef conservation, Vevers first worked at some of the top London advertising agencies and then as an artist and underwater photographer. It is this background that has guided his unique creative and business-thinking approach to creating impact in ocean conservation. His imagery, revealing what is happening to our oceans, has had huge global impact, and his ideas, projects and public speaking have made him a leading voice in the fight to save coral reefs.

His major successes include: 1) inventing the SVII camera that took Google Street View underwater, 2) pioneering virtual reality ocean education – currently available to over 90 million kids, 3) leading the most comprehensive underwater photographic survey of the world’s coral reefs with over 1 million images captured and analyzed (XL Catlin Seaview Survey), 4) revealing the crisis facing coral reefs due to climate change in the Netflix Original Documentary, Chasing Coral, 5) Developing a science-based plan for targeting global coral reef conservation efforts called 50 Reefs.

2023 Speaker List