
Partner Members
OSC’s Partner Members represent a trusted group of organizations and service providers committed to elevating impact and supporting the OSC Community with knowledge, resources, and collaboration. Many of the partners listed below have been a part of the OSC Community from the beginning, with more aligned organizations and professionals joining us annually. Together, we support one another through our shared networking ecosystem, aligned amplification of one another’s work, and co-created programming to benefit our Membership Community and the broader Natural Products Industry. We lean in together to share deep work and elevate the potential of our broader community of leaders.
Interested in exploring our Partner Member Program? 
We accept new Partner Member applications on a rolling basis, though spaces are limited. Interested organizations may apply here.
For questions, contact Sarah Shaw, OSC’s Director of Membership.

Partner Members

Flourish HR
At Flourish HR, we are proud to work with mission-driven for-profit businesses and non-profits to enhance culture and ensure compliance. Our focus is on small to mid-sized companies. Each member of the team has extensive experience working in-house in mission driven companies and is passionate about supporting organizations that are giving back to their communities and the planet.
Flourish HR: Meet the Members
Diane Cowlin, Founder
As the Founder of Flourish HR, Diane works exclusively with small to mid-sized mission-based companies to deliver HR and and Organizational Development. Beginning within the maze of Fortune 500 company Human Resources, she quickly found a disconnect between her eco-conscious nature and big company ethos. In 2001 Diane committed to working with companies that align with her values and has worked in-house leading HR for Birkenstock USA, Avalon Organics and Numi Tea. As a consultant, she has partnered with many companies and nonprofits doing their best to change the world. When she isn’t working, you’ll probably find Diane in her vegetable garden, doing yoga or walking/ hiking the Bay Area with her husband and two dogs.
Prapti Rana, Senior HR Consultant
Prapti is a highly motivated human resource professional with a background in public accounting and payroll. Her mission is to support her clients using inclusive practices to help companies create and sustain a workplace that is equitable, diverse and represents their core values.
Prapti believes that high-performance teams lead to high-performance organizations and loves working with Flourish HR as it allows her to continue to work with like-minded, mission drive companies that strive to make the world a better place. Prapti enjoys spending time raising her daughter and showing her that a mother/women can do it all!

Grounded Capital
Grounded Capital primarily invests private equity capital in food companies, processing, agriculture, forests, energy, and real estate. The firm employs an evolving framework to pursue ideas, develop strategies, and solve problems by considering all elements of five areas of focus: Places, Energy, People, Food and Nature. The firm believes that by taking a more holistic approach and defining the role of each element in the framework they can responsibly grow investor capital and achieve beneficial outcomes. Grounded Capital is an SEC-registered investment advisor, based in San Francisco, with approximately $2 billion of assets under management.
Grounded Capital: Meet the Members
Stephen Hohenrieder, CEO & Co-founder
Stephen serves as the CEO of Grounded Capital which he founded to invest private equity capital through strategies that build the health of human, ecological and financial systems rather than monetize the symptoms of unhealthy systems. Stephen began this work in 2007 after observing how commonly capital is invested in solutions to the symptoms of problems rather than solving problems. He noticed such reductionistic approaches to deploying capital sought silver bullet solutions to systems-based problems and resulted in financial motivation to exaggerate problems, not fix them. He spent 13 years exploring these ideas in the context of regenerative agriculture, our broader food system, the built environment, and energy prior to founding Grounded Capital.
William Culler-Chase, Principal & Co-founder
William serves as Principal and Co-Founder at Grounded Capital. His work focuses on direct investments in food and agriculture that span farmland, processing, and food companies to support the production of food in ways that regenerate living systems and value all stakeholders in the supply chain. Over the course of his career investing private capital in food, agriculture and natural resources, William has come to see the food system as a unique leverage point to rebalance our relationship with the world around us. Prior to Grounded, William was with PGIM Private Capital where he was responsible for structuring, underwriting, and monitoring private debt and structured equity investments, working with a broad range of food and agriculture-related businesses. Initially based in San Francisco, he relocated to Paris to help expand the firm’s private capital platform in Europe. He began his career in the Real Assets group at Hall Capital Partners in San Francisco. William graduated with Honors from Brown University.

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Davis Wright Tremaine was founded on three guiding principles: ability, integrity, and service. Those principles have remained constant even as the firm has grown to more than 600 attorneys in 11 offices coast-to-coast. They shape the ways we engage with and support our clients in an ever-changing legal landscape. We bring an industry-focused, multi-disciplinary, full service approach that enables us to provide value beyond market-leading legal counsel. DWT has particular industry experience in media and entertainment; technology and intellectual property; financial services and fintech; healthcare; food and beverage; energy, environment and natural resources; AI; and cannabis.
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP: Meet the Members
Don Buder, Partner
Don Buder is a strategic legal advisor and corporate counsel to food and beverage, food-tech, and ag-tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors.
For more than three decades, Don has tried to provide every client with three basic services: to find cost-effective solutions to legal problems; to offer advice that is direct and practical; and to keep the parties involved in any negotiation focused on their common business objectives. He believes that a lawyer is effective only if he can protect his clients’ interests without frustrating their business judgment.As part of the service he provides, Don regularly participates in management team and strategic-planning meetings with his clients. He views his role as that of both a business partner and a legal advisor, helping his clients grow their business ventures over the long-term.
Don has a broad network of business service providers and professionals with whom he regularly consults to provide coordinated advice to his clients. This informal “keiretsu” of affiliated service providers (which include investment bankers, accountants, management consultants, branding firms, and commercial bankers) allows Don to help his clients put together a group of strategic advisors for their businesses. They work together closely to achieve the common goals of maximizing opportunity and minimizing risk for his clients.
Don is a founder and the board chair of Naturally Bay Area Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization, which is the first regional affiliate of Naturally Boulder. He was a founding faculty member and member of the Advisory Board of the Food Business School at the Culinary Institute of America (Napa Valley).
He is currently vice chair of the board of directors of KCETLink TV, the public television station in Los Angeles, and a member of the board of directors of the American Technion Society – Silicon Valley and San Francisco Chapters.
Don serves as a partner member of OSC, a national organization of sustainable business leaders, and as a mentor to cohort companies in Terra, a foodtech and agtech accelerator in San Francisco sponsored by Rabobank and Rocketspace. Don’s clients are based in all of the major food and tech innovation hubs in the United States, including the San Francisco Bay Area; Boulder, Colorado; Brooklyn, New York; Austin, Texas; Chicago; and Los Angeles, as well as in Europe and Asia.

Creative Alignments
Creative Alignments is dedicated to using our recruiting work as a force for good. We help grow scaling companies that are making an impact through mission, product, positive culture, or social justice and DEI.
Creative Alignments: Meet the Members
Peggy Shell, Founder & CEO
Peggy Shell is the founder and CEO of Creative Alignments and the creator of Time-Based Recruiting®. Creative Alignments partners with quickly-scaling companies that are committed to people-first cultures and using their business as a force for good. For more than a decade, entrepreneurs in natural products/CPG, technology, climate/sustainability and more have relied on Creative Alignments as a trusted recruiting partner to help them find top talent and build successful teams for greater impact.
Peggy is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization’s Colorado’s chapter and has served on the board as the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Chair.
She received her Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Education from Northwestern University and became a math teacher after college. Now a longtime Coloradan, Peggy lives and plays in Niwot with her husband, two sons and many, many pets. She enjoys staying active with yoga, tennis, softball, golf, hiking and skiing.
Shenna Fitzgerald, Director of Impact & Strategic Communications
Shenna Fitzgerald is the Director of Impact and Strategic Communications at Creative Alignments, a B-Corp certified recruiting firm that partners with purpose-driven companies to build talented teams for growth and impact.

DAF CAPITAL PARTNERS
At DAF CAPITAL PARTNERS, we are dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs who are committed to creating a regenerative future. We believe in the power of purpose-driven businesses to make a positive impact on society and the environment. Our team is passionate about supporting these visionaries and helping them achieve their goals.
David Cooper directs business development and co-creates funding strategies at DAF Capital Partners. He and his partners create opportunities that match risk with return and reconnect impact investors to the entrepreneur's performance. David’s work is focused on an industry-wide commitment to agroecological, social, environmental, and climate impact investing and asset management. He has 20-plus years of experience directing the acquisition, alternative financing, ownership, and disposition of early-stage mission- and purpose-driven entrepreneurs. He brings a deep knowledge of equity and debt transactions, including due diligence, structuring, closing, and operational management. David has a track record of profitable impact investing and strategic advising. He has long-standing relationships with crucial multi-cycle finance, growth, and disposition industry champions.
DAF CAPITAL PARTNERS: Meet the Members
David Cooper, Founding Partner

Dadascope Communications
Since 1999, we have been delivering results-driven earned media campaigns that propel business forward, so you can focus on changing the world.
Dadascope Communications: Meet the Members
Dana Smith, Founder & President
As the founder and president of Dadascope Communications, Dana has evangelized new trends, introduced national brands, trained executives for national appearances and developed effective communications strategies and messaging platforms for 25 years. Over the past decade, she and her agency have focused on amplifying the impact of brands and innovators working to make the world a better place through climate-positive solutions. She has worked hand-in-hand with award-winning journalists as clients, ensuring their important work reaches its maximum audience. Dana founded Dadascope in 1999 at the age of 26. She continues to bring her entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for her clients’ stories to every aspect of the agency’s practice areas with a specific focus on crafting streamlined strategies that contribute to business success.

Alive Publishing Group
For more than 40 years, Alive Publishing Group (APG) has been Canada’s recognized leader in health and wellness. Today, the APG brand is synonymous with natural health and wellness, editorial integrity, and the empowerment of those we touch to make healthy, natural, and sustainable lifestyle choices.
But that’s not all we do! With a suite of more than 15 different consumer- and industry-facing touch points, APG is the number one go-to source for both consumers and businesses interested in advancing their knowledge and positions in the natural health industry in Canada, across North America, and around the globe.
Alive Publishing Group: Meet the Members
Ryan Benn, CEO & Group Publisher
Wanna be chef, family man, outdoor lover. Multi award recognized CEO with a demonstrated history of business and board management. Growth focused, with an aptitude for the buying and selling of companies, international business, strategic planning, operational execution, legal, HR, and finance. An inspirational leader who has managed complex business structures including employee owned private businesses. Ryan is a go to adviser to his peers and gives tremendously to Non-Profit roles.
Since 2005, Ryan has been the CEO of Alive Publishing Group Inc. (APG). Early under this leadership, APG completed a top-down restructuring that has led to breakthrough results. Over the past 18 years, APG has introduced numerous new products and services, making it a multifaceted media company. With the launch of alive USA, sage, delicious living, Canadian Natural Health Retailers, Live Naturally (Kroger), and APG’s most recent acquisition, Canada Wide Media Limited., Ryan and his team have taken a trusted Canadian brand and transformed it into a global wellness community of more than 30 million readers.
Ryan’s accomplishments have been recognized with several honours, including EY Entrepreneur of The Year Finalist; Marketing Magazine’s Top 30 Marketers in Canada under 30; a Business in Vancouver Top Forty under 40 accolade; and the BCIT Distinguished Alumni Award recognizing Entrepreneurial Innovation, the youngest recipient to ever receive this award. Ryan holds an Honours Marketing Diploma in Entrepreneurship from BCIT, where he was awarded the BCIT Top Graduate Award (School of Business). Beyond his professional achievements, Ryan’s commitment to philanthropy and community engagement is noteworthy. Ryan generously serves—or has served—on numerous non-for-profit boards. Highlights include YPO BC Executive (Chair), Magazines Canada, InspireHealth (Board Chair), Camp Kerry Society, Global Mothers, Canadian Health Food Association (Vice Chair), Canadian Organic Trade Association (Vice Chair), Organic Trade Association (USA), and A Better Life Foundation.
Ellen Wheeler, Vice President of Sales
Wife, mama, and sister | Seller of all things at APG | Loves reading, skiing, spending time with her boys, and feeding people | Compulsive entertainer | Maker of amazing salsa
Ellen has been with Alive Publishing Group (APG), in several different capacities, since 1997. After working closely with alive magazine founder Siegfried Gursche, Ellen left to get a different perspective on the industry. Working for both distributors and manufacturers added to Ellen’s understanding of the industry and allowed her unique perspective of her clients’ products and needs to develop. Since returning to APG in 2004, Ellen has employed her experience and commitment to provide excellent customer service and to continue doing the job she loves as Vice President of Sales.
Ellen also uses her knowledge and passion to live a happy and healthy lifestyle with her husband and two sons.
Ellen is a current member of the PBFA’s Retail Advisory Board and the head judge for the CHFA’s 2024 Launch Pad.

Succurrere
Based in San Francisco, Succurrere provides fractional sales management, interim executive support, and strategic consulting to mission-driven companies and organizations in the food, beverage, CPG, and non-profit sectors. With over 50 years of combined industry experience and an expansive industry network, we empower emerging brands to pioneer new regions, grow national distribution, strengthen sales, and navigate the complexities of scaling sustainably.
We connect great products and producers with the distributors and retailers we’ve built trusted relationships with – operating across Natural, Independent, and Specialty channels, as well as Costco and Foodservice. In addition to fractional sales management, we offer cost effective brokerage and inside sales services to reinforce new geography expansion with key accounts and develop healthy distribution metrics for lasting, long term success.
We specialize in crafting tailored strategies, setting ambitious but achievable goals, and delivering measurable results. With decades of experience in a dynamic and often unpredictable industry, we understand the challenges brands face and help them minimize risks while maximizing opportunities. Whether it’s building resilient supply chains, managing market fluctuations, providing expert counsel during critical transitions, or harvesting profitability from promotional and marketing efforts, Succurrere ensures that brands stay protected while positioning them for long-term success. Our focus is always on driving sustainable growth while staying deeply aligned with our clients’ values and objectives.
Succurrere: Meet the Members
Daniel Torpey, Founder & CEO
Daniel Torpey’s journey in the food industry began by bussing tables and flipping pizzas in San Francisco. In 2004, he joined the natural foods start-up Alter Eco as the company’s first U.S. employee, leading the launch and expansion of fair trade and organic products in the American market. His nationwide sales tours helped establish Alter Eco as a leading brand in the natural foods industry. He later applied this expertise to The Real Foods Foundry, where he managed sales for brands like Niman Ranch, Crofter’s Organic, and Divine Chocolate to drive product launches, sales growth, and distribution strategies.
As Chief Commercial Officer at Fair Trade USA, Daniel expanded the $7 billion global Fair Trade market by developing initiatives and partnerships with major partners like Walmart and Patagonia. Earlier, as Vice President of Sales at KeHE Distributors, he redefined sales processes, managed the $300 million Natural West region, and led successful acquisition integrations.
Now, as the founder and CEO of Succurrere, Daniel focuses on supporting mission-driven organizations—both for-profit and non-profit—by offering leadership consulting, fractional commercial team management, interim executive coverage, and strategic advisory services.
Beyond the food industry, Daniel has held senior leadership roles with Burning Man, where he oversaw public safety, emergency services, event access, and security for one of the largest private gatherings in the U.S. His ability to lead high-performing teams and deliver on mission-critical objectives has been a defining feature of his career.
Max Stepanian, Co-founder
Max Stepanian’s journey in the food industry started with something simple: making and selling compound butter. That butter evolved into fresh refrigerated soup, and soon Max discovered Niman Ranch, where he realized the power of meat as a gateway to educating consumers about sustainable and alternative production practices. At Niman Ranch, he played a pivotal role in building the company’s retail and foodservice presence across the U.S., championing ethical and sustainable food systems.
Following his time at Niman Ranch, Max founded Source & Connect, a strategy and sales organization dedicated to helping sustainable producers find their footing in key distribution channels like Costco, Natural & Specialty, and Foodservice. Believing that Costco held unique potential to drive industry-wide change, Max joined Anderson-Daymon Worldwide, where he represented both regional and national brands at Costco, including Kirkland Signature and Annie’s Homegrown. During his tenure, he helped launch Costco’s original organic program pilot in the Bay Area, further advancing his mission to bring sustainability into the mainstream.
Before co-founding Succurrere in 2021, Max served as Director of Sales Fresh at KeHE Distributors. There, he focused on growing the market for innovative fresh brands in the Western U.S., providing strategic guidance to brands looking to scale while maintaining their values.
Today, at Succurrere, Max combines his passion for sustainability and deep industry expertise to help mission-driven food businesses thrive. Whether building markets for innovative brands or crafting strategies for ethical producers, Max is dedicated to creating a food system that works for people, planet, and profit.

Planet FWD
Planet FWD is powering the next generation of sustainable brands. 60% of global emissions come from consumer use. Consumer brands have the power to stop the harm and start the healing. Planet FWD's mission is to guide consumer companies to achieve net zero by making it easier for them to improve their environmental impact and support a healthy planet. We're brand builders ourselves. We've learned first-hand what it takes to build a truly sustainable brand so that we can other do it to through our software.
Planet FWD: Meet the Members
Julia Collins, Founder & CEO
Julia Collins is the Founder & CEO of Planet FWD who’s on a mission to tackle climate change by making it easier to bring climate-friendly products to market. Planet FWD is empowering the next generation of sustainable brands with our proprietary software that reduces the cost and complexity of creating sustainable and carbon-neutral products
Food has been Julia’s calling since she was a young girl growing up in San Francisco. It led her to New York, where she spent over a decade of her career launching and growing food brands such as Union Square Hospitality Group, Mexicue, and Murray’s Cheese Bar. Julia also served as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Harlem Jazz Enterprises, which holds The Cecil and Minton’s, a historic jazz supper club. During her time, The Cecil, an Afro-Asian Brasserie, won Best New Restaurant of the Year. and Harlem Jazz Enterprises (the company responsible for the award-winning restaurant, The Cecil).
In 2015, Julia moved back to the Bay Area and co-founded Zume Pizza, where she became the first Black woman to create a company valued at over a billion dollars In 2018, Julia became a mother. She gained clarity on her life’s purpose: bringing delicious food to people in a way that helps heal the planet for everyone, including her son. In 2020, Julia launched Moonshot Snacks as the first climate-friendly snack brand and proofing ground for Planet FWD’s software. Today, Planet FWD’s carbon management platform is helping food, fashion, beauty and personal care brands take climate action and reach their climate goals.
In addition to leading Planet FWD, Julia sits on the advisory council for Launch with GS, the Food for Climate League board and she’s an EIR for Cleo Capital. Julia is an active angel investor focused on funding female entrepreneurs and BIPOC founders, as well as an Ambassador for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Lauren Gibbons, Head of Partnerships & Growth Marketing

Do Good CFO
We integrate EQ and IQ, mission and margin, purpose and profit exclusively for mission-driven companies, depth of financial skills, and long-term, personal relationships. Since 2010, we have supported world-changing entrepreneurs in raising over $50 Million in equity and debt, growing their businesses, and dealing with recessions and facing everyday challenges. First-time CEO’s and founders who don’t have a finance background find that Do Good CFO is a great fit. That’s because we’re more than just a CFO. We are rooted in finance and offer experience in general management, strategy, and governance.
Do Good CFO: Meet the Member
David Guendelman, Founder & Principal CFO
Do Good CFO founder, David Guendelman, is a seasoned veteran of social entrepreneurship who cares about both social impact and financial success. From prototype to scale to exit, he’s been there. He has over a dozen years of experience as a co-founder, CFO, and consultant to early stage social ventures.
In 2004, he co-founded World of Good, a fair trade gift brand that scaled nationally, building distribution with Whole Foods, Hallmark and eBay, and was eventually acquired by eBay in 2010. Since then, David has worked with leading social ventures—Lotus Foods, Straus Family Creamery, Uncommon Cacao, Community Foods Market, —as virtual CFO and strategist. He has worked alongside his clients in raising over $50 million of dollars in equity and debt financing.
Perhaps it was David’s childhood fascination with Robin Hood, trips to his parent’s homeland of Chile, or the loss of his uncle Lucho to the Pinochet dictatorship, but David has a particular passion for social justice, boundary-breakers and supporting the underdog.
David has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UC Berkeley, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. When he is not working with his clients, he can be found running through the redwoods, throwing one of his three children in the air, or shoveling dirt on his family’s small magical farm.

Silvan Ingredient Ecosystem PBC
We enable sustainable and regenerative ingredient growers, brands, and customers to work together to create a bold new ecosystem. We connect the world's best brands and ingredient growers to move beyond extractive agriculture and leave the world better than we found it. Our approach is to target high impact supply chains, often those that are the most difficult to work in due to opacity or negative publicity. We support the best and most sustainable ingredient producers to scale their operations and find new markets. Our work focuses on boosting capacity for ingredient producers to meet export scale with grant and investment financing, operational support, certification support, and facilitating off-take agreements with US/EU brands for ingredients.
Currently, we have 10 supply chain partners in 8 countries working across 15 supply chains. We have raised over $5m in grant financing and partner closely with a portfolio of industry leading food and beauty brands to enable them to meet their impact goals through ingredient sourcing
Silvan Ingredient Ecosystem PBC: Meet the Member
Andy Thornton, Founder & Managing Partner
Silvan exists to be a catalytic partner between high impact brands and global agriculture businesses founded on regeneration, polyculture and smallholder impact. We help brands turn their ingredient purchases into their biggest social and environmental impact opportunities, whilst reducing supply chain risk and costs. Silvan creates catalytic partnerships between brands and ingredient growers whereby all parties benefit from economic and reputational growth, and where the core partnership can then benefit from a wider capital and research opportunities.
Andy has spent 19 years working in international development and agricultural supply chains, working globally
but with a particular passion for Sub-Saharan Africa. Andy holds an MBA from the University of Oxford where he studied as a Skoll Scholar.