Bios
Jessica Grillo, Founder and CEO
Jessi serves as strategist, thought-partner, advisor, facilitator and technical expert. With a background in sustainable supply chains, carbon markets and participatory processes, she helps investors, businesses and communities co-create scalable solutions that effectively manage risk while unlocking opportunities for long-term sustainability. Jessi believes that listening is the key to any great achievement, and that quality, transparency and social equity are the ingredients that make it last.
Jessi's professional journey started in international disaster risk and resiliency modeling, as Director of Livelihoods for the USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET), where she saw first-hand the devastation caused by economic inequity and ecosystem destruction. She later worked for several years as a Senior Advisor for sustainability standards and companies to advance sustainable landscapes and supply chains. Her experiences, and the people she shared them with, taught her that the only viable solutions are those that center people and place together.
In 2019, Jessi created Heartwood LLC, focusing on natural climate solutions and economic resiliency, including investments in ecological practices, carbon insetting and ecosystem services markets. Jessi has consulted for companies in the voluntary carbon market; dozens of global companies in the agriculture and manufacturing sector; government agencies; federal enterprises; and several non-profit organizations and standard systems.
Jessi holds a Master’s Degree in International Development from the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice at Clark University. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Living Wage for US. Jessi and her family live, play and appreciate nature in Bend, Oregon.
Jessica Grillo
Anna Buxaderas, Associate Consultant
Anna is always on a quest for the ingredients of a creative, happy and sustainable life and the recipe for a fair and just world where all living creatures can exist, thrive and flourish. Willing to re-connect with nature after twenty years of corporate work and big city living, she moved with her partner to a small rural community, between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean sea, where she now balances her consulting work with tending a vegetable orchard and some art practice. She loves the taste of freshly picked ripen tomatoes, the sound of bells and knowing her neighbours.
During her work at different positions for multinational corporations from various sectors, Anna was responsible to develop, implement, audit and certify integrated quality, environment and health and safety management systems in Europe, South Asia, and Latin America, gaining expertise on project and team management as well as awareness on the difficulties and challenges of driving change and promoting the sustainability agenda within complex organisations.
After her MBA, she established herself as an independent consultant and, for the last 10 years, she has helped scheme owners, companies and producer organisations to improve the requirements and audit process methodologies of sustainability schemes and company codes of conduct by providing benchmark, research, gap analysis and expert advice.
Anna also works in collaboration with other small consultancy firms, where she supports the development and implementation of sustainability strategies and provides training on sustainability topics such as certifications and living wages.
Anna is happy to be an associate consultant at Heartwood, where she has worked with Jessi on the IDH Roadmap on Living Wages and other related activities.