PEOPLE
Our roster of talented, seasoned professionals brings together expertise across multiple disciplines, including consulting, marketing communications, advertising, project and account management, brand strategy, event planning and PR. The individuals on our team are each accomplished in their own right, having developed a particular skill set and area of expertise over a long career working with prominent national and international clients. As a result, when you work with G-Squared Group you are working with an experienced team that understands sustainability and marketing equally well.
Joanna Black, President and Founder
As President of G-Squared Group, Joanna Black leads G-Squared Group client engagements and serves as the chief sustainability consultant for the firm. She draws on an extensive background of environmental, entrepreneurial and marketing credentials.
Joanna traces her sustainability roots back to her undergraduate schooling at the highly regarded Environment and Resource Studies program at the University of Waterloo in Canada. It was here that Joanna developed a pragmatic philosophy on environmentalism that continues to this day – that is, to effect real change, you must work with businesses not against them. That philosophy developed as Joanna would go on to launch four start-up businesses during her career – two retail businesses and two service-based businesses.
Joanna owned and ran a New York City PR and marketing firm for five years before starting G-Squared Group in 2007. She is co-founder of Hip E Living, a Green America-certified business. This eco-lifestyle retailer based in Woodstock, New York garnered media praise for its green-minded mission. Joanna is a certified GRI practitioner, having completed the first certification course offered in the U.S. by the Global Reporting Initiative organization.
Her blend of business experience, environmental knowledge and marketing savvy has proven invaluable to G-Squared Group clients. Today, Joanna is a leading practitioner in her field, having worked closely with clients such as Earth Day Network, News Corporation, National Geographic and New York Health & Racquet Club.
“I’ve seen the sustainability industry evolve over the past two decades. In the early ‘90s, it was more about environmental policy. Today, it’s about how to integrate sustainability into the everyday lives of consumers and into the everyday operations of companies.”
Linda Corman, Senior Editor, CSR
Linda Corman has been a professional writer and editor, with a focus on business and economics, for more than 20 years. Throughout her career, she has written about alternative energy and the environment. Most recently, she has written about sustainability, climate change, carbon markets and alternative energy for major management consulting companies and financial institutions including PricewaterhouseCoopers, JPMorgan Private Bank and Goldman Sachs.
Ms. Corman holds an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a B.A. from Harvard. She was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in business and economics journalism at Columbia University.
Patrick Kennedy, Researcher and Writer
Lori Ende, Creative Director, CSR
Jim Mullen, Director of Film & Video
Steve Defontes, Creative Director and founder of Big Idea Advertising
Steve Defontes has helped shape the marketing of some of the world’s most recognizable brands. He oversees the creative development of all of G-Squared Groups clients and He has assembled a team of creative professionals uniquely able to help companies craft their own brand personality.
“We develop a unique partnership with our clients, always focused on their end-goals, and on-call to seize their opportunities. Acting as their brand manager and guardian, we help them to shape their communications and reach the next level. Our clients recognize that we care about the success of each of their brands as if it was our own".
