2008 Speakers
The 2008 Believers in Business conference hosted seven dynamic speakers well-versed in both business and faith.
Gregory R. Page
Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President, Cargill, Inc.
Greg Page serves as chairman and chief executive officer of Cargill. He was elected chairman of the board on Sept. 11, 2007, and CEO on June 1, 2007. He continues to hold the office of president, a position to which he was elected in June 2000. He was elected to the Cargill Board of Directors in August 2000.
Page joined Cargill in 1974 as a trainee assigned to the Feed Division. Over the years, he held a number of positions in the United States and Singapore. Page worked with the start-up of a poultry processing operation in Thailand, the beef and pork processing operations of Cargills Excel subsidiary in Wichita, Kansas, and the Financial Markets Group in Minneapolis.
Page serves as a member of Eaton Corporations board of directors. He also is a member of the board of directors of the Alumni Association of the University of North Dakota and the University of North Dakota Foundation. He serves as a board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
Page received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of North Dakota. He was born in Bottineau, N.D.
Marc Belton
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Executive Vice President, Worldwide Health, Brand and New Business Development, General Mills.
As Executive Vice President, Worldwide Health, Brand and New Business Development, Marc has broad responsibilities in several areas. He has overall responsibility for the companys global marketing functions, including Gcom and Consumer Insights, and leads the companys strategic health and wellness initiatives. Marc also has oversight responsibilities for the companys emerging new businesses, including the Small Planet Foods organic business and the 8th Continent soy food and beverage joint venture with DuPont.
Prior to his current role, he had oversight responsibilities for Yoplait, General Mills Canada, and New Business Development.
Since joining General Mills in 1983 as a marketing assistant, Marc has held positions with increasing responsibility throughout the company, including president of Snacks Unlimited; president of New Ventures, where he was responsible for a multidisciplinary team that identified and executed strategies to capitalize on new growth opportunities; and president of Big G Cereals. Marc was elected a General Mills vice president in 1991, and senior vice president in 1994.
Marc is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, in Washington, D.C. He serves on the board of directors for Navistar International Corporation, and the Guthrie Theater. He is vice chair and trustee of Northwestern College. He co-chaired the Minneapolis Salvation Army capital campaign and served on the board of directors of Urban Ventures through 2004.
Marc has received numerous awards and recognition including being named one of corporate Americas most powerful African American executives by Fortune and Black Enterprise magazines.
He grew up in West Hempstead, N.Y. He received a bachelors degree in economics from Dartmouth College in 1981 and an MBA in marketing and finance from the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business in 1983. Marc and his wife, Alicia, reside in Minneapolis.
John Tyson
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Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Tyson Foods.
John Tyson was born in Springdale, Arkansas, the son of Don and Jean Tyson and the grandson of John Tyson, founder of Tyson Foods. He graduated from Springdale High School in 1971, and received Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1975 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.
He is currently Chairman and CEO, Tyson Foods, Inc. Board of Directors and a member of the Executive Committee of Tyson's Board of Directors.
John has prepared for his current position by working at Tyson Foods since 1974, in many different areas of the company's business, ranging from operations to marketing to governmental relations.
He is past president of the Arkansas Poultry Federation, and was the Federation's 1994 Poultry Industry Man of the Year. He was also recognized as the 1996 Arts Center of the Ozarks Man of the Year and was the March of Dimes 2003 Man of the Year.
John currently serves on the Steering Committee for the $900 million Campaign for the Twenty-first Century, and is Chairman of the Corporations and Foundations Committee for the University of Arkansas. He is a member of the Business Roundtable, serving as a committee member on the Corporate Governance Task Force and the International Trade and Investment Task Force. He also serves on the Advisory Board for the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School. Through Tyson Foods he is involved in the hunger relief project with Share Our Strength. He is actively involved in several philanthropic endeavors. He is actively involved in Walden Woods and Bridge School projects.
John is a devoted father to his son, John Randal, and his daughter, Olivia Laine. He enjoys golf, deep sea fishing, music, and traveling.
Bonnie Wurzbacher
Senior Vice President, Global Accounts, Coca-Cola North America.
At The Coca-Cola Company, Bonnie Wurzbacher is responsible for the on-going business relationships and profitable growth of several North American-based global customers as well as several global account teams who work with these customers and Coca-Cola key account managers in dozens of countries around the world. Most recently, Bonnie was corporate vice president and director of customer strategy where she created the companys global customer approach and led several other strategic customer initiatives on a worldwide basis reporting to the chief operating officer of the company.
Wurzbacher began her career with The Coca-Cola Company in 1984 as a national account executive with the Minute Maid division in Chicago where she was the first to sell Minute Maid to the companys largest soft drink customer, McDonalds. During her 20 year tenure at The Coca-Cola Company, she has held various senior sales, marketing, strategy and management positions including: vice president, business development; vice president, southeast Area; vice president, McDonalds; and assistant vice president, education market in Coca-Cola North America.
Prior to joining Coca-Cola, Bonnie was a sales manager with a food brokerage company in Chicago which sparked her career in business after devoting the first five years of her career to teaching in the Chicago area.
Wurzbacher graduated from Wheaton College with a bachelor of art degree in education in 1977 and received the master of business administration degree in general management from Emory University in 1990. She has serves on the boards of Gordon Food Service, Inc., The March of Dimes, MEDICS, Intl, The Georgia Foundation of Independent Colleges and The Network of Executive Women.
Steve Wurzbacher
Principal, Tenacity, Inc.
Steve Wurzbacher is a Principal with Tenacity, Inc., the nations leading client retention firm. Tenacitys Clients for Life process is licensed by several of the worlds premier service management and business process outsourcing firms, in order to protect, retain and renew major business-to- business contracts.
Steve joined Tenacity in 1994 after 20 years of successful senior sales management, marketing and business development experience at Aramark and Procter & Gamble. Along with direct client engagements for Tenacity, he serves as the firms COO and manages key planning and brand development functions.
Steves most significant roles are as husband to Bonnie (an executive at The Coca-Cola Company) and father to Dan (Captain of S/V Ocean Star). He serves on the Governing Board of The Capital City Club in Atlanta and is active in membership and leadership at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.
Harri Sundvik
Managing Director, Head of Merrill Lynch Nordic Investment Banking, London.
Harri is Managing Director and Head for the London based Nordic Investment Banking team covering leading Nordic corporations, financial institutions and government agencies. Prior to joining Merrills in summer 2006, Harri worked for JPMorgan and its predecessor organisations for 18 years in London holding various Nordic Corporate Finance origination roles, most recently as Co-Head of the Nordic Investment Banking team. Prior to his time in London, Harri led leadership development and corporate finance training for a banking institute in Helsinki.
Harri has extensive corporate finance advisory and transaction execution experience in cross border and trans-Atlantic mergers& acquisitions, shareholder value defenceand strategy work, andcapital (equity, bonds, loans) raising transactions. He has acted as a trusted advisor for a number of Nordic senior executives and Executive Boards in the context of their business development and strategy execution.
Harri holds an MBA from City University Business School in London and is a graduate of Helsinki Law School. In addition he has completed various training and development programmes in leading business schools like Stanford Business School, Insead and others.
Harris other interests include leadership development, coaching and mentoring. Harri and his wife Heidi have led courses and seminars on marriage related themes both in the UK and in Finland. Harri is a proud father of three sporty sons - Henrik, Sebastian and Daniel and has completed 46 full marathons in his running career.
Timothy C. Collins
Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C.
Timothy C. Collins is the Senior Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C.. Mr. Collins founded Ripplewood in 1995 to apply an Industrial Partnership approach to leveraged acquisitions. Previously, Mr. Collins managed Onex Corporations New York office. Ripplewood has done several of the largest private equity investments ever, including the acquisition of Shinsei, the former Long-Term Credit Bank. Shinseis IPO and subsequent trading value may make it the most profitable private equity investment so far. Mr. Collins serves as a Director and CEO of RHJ International, a publicly-listed diversified holding company headquartered in Brussels.
Mr. Collins is a director of several public companies as well as a number of Ripplewoods private portfolio companies. He is involved in several not-for-profit and public sector activities, including the US-Japan Business Council, the Trilateral Commission, Yale Divinity School Advisory Board, Yale School of Organization and Management Board of Advisors, American Friends of the British Museum, Yaddo, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Collins is also a Trustee of the Carnegie Hall Society.
Mr. Collins has a B.A. degree in Philosophy from DePauw University and a M.B.A. in Public and Private Management from Yale Universitys School of Organization and Management. Mr. Collins received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from his alma mater in 2004.
Wendy Murphy
Managing Partner, Heidrick & Struggles
Wendelyne Murphy (Wendy) is Managing Partner of Heidrick & Struggles Chief Human Resources Officers Practice.
Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, her previous experience includes both management consulting and executive search. Wendys concentration in HR includes ten years with Organizational Dynamics, Inc. (ODI), a global consulting and training company, where she worked and lived in the Asia Pacific region. She has held various positions at: Winter Wyman & Company in Boston; The Solomon-Page Group, Ltd. in New York where she served as a Group Vice President and TMP Worldwide Executive Search where she served as a Partner in the Global Human Resources practice.
Her knowledge of organizations and their human resources needs is a great compliment to the clients understanding, while being sensitive to her clients social, political and economic needs. Her international experience has been a real value in helping organizations create a cultural balance of HR competencies and skills in order to achieve global competitiveness. Her clients include: ABN-AMRO, Ameriprise Financial, AXA Financial, BristolMyers Squibb, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Chicos FAS; EMC Corporation, eONE Global/First Data Corporation, Freddie Mac; Lehman Brothers, LifeBridge Health System, Maersk Inc., Mellon Financial Corporation, Philips Medical Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and The Boeing Company.
Wendy is active in Human Resources Planning Society (HRPS), The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), ODN and is involved with several not-for profit boards in Greenwich, CT. Wendy received her Bachelors Degree from Louisiana Tech University. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the University of Southern California Marshall Schools CENTER for EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS. (CEO)
David W. Miller, Ph.D
Executive Director, Yale Center for Faith & Culture.
David serves as Executive Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture (www.yale.edu/faith) at Yale Divinity School, and as Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Business Ethics. The mission of the Center is to promote the practice of faith in all spheres of life through theological research and leadership development.
David also leads the Centers Ethics and Spirituality in the Workplace program, and teaches business ethics at Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Management. His course is called, Business Ethics: Succeeding without Selling Your Soul. He has particular interest in ethics and spirituality in the workplace, moral leadership, and helping companies become faith-friendly. Davids first book, God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement (Oxford University Press, 2007) challenges business academics and executives, as well as theologians and clergy to think differently about faith in the workplace.
He received his Ph.D. and M.Div. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). While doing his doctoral work, David co-founded The Avodah Institute in 1999 and served as its president. Avodahs mission was to help leaders integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work.
David brings an unusual bilingual perspective to the academic world, having also spent 16 years in senior positions in international business and finance. Prior to academia, David lived and worked in London, England for eight years, where he was an equity partner in a private bank that specialized in international investment management, corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions. Before that he was a senior executive and director of the securities services and global custody division of Midland Bank plc (now part of the HSBC Group). He first moved to London as the managing director of the European operations of State Street Bank and Trust, a leading US securities services bank. He started his management career in the U.S., after graduating from Bucknell University in 1979, working for IBM for eight years in a variety of sales and marketing management positions in New Jersey and New England. David also speaks German, having lived, studied, and worked in Germany.
David serves as an advisor to several corporate CEOs and senior executives on questions pertaining to ethics, values, integrating faith and work, and becoming a faith-friendly company. He is a frequent speaker at gatherings of business leaders, industry associations, academic conferences, and church programs. His views are often cited in the media, including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, NPR, ABC, NBC, and CNN.
David finds inspiration in the lives and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Stott. Married to Karen, a former lawyer and law school professor, he enjoys being with his nieces, playing tennis, bridge, and tandem cycling. He is active in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
