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Natalia Allen (Photo by Jerry Jack)

Natalia Allen 27
Founder/Chief Creative Director
Design Futurist New York
Allen’s green fashion accessories and textiles are giving the world an eco-style makeover. Global companies such as Durobertpont, Calvin Klein, Quiksilver, and Donna Karan have called on Design Futurist, a product design consultancy founded in 2005, to create, design, and produce environmentally friendly materials by using non-toxic methods of production. “Sustainable fashion is not a trend,” says Allen, who also gives lectures and offers workshops to organizations and businesses worldwide about sustainable practices and opportunities in fashion. “Any company that wants to be relevant in 10 years needs to grab hold of the idea of innovation and sustainability as core business practices and realize it’s not a do-good exercise. It is a business opportunity.”  

—LaToya M. Smith

Lanesha Anderson 35
Senior Legal Counsel
Shell Oil Qatar
One of five attorneys on the Shell legal team on assignment in Qatar, Anderson’s main responsibilities include managing construction agreements and partnerships as well as marketing and sales agreements for products produced at the Royal Dutch Shell Pearl gas to liquid (GTL) project, the world’s largest plant that converts natural gas into clean-burning liquid transport fuel.

Chisa Brookes 29
Senior Research Engineer
ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co. Houston
Brookes works with an energy industry group to commission $9.4 million in research on the impact of sound on marine life by scientists worldwide. As the ExxonMobil representative on the international consortium of oil companies and exploration contractors, she analyzes their findings to develop operational plans enabling ExxonMobil to conduct its offshore oil and gas business in an environmentally responsible way.