Paul Rice

Overview

Paul opened our first national headquarters a one room office in a converted warehouse in downtown Oakland in late 1998. Since launching the Fair Trade Certified label Paul has pushed to mainstream the Fair Trade movement and expand its impact on farmers by innovating the model partnering with over 1000 U.S. companies and expanding certification across new product categories.Paul came to Fair Trade by way of the mountainous Segovias region of northern Nicaragua where he served for 11 years organizing cooperatives and training farmers. While in Nicaragua Paul founded and led PRODECOOP the country's first Fair Trade organic coffee export cooperative which introduced him to the transformational power of Fair Trade. Subsequently Paul served as strategy consultant and development advisor to 22 cooperative enterprises throughout Latin America and Asia helping them become more competitive democratic and self reliant. Paul s first hand experience over the last 30 years in the areas of global supply chain transparency social auditing sustainable agriculture and cooperative enterprise development is unique in the certification world.Paul has received numerous honors and awards for his pioneering work as a social entrepreneur in the Fair Trade movement. In 2000 he received the prestigious international Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurship. In 2001 Paul was recognized by the AVINA Foundation for his leadership for change. Paul was honored by the Klaus Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the World Economic Forum as one of the world's top 40 Social Entrepreneurs in 2002. Fast Company magazine named Paul Social Capitalist of the Year four years in a row (2005 08). Paul also received the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and has been honored by the Clinton Global Initiative for his leadership in Fair Trade. Paul holds an Economics and Political Science degree from Yale University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.