responsible-sourcing
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Justin Dillon Turned a Protest Song Into Supply-Chain Software
A touring musician followed one uncomfortable question from a Russian club to the State Department, a viral consumer tool and the procurement departments of global companies. Now FRDM AI is joining WiseTech - proof that Dillon's longest-running composition was a supply chain.
FRDM AI Mapped the Supply Chain's Blind Spots - Then Landed a $10 Million Exit
Justin Dillon moved from anti-slavery films to the unglamorous plumbing of procurement. FRDM's wager was that six billion trade records could reveal what supplier questionnaires miss - and WiseTech decided that wager belonged inside the operating system for global trade.
The Grocer Who Bet His Life Savings on a Building Older Than the Supermarket
John Dyke grew up raising tobacco and heirloom tomatoes, then poured his life savings into a natural grocery in a building that predated the modern supermarket. Twenty-five years later, The Turnip Truck is four stores, one juice bar, and a running argument for shopping like your neighbors are farmers - because his are.
Signet Jewelers
One Ohio company quietly owns Kay, Zales, Jared, Blue Nile and Banter - and rings up roughly one of every three engagement rings sold in America. Meet the $6.8 billion machine behind the moment you got down on one knee.
Sourcemap: the Supply Chain Mapping Company
Sourcemap is a New York-based enterprise SaaS company that maps global supply chains down to the raw-material origin. Born as a research project at the MIT Media Lab, it gives compliance and sourcing teams end-to-end, verified visibility across multi-tier supplier networks - helping Global 1000 brands meet forced-labor, deforestation, tariff and ESG regulations while reducing disruption risk.
Leonardo Bonanni
Leonardo Bonanni is the founder and CEO of Sourcemap, the supply chain mapping company he spun out of his PhD research at the MIT Media Lab. What began in 2008 as a 'Wikipedia for supply chains' became enterprise software that helps the world's largest brands in food, apparel, electronics, pharmaceuticals and automotive trace their products down to raw-material origins - tanneries, farms, mines and slaughterhouses. He testified before the US Senate and the French Senate on traceability, spoke at TEDxMilano, and has been named among the most influential people in business ethics.
Beth Gerstein
Beth Gerstein co-founded Brilliant Earth in 2005 after a personal search for an ethically sourced engagement ring turned up nothing worth buying. An engineer by training (Duke BS at 19, MIT MS, Stanford MBA), she built a company that now generates $422 million in annual revenue and trades on Nasdaq (BRLT). Brilliant Earth is the rare luxury brand that treats supply chain transparency as a marketing advantage rather than a compliance headache - offering Beyond Conflict Free diamonds with traceable origins, lab-grown stones, and recycled metals. Under Gerstein's leadership, the company has donated over $2 million through the Brilliant Earth Foundation, partnered with Dr. Jane Goodall on conservation collections, and expanded to 28+ showrooms while maintaining 14 consecutive quarters of profitability as a public company.
Fedele Bauccio
Fedele Bauccio is co-founder and CEO of Bon Appetit Management Company, the Redwood City onsite restaurant operator that runs more than 1,000 cafes for universities, corporations and museums in 33 states. He built the business in 1987 on a then-heretical pitch - hire trained chefs to cook from scratch for cafeteria diners - and turned it into the contract food industry's most outspoken laboratory for local sourcing, animal welfare and farmworker rights.