Darcy Stallings Winslow, Founder

DSW Collective, LLC, Designs for a Sustainable World

Darcy Winslow has been a pioneer and active practitioner of sustainability frameworks and principles, exploring and experimenting with the application of these to all aspects of business. Darcy worked at Nike, Inc. for over 20 years and held several senior management positions within the business. She most recently served as General Manager for Nike’s Global Women’s Fitness Business and as Senior Advisor to the Nike Foundation, which seeks to empower disadvantaged girls ages 10 to 19 years, through poverty alleviation and creating economic livelihood opportunities.

Integrating Sustainability into the Business. In 1999, Darcy Winslow spearheaded a major sustainability initiative at Nike to ensure that the creation of the world’s most recognizable brand of athletic-wear was also the most socially responsible and environmentally friendly. Winslow and her team “inserted sustainability into the heart of what Nike does” with a series of real-world changes that instituted design, engineering and production changes across the entire value chain. Darcy Winslow is one of the foremost hands-on experts on the process of steering a large and successful company toward more environmental and financial sustainability. She speaks with passion about the innovative practices that can turn a company doing business-as-usual into a company that leads the way in corporate social responsibility.

Creating a Green Life Cycle. In her years at Nike, she practiced what she now preaches, leading several company-wide initiatives, including leading a holistic business re-alignment effort within the Nike brand. Her dedicated work in sustainability was in part inspired by her early trips to Nike contract factories around the world, where she learned first hand about the health of workers and the production practices that could be improved. As a result of her work and setting their 2020 goals in 1999, Nike is striving to eliminate all aspects of waste and harmful substances, and working to ensure their products and materials are captured in closed loop systems.

Sustainability from the Top Down. An Executive-in-Residence and Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Program Director for Willamette University’s Executive Development Sustainable Enterprise Program, Winslow’s message is driven by the need to develop and implement more environmentally and socially sustainable business strategies across an organization. Winslow is the founder of Designs for a Sustainable World Collective, LLC, a firm that focuses on the development of practical yet aggressive strategies for organizations to create and adopt more sustainable and ultimately regenerative business practices. In addition, she has recently accepted an Adjunct Faculty position with the Center for Creative Leadership.

Sustainable Inspiration. Winslow recently participated in the 2009 Inspire Antarctic Expedition, hosted by British Petroleum and led by polar explorer, Robert Swan, and will be returning in the spring of 2010 as part of the Leadership on the Edge program. As a fellow participant on this expedition, she played a vital role in helping shape the program activities and by bringing depth and experience to the dialogue regarding Climate Change and the growing vulnerability of natural resources and ecosystems. The expedition created a unique opportunity to engage climate scientists, business leaders, youth leaders, and polar experts to come together in unprecedented collaboration to better understand the roles we play as individual citizens, as members of corporations and universities, and as active community leaders. The lessons, stories, projects and images from this expedition are profound and transformational. She continues to work with Robert Swan and his 2041 team on upcoming expeditions.

Winslow received her BS in exercise science and MS in exercise physiology and biomechanics, and is a 2003 graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the National Climate Prosperity Board, World Pulse Media/Pulse Wire, and NorthWest Earth Institute; and the Board of Directors for Portland Oregon Sustainability Institute, Greenopolis, The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, and the Council for Responsible Sport. She serves on the Board of Directors for Ziba Design, Inc., is an active member of the Society for Organizational Learning and Sustainability Consortium and adjunct faculty at The Center for Creative Leadership.

She is a lifelong athlete and enjoys traveling the world.