Meet our CE-Yo
Gary Hirshberg is the husband of freelance writer Meg Hirshberg and the father of three yogurt eaters. He is Chairman, President and CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm, the world’s leading organic yogurt producer, and the author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion Books, 2008). Gary is a frequent speaker on topics including sustainability, climate change, the profitability of green and socially responsible business, organic agriculture and sustainable economic development.
Since 1983, Gary has overseen Stonyfield’s phenomenal growth, from its infancy as a seven-cow organic farming school to its current $360 million in annual sales. Stonyfield has enjoyed a compounded annual growth rate of over 24% for more than eighteen years, by consistently producing great-tasting products and using innovative marketing techniques that blend the company's social, environmental and financial missions. In 2001, Stonyfield Farm entered into a partnership with Groupe Danone, and in 2005, Gary was named managing director of Stonyfield Europe, a joint venture between the two firms with brands in Canada, Ireland and France.
Previously, he directed the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school from which Stonyfield was spawned. Before that, Gary had served as executive director of The New Alchemy Institute, a research and education center dedicated to organic farming, aquaculture and renewable energy. Prior positions include serving as a water-pumping windmill specialist and an environmental education director with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He has also authored books on wind power and organic gardening.
Gary serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards including those of Applegate Farms, Honest Tea, Peak Organic Brewing, The Full Yield, Climate Counts, SweetGreen, RAMp Sports, Stonyfield Europe, Glenisk and the Danone Communities Fund. He is the chairman and co-founder of Stonyfield Café, a natural fast-food restaurant company. In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Gary to the Advisory Committee for Trade and Policy Negotiations, and Gary became a co-chair of AGree—a food and agricultural policy effort launched by eight of the world’s leading foundations.
In addition to receiving eight honorary doctorates, Gary has won numerous awards for corporate and environmental leadership, including Global Green USA’s “1999 Green Cross Millennium Award for Corporate Environmental Leadership,” and was named a Gordon Grand Fellow at Yale. In 2009, Gary was named one of “America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs” by Business Week, Stonyfield was chosen “Business of the Year—Manufacturing” by Business NH Magazine, and Stonyfield won an EPA Clean Air Excellence award. Gary is featured in 2009’s successful documentary, Food, Inc. In May 2010, Stonyfield Farm was honored as “Business of the Decade—Manufacturing/Technology” by Business NH Magazine.
