Bill Shireman | President and CEO
A consumer and environmental advocate, who understands business.
Bill Shireman has always lived two lives – as an entrepreneur and an activist. He started two successful small businesses before he was 12, then in college became a young “Nader’s Raider,” organizing campus-based research groups for the crusading consumer advocate, Ralph Nader. He registered Republican and believes in free enterprise, but campaigned against the state’s largest electric utility, and headed a California environmental lobby. Today, he still likes to bring together forces from the left and right, and thinks that, by internalizing external costs, business and the environment can both thrive.
A market-based, systems-oriented approach.
The best practice is based on good theory, and the best theory is honed by good practice. Shireman blends economic, ecological, and systems theory to develop practical solutions that meet multiple needs. He believes the right and left need each other, that competition leads to cooperation, that conservative economics support liberal social policies, that capitalism creates value if external costs are owned, that consumers can also be creators, and that nature is the best business model.

