Meet the Judges

Amy George, Co-Founder of BlueAvocado

Amy George brings 19 years of experience in business, marketing and sustainability to the role of Chief Ozone Officer. In her role at BlueAvocado, George has created a business model built on sustainable practices and processes, managed a national sales team to achieve 300% growth, and cultivated relationships with national retailers including Whole Foods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bloomingdales, The Container Store, Amazon.com, and Tupperware. Prior to joining BlueAvocado, George helped privately-held Pavilion Technologies to market software that allowed manufacturing giants Chevron-Phillips, Cemex and Nestle to increase productivity, reduce their energy use (and carbon footprint), and track real-time emissions. The company achieved 30% year over year growth and was acquired in October 2007 by Rockwell Automation. Throughout her career, George has pioneered new initiatives with a number of non-profit and social responsible organizations including Calvert Social Investment Foundation, Sustainable Food Center, The CSR Group, People’s Community Clinic and PeopleFund. As a Board member with the Sustainable Food Center, George was instrumental in founding the Austin Farmer’s Market, ranked one of the top 10 markets in the country. Nominated for Austin Under 40 and Barbara B. Jordan award for community service, George holds an M.B.A from The University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Arts in English from The University of Florida. George lives in Austin, Texas and is a reusable bag shopper for her husband and two boys.

Doug Foreman, CEO, Bean Brand Foods

Developing healthier snack alternatives is nothing new for Doug Foreman, whose latest foray into the snack chip market, may be his best yet. In early 2010, Foreman’s Bean Brand Foods launched Beanitos® (www.beanitos.com), an all natural, bean-based, 100% corn-free snack chip. The overwhelming and enthusiastic response from retailers and consumers has struck a nerve. Supermarket guru and industry luminary, Phil Lempert declared Beanitos, “a hit” and wondered aloud, “Could these be the perfect chip?”

Foreman is no newcomer to the specialty snack market. He was very successful in bringing several consumer packaged goods to market, and he is best known for creating the “Guiltless Gourmet” line of low-fat, baked tortilla chips in 1989. He started the line out of his restaurant’s kitchen with only $200, eventually growing “Guiltless” into a half billion dollar category that included the first-ever fat free bean dips and no water added salsas. With the help of the investors behind the successful Barq’s Root Beer brand, Foreman expanded Guiltless Gourmet from its beginning in health-food stores, into the broader mass consumer market in 1992. He ultimately sold Guiltless to Barq’s Root Beer in 1994.

In 1996, Foreman also created Pop-Nots™, a snack consisting entirely of the crunchy half-popped popcorn kernels usually found at the bottom of any popcorn bowl. Pop-Nots were sold in Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven Stores and are still available online.

Today, his passion for the business is evidenced by his regular visits to Beanitos baking facility, tasting, checking and personally overseeing his latest creation.

He has been a media favorite, appearing on the cover of Food and Beverage Marketing (Nov.1993), Forbes (July 1992 & 1994), and Inc. (cover story, June 1994). In 1992, he was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst & Young and Inc. magazine. Foreman’s interests have always reflected his desire to take the unpredictable path. He was once a professional helicopter pilot delivering traffic reports in his hometown of Austin, Texas. Born in Louisiana, Foreman has since remained in his adopted home state of Texas where he resides with his 3 young sons.

Rony Kahan, Co-Founder, Indeed.com

Rony Kahan co-founded Indeed.com in 2004 and has grown it into the leading global search engine for jobs with over 50 million monthly unique visitors in over 50 countries and 26 languages. Prior to Indeed, Rony co-founded jobsinthemoney.com, the leading job site for financial professionals in 1998 and sold it to Financial News in 2003.

Rony’s background includes technology consulting at Accenture and fast moving consumer goods product marketing experience. He holds an MBA with distinction from INSEAD and a BSc in Economics from Texas A&M University.