SEER Symposium Speakers

Dr. Bonnie Nixon, PhD

Director of Sustainability, Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT)

Bonnie Nixon leads the Net Zero 2030 Strategy, Grants Management, ESG reporting, Stakeholder and Community Outreach and day to day environmental operations. Previously she served as Global Sustainability Director at Hewlett-Packard for 13 years, Executive Director for the Walmart-led Sustainability Consortium, Mattel Toy’s Director of Corporate Responsibility and Senior Partner at ERM. Bonnie also spent two decades leading complex community environmental programs for large-scale infrastructure (transportation, water, wastewater, land use, solid and hazardous waste and utilities) with many regional, state and federal governments. Ms. Nixon is a Professor of Sustainable Supply Chain at UCLA, obtained a Bachelors from Penn State, a Learning Technologies Masters Degree and recently completed a PhD in Global Leadership and Change at Pepperdine University.

Gretchen Peters

Executive Director, Alliance to Counter Crime Online

Gretchen S. Peters is Executive Director of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, a Washington DCbased nonprofit that researches and advocates about organized crime activity and illegal exploitation in cyberspace. She is also President of Marven &Shaw LLC, an investigative company that works with law firms to develop complex litigation. Ms. Peters has served as a subject matter expert (SME) on transnational organized crime and money laundering to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counter-Narcotics and Global Threats and USCENTCOM’s AfPak Center (J2), and supported USSOCOM’s Counternarcotics and Transnational Threats (J36) team to identify, research and counter tier one security threats. She also co-chaired an OECD Task Force on Wildlife and Environmental Crime, and received grants from key conservation foundations, including the Elephant Crisis Fund, to map illicit supply chains moving ivory from Africa to Asia. Ms. Peters is considered a leading authority on the intersection of crime and terrorism, trade-based money laundering, the illegal wildlife trade, online crime and transnational organized crime. In 2022, Fast Company named her one of the most creative people in business for her work to reform the laws governing cyberspace and to bring forward whistleblowers in the tech industry. 

Ms. Peters is the author of Seeds of Terror, a groundbreaking 2009 book about the Afghan heroin trade that impacted U.S. policy towards Afghanistan and the fight against terror. She spent five years researching the book, which Barrons called “a well-written, well-documented and exemplary work of journalism.” She also authored a policy report on the AfPak opium trade for the U.S. Institute of Peace, and a monograph about the Haqqani network for West Point’s CTC. Peters has authored chapters in academic books about Pakistan’s D-Company, the Pakistani Taliban, and how illicit syndicates disrupted peace-building efforts in Afghanistan. In 2017, she published “The Curse of the Shiny Object.” 

Keith Eshelman

Founder and CEO, Parks Project

Keith Eshelman is passionate about habitat restoration and making outdoor conservation accessible and cool. Prior to starting Parks Project, he worked on product & marketing with world renowned brands like Puma, Quiksilver and Vans. Then, Keith was one of TOMS shoes earliest employees where he built out international markets, launched concept pop up retail expressions, and later scaled the retail/café community hubs. It was there during a volunteer day in the Santa Monica mountains that he discovered the overwhelming backlog of much-needed funding to complete projects in parks, and uncovered a need to educate the next generation of advocates.

Inspired by the opportunity to do more, Keith took key learnings from his previous ventures and started Parks Project to create an outdoor lifestyle brand with purpose. Parks Project gives back to conservation efforts focused on restoring habitats in our parklands and activates communities of volunteers to support park projects. Worn by celebrities like Justin Bieber, Olivia Wilde and Ashton Kutcher, distributed by REI, Urban Outfitters, and Madewell, recognized by Fortune, Inc, New York Times, Vice and many more. In 2022 the brand was awarded by Fast Company “Most Innovative Retailer”. In only 8 years, what started as a tiny garage t-shirt business, the social enterprise has grown to an assortment of head-to-toe apparel and home goods giving back more than $2.6 million in donations to over 50 park conservatories, inspiring the next generation to leave it better than we found it.

Matt Petersen

President and CEO, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)

Matt Petersen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI). LACI is focused on building an inclusive green economy by empowering cleantech startups, transforming markets, and enhancing communities in Los Angeles and beyond.

Before joining LACI in 2017, Petersen served as the City of Los Angeles' first Chief Sustainability Officer. In that role, Petersen was the chief architect of the groundbreaking Sustainable City pLAn. Previously, Petersen led Global Green USA, where he championed greening affordable housing, schools, and cities; climate equity; and the green rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Petersen helped create Climate Mayors and currently serves as Board Chair. He also serves as Director of the Metropolitan Water District; Board Member of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, the Center for Environmental Health, and the Sir Edmund Hilary Institute for International Leadership; and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Robert Bikel, DBA

Director of SEER, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School

Robert Bikel, MBA, DBA (‘21) is the Director of and Lead Faculty for the SEER (Social Ethical and Environmental Responsibility) Program at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business.  A faculty member since 2011, Bikel has taught various courses in the SEER program as well as Strategic CSR Executive Certificate classes.  He is also an independent strategy consultant specializing in sustainably oriented businesses, focused on strategic guidance and market intelligence for responsible companies in B-Corp/Benefit Corporations, cleantech, online media, e-commerce and food industries with clients ranging from Neil Young’s Pono Music service, Jes Maharry Jewelry, the Yes Bar, and, with ex-Patagonia CEO Michael Crooke, Fox International Channels and a major Latin American media company.  A former investment banker, Bikel also has 12+ years experience in entertainment as a development executive, producer and music supervisor.  A Harvard graduate, he has a SEER-certified MBA from Pepperdine and has GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) certification.  His doctoral research focuses on managing sustainability tensions at the corporate board level.