Rick Ridgeway

In his 30-minute presentation Protect the Planet: Protect Your Business, Rick uses a mix of photographs, video clips and animated graphics to take his audience through the five decades of his climbing and exploring life: his attempt but failure on Everest when he was 26 years old; his success two years later when he became the first American to summit K2, the world’s hardest peak; his loss two years after that when, on a remote peak in China, he was caught in an avalanche and his best friend died in this arms. Rick buried him on the mountain and went home and into a deep introspection whether to continue climbing, whether the risks, now palpable, justified the rewards.

He summarizes this business value in four strategic principles:

1. A commitment to high-value products and services created with no unnecessary harm to people and planet.
2. A commitment to full transparency.
3. A commitment to work-life balance for all the company’s employees
4. A commitment to philanthropy—to giving back to people and planet.