Ziegler and Werner bring a wealth of experience and insights from the tech industry.

Today Rheaply is happy to announce that it has added Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871, and Mike Werner, Lead for Circular Economy at Google, to its board of directors.

Rheaply Board of Directors

Ziegler and Werner join Mike Fitzgerald, Partner at High Alpha, and Rob Eckardt, Board Member at Thrive Advisory Services, LLC.

“We are thrilled to have Betsy and Mike on our board,” said Garry Cooper, CEO and Co-founder of Rheaply. “Both of them have been such strong advocates for Rheaply and the principles of the circular economy throughout our journey as a company. With them officially on board, we will be able to accelerate our progress towards a more circular future.”

“Rheaply is a credit to the Chicago tech ecosystem and a testament to the power of collaboration,” said Betsy Ziegler. “Since its founding, Rheaply has fostered communication and connection within the Chicago tech community, demonstrating in real time the benefits of the circular economy. I look forward to working with Rheaply’s team to spread that spirit even further.”

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen Rheaply’s technology radically simplify organizations’ ability to meet ESG goals,” said Mike Werner. “As the need for corporate ESG action continues to increase, Rheaply will become even more indispensable. I am honored to be able to help propel Rheaply forward and drive more organizations toward Rheaply.”

This announcement comes on the heels of Rheaply’s participation in Goldman Sachs’ 2021 Launch With GS Entrepreneur Cohort and the closing of a $2.2M inter-series round led by Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, with investment from MIT Solve. In the coming months, Rheaply will continue working on carbon-related feature updates to help organizations using Rheaply visualize the impact of reuse.

Betsy Ziegler

Ziegler is the first female CEO of 1871, now the Number 1 ranked university affiliated-tech incubator in the world. Previous to 1871, Betsy was the Chief Innovation Officer at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, responsible for portfolio innovation as well as integrating technology into the Kellogg educational experience. From 2011 through September 2015, she served as associate dean of degree programs and dean of students. Prior to Kellogg, she served as a principal in McKinsey & Company’s Chicago office where she led the firm’s Life Insurance Operations and Technology practice and co-led its Financial Institutions Operations and Technology practice.
Ziegler holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and received a B.A. in economics from The Ohio State University, where she graduated with distinction. She is a member of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry Boards of Directors and an advisor and investor in many young technology companies.

Mike Werner

Mike is Lead for Circular Economy at Google where he is responsible for leading the organization to eliminate waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, and drive the development and use of safer chemistry and healthy materials across their operations, products, and supply chains and enable others to do the same. While at Google, Mike also led the product sustainability and environmental compliance team in their consumer hardware division.

Prior to Google, Mike led safer chemistry and biocompatibility initiatives at Apple and product sustainability for Haworth Inc, a global contract office furniture manufacturer. Mike has worked in the green building and product design space for 15 years including with renowned green architect Bill McDonough.

Mike holds a BS in Chemistry from Villanova University. In addition to serving on the board of directors for the Healthy Building Network, he also serves on advisory boards for several organizations including the Green Science Policy Institute, ChemForward, and Materiom.org. Mike previously served as a sustainability advisor to the Department of Homeland Security and National Institute of Building Sciences.