Speaker: Mark Rampolla, MBA

Mark Rampolla

Mark Rampolla, keynote speaker

The career of Mark Rampolla, MBA, reflects a successful merger of his business acumen, love of international experiences and commitment to a sustainable and ethical global food-delivery system.

Rampolla, currently co-founder and managing partner at Powerplant Ventures LP, an investment organization interested in delivering better nutrition to people around the world, also was co-founder and chief executive officer of ZICO. He and his wife Maura Rampolla, MPH, a 1996 alumna and member of the advisory council at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, established the award-winning company to promote coconut water as a healthful alternative to more caloric sugar-sweetened beverages.

In 2010, Rampolla was recognized as Bevnet’s Beverage Innovator of the Year. Under his leadership, ZICO became one of the fastest growing beverage brands in the world and was purchased by The Coca Cola Company in 2013.

From 1991 to 1994, Rampolla served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica and later lived and worked in El Salvador (2000-2004).

A graduate of Marquette University, he earned Master of Business Administration and Master of Environmental Management degrees from Duke University. He and Maura live in Redondo Beach, Calif., with their daughters Ciara and Alexis.

Mark and Maura are also affiliated with Thrive Market, Crowdfunder, and Homeboy Industries.


Alumni Association Awards

The Harriet Hylton Barr Distinguished Alumni Award and the Bernard G. Greenberg Alumni Endowment Award were presented to Pam Silberman, JD, DrPH, and Peggy Bentley, PhD.


About Fred T. Foard Jr., MD (1889-1966)

The Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture was established in 1969 by Elsie D. Foard, to honor her late husband whose work in public health spanned more than a half-century, much of it with the U.S. Public Health Service.

Hallmarks of Dr. Foard’s tenure included the development and strengthening of organized public health services in Alaska, Hawaii and the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast regions. His efforts spurred major improvements in health services for Native Americans and the transfer of the Indian Health Program from the U.S. Department of the Interior to the U.S. Public Health Service.

After retiring from the Public Health Service in 1952, Dr. Foard served until 1964 as director of the Division of Epidemiology for the N.C. Board of Health. Dr. Foard received an honorary degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1962.

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