The Hidden 98%: Strategies for Designing Sustainable Products

Lisa Gandolfi, Ph.D. is Vice President of Marketing at INOLEX, a leading independent, global manufacturer dedicated to providing safe, innovative, and effective ingredients for brands around the world. With headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, INOLEX provides sustainable options, with a focus on natural and bio-based technologies, for Personal Care and Home Care applications.

Lisa leads INOLEX’s marketing team and is responsible for furthering the INOLEX brand and positioning the company’s innovative product portfolio of safe, natural and sustainable ingredients for continued growth worldwide. In addition to promoting existing technologies, Lisa manages new product launches and is responsible for identifying market opportunities to commercialize INOLEX’s Research & Development pipeline. Lisa works in collaboration with the company’s direct sales team and global distribution network in bringing INOLEX’s product portfolio to market.

Prior to joining INOLEX, Lisa spent seven years at Clariant in multiple roles, ranging from Applications Chemist to Technical Manager and later Marketing Manager, where she was responsible for developing the North America Consumer Care strategy. Before Clariant, Lisa worked at Johnson & Johnson as Principal Scientist in Baby Care Science & Technology. She also worked on polymer and surfactant innovation projects at Procter & Gamble during her Ph.D. studies.

Lisa holds four patents and seven patent applications and has contributed to numerous presentations in Personal Care. She holds a Ph.D. in Polymer Science & Engineering from The University of Southern Mississippi and a B.S. in Chemistry from Truman State University.

Lisa resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband and two young children. She enjoys spending time with her family exploring new activities in Charlotte and introducing her children to new cities and experiences.

Audrey Wesson is a Strategic Marketing Associate at INOLEX, an independent, global specialty ingredients company that delivers natural, sustainable, and innovative technologies for health, beauty, and wellness. INOLEX designs and manufacturers emerging ingredients across all major beauty care categories, focusing on new biobased technologies that are authentically traceable and independently certified.

Audrey is a passionate product and brand marketer. With a technical background in chemical engineering, Audrey applies design thinking and a core drive towards sustainability to bring the INOLEX portfolio to life.

She is responsible for strategically positioning products in the market, working across our marketing, R&D, and global sales teams to identify and test new product claims and performance. She oversees the company s ingredient sample processing center and leads generation platform. Audrey has a talent for identifying and forecasting beauty care trends. Her insights lend a fresh approach to developing educational content that is relevant and exciting for client partners and industry stakeholders.

Audrey co-leads INOLEX s sustainability team. She helps implement ESG initiatives throughout the company and provides guidance for building the INOLEX sustainability strategy and platform.

She holds a BS Chemical Engineering from Villanova University, PA, and a certificate in Corporate Sustainability from the NYU Stern School of Busines.

Off hours, Audrey enjoys being active outdoors, practicing yoga, perfecting her recipe for wakame udon noodles and championing a low-waste, climate friendly and environmentally conscious lifestyle.

Kelly Kovack is the CEO and Founder of BeautyMatter, a noted beauty authority, brand advisor and strategist. She began her career in beauty as one of the original executive team members at Bliss, taking on the way women bought beauty as the Managing Director of the Bliss Catalog. This venture fundamentally changed the way beauty products were merchandised, distributed and marketed to consumers leading the acquisition of Bliss by LVMH. As Vice President of Marketing for Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare, she was at the forefront of defining the cosmeceutical category. Kelly also founded consultancy group Purpose Built, providing concept to counter solutions and strategic advisement for startups to Fortune 500 brand and everything in between. In addition, she's also built her own brands, most recently award-winning fragrance brand, Odin, which was co-founded in collaboration with the men's fashion brand. Kelly is the “lens” of BeautyMatter providing a fresh voice to the beauty industry with highly curated news and original content.