Daniel Lubetzky

Daniel Lubetzky, the Founder of PeaceWorks Inc., the PeaceWorks Foundation’s OneVoice Movement, and KIND Snacks (where he also serves as CEO), is a serial social entrepreneur known for incorporating new models and platforms that integrate social objectives with sustainable market-driven forces.

In many ways, the evolution of these unorthodox entities reflects Mr. Lubetzky’s life experience.

            The son of a Holocaust survivor and a Mexican Jew, Mr. Lubetzky was born in 1968 and raised in Mexico City, where he began his education in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Yiddish. As a teenager, he moved with his family to the U.S.  During his college years, Mr. Lubetzky created a retail watch operation, Da’Leky Times. He studied abroad in both Israel and France, where he added French to his languages.  While in the Middle East, he began developing relationships with Israeli and Palestinian friends.  At Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, the seeds of PeaceWorks were planted as Mr. Lubetzky wrote his 268-page thesis, "The Influence of Economic Factors in Resolving the Arab-Israeli Conflict." After receiving his B.A. degree, magna cum laude, in 1990, Mr. Lubetzky worked in Tokyo for a summer with Japan Counselors, a strategic marketing firm. In 1991, Mr. Lubetzky worked as a clerk for The Honorable Thomas R. Phillips, Chief Justice for the Supreme Court of Texas.

            Mr. Lubetzky earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1993, and immediately following, he worked briefly as an attorney for Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, and then as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. While deciding whether to go into consulting or legal practice, Mr. Lubetzky was awarded the Haas Koshland Fellowship to write about legislative means to foster joint ventures between Arabs and Israelis. He accepted, and traveled to the Middle East where he conducted his research and subsequently published "Incentives for Peace and Profits: Federal Legislation to Encourage U.S. Enterprises to Invest in Arab-Israeli Joint Ventures" in the Michigan Journal of International Law.
           
            While carrying out his research in Israel, Mr. Lubetzky discovered a delicious sundried tomato product that, along with plans for Arab-Israeli economic cooperation, provided the foundation for PeaceWorks Inc. in1994.
PeaceWorks is a “not-ONLY-for-profit” business corporation pursuing both peace and profit.  Its flagship brands – Meditalia and Bali Spice –are made through cooperative ventures among neighbors striving to co-exist in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

            In the fall of 2000, Mr. Lubetzky began to research creative ways to amplify the voice of ordinary citizens in the Middle East, culminating with the creation of the PeaceWorks Foundation’s OneVoice Movement in 2002.  With offices in Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Gaza, London and New York, the OneVoice Movement now has over 650,000 Palestinian, Israeli and international signatories, including over 2,000 Youth Leaders with chapters in every Israeli and Palestinian University, and across cities, villages and refugee camps.  The Movement’s Boards include over 60 dignitaries, religious authorities, business leaders, scholars and celebrities across an unprecedented spectrum of politics, ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs, all standing as OneVoice against violent extremism and for a two-state solution.  In 2006, the PeaceWorks Foundation also launched the Who Am I? Video Exchange Platform project.  OneVoice is also responsible for the One Million Voices campaign, the Imagine 2018 contest, and its provocative Goal 2018 campaign.

            In 2003, unhappy with unhealthy or unappetizing snacking choices, and concerned with the rising obesity and diabetes epidemic in America, Daniel launched KIND Snacks with the value proposition of being “KIND to your body, your taste buds and the world.”™ KIND has since become the fastest-growing healthy snack in the nutrition bar category and was recognized with the Best Product of the Year Award in the natural food industry (NPEE).  Its KIND PLUS Fruit and Nut bars are the first to deliver functional nutrition through simple “wholesome ingredients you can see and pronounce.”™ KIND’s marketing efforts – including its unique One Million KINDED campaign – are designed to simultaneously foster unexpected acts of kindness.

            Mr. Lubetzky has published numerous articles and lectured at several prestigious universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Fletcher, Wharton, as well as at the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, and the United Nations.

           In 1997, Mr. Lubetzky, then 28 years old, was selected by the World Economic Forum as one of 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow (GLT).  He also serves on the WEF’s Council of 100 Leaders on West-Islamic Dialogue.

In 2003, Mr. Lubetzky received the Outstanding Alumnus Award from his alma mater, Trinity University.  In 2004, the World Association of NGOs bestowed him with its Peace, Reconciliation and Security Award.  In 2005, Mr. Lubetzky was honored with the Catholic Theological Union’s PeaceMakers Award, and the OneVoice movement received the King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Prize from Queen Noor.  In 2006, Mr. Lubetzky was named Young Leaders Forum Fellow by the National Committee for United States-China Relations, and the Monitor Group & Fast Company Magazine recognized him with its Social Capitalist Award as one of “43 Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World.”  
In 2007, the World Economic Forum again recognized Mr. Lubetzky as a Young Global Leader, an honor bestowed “on the most distinguished 250 young leaders below the age of 41 from around the world.”  And in 2008, he received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, accompanied by a $1,000,000 grant to the PeaceWorks Foundation.