Kari Warberg Block

Kari was the first to develop, manufacture, and commercialize plant-based rodent and insect repellents for farm and home use that meet professional-use standards yet are safe enough to use in the home around kids and pets. Once a mom on food stamps, Kari started EarthKind® with nothing more than a package of garden seeds and a vision to change the face of a toxic industry through innovation and education, helping people prevent pests like a pro. Kari has built her company into an 8-figure company, with its products available at over 35,000 retail locations nationwide, Amazon, and the company website: www.earthkind.com With her first book, Gathering Around the Table: A Story of Purpose-Driven Change through Business, published in March 2021, Kari has achieved a lot, including nationwide product distribution, carbon neutrality, ingredient and supply-chain transparency, the invention of the first CPG bioplastic. Selected as an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneurial Winning Women,” Kari has advised the SBA, Congress, and the White House on policy that impacts women in business and the American Sustainable Business Council on policy that impacts human health and regenerative farming. Kari received the 2019 GMDC Retail Champions of Change award for her role as an inspirational industry leader. She has been featured in CNBC, the New York Times, Huffington Post, Authority Magazine, and Forbes, and she knows her way around our national capital as much as she knows her way around the multiple sources of capital available to grow and scale a business, even when starting with nothing. Kari believes kindness is a powerful force, an enabler of transformation that literally shapes humanity, whether that force is used to empower our farmers who feed the world, our moms who are shaping lives, or our institutions that empower our next generation of leaders.

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