Jessica Thomas is the managing director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and is responsible for managing the center operations. Jessica joined CSE in 2007 to launch BASE, the Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, an interdisciplinary UNC program which seeks to accelerate the growth of sustainable businesses that have environmental and social objectives as central to their core business, product, or service. Jessica holds a BS in Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is founder of High Tide Consulting, which provides social and sustainable enterprises with customized solutions to business development and strategic planning challenges to increase effectiveness, efficiency and impact. Clients have included Self Help Venture Fund, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and the Community and Economic Development Program at UNC. Jessica has served as director of the CUREs social enterprise business plan competition in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, which seeks to commercialize health care technology for use in developing world communities. She was a program manager for CFED (Corporation for Enterprise Development), where she co-authored several economic development report cards and led the organization’s earned income and impact assessment initiatives. Prior to her MBA, Jessica was a product development manager, designing interactive educational children’s toys for companies including LeapFrog and KidConcepts. She has served on the Board of Directors of SJF Advisory Services and Triangle Net Impact. Jessica’s first novel, The Art of Peace, a social justice thriller, will be published in 2008.