Who was a past guest last year continues to garner lots of positive press coverage. We love her product, team, passion and positive influence on the world of green business. We wish her and her company continued success, and hope you push your pizza store to buy and use her boxes.
Woman escapes her cubicle for a cardboard box
Mary Hanan, CNBC Producer
Sometimes passion projects turn into new careers. In other cases, job changes may be forced upon you. For Jennifer Wright-Laracy, it was a bit of both.
She spent more than a decade working in the financial industry at places like Citigroup. But when the economic crisis hit in 2008, she headed to Columbia Business School to get her MBA.
Fully intending to return to finance, Wright-Laracy soon discovered she had an appetite for a whole new career: co-founding a company that created a new kind of pizza box—one with a top that splits into plates and a bottom that folds into a storage container. "I realized that it was a fun idea," Wright-Laracy told CNBC. "I didn't know if I would pursue it full time but I thought I could add value."
Her finely tuned financial palate appealed to her friend, William Walsh, the inventor and patent holder of the convertible pizza box, and his business partner, Ned Kensing. "We started pursuing Jen to come in and join our team," said Kensing.
Wright-Laracy nibbled away at the idea. She introduced the team and its product at competitions and pitch events; created a business plan as a school assignment; and enrolled in an entrepreneurial class in which the multifunctional pizza box wound up receiving $50,000 in bridge funding. That's when she really sunk her teeth into the idea, co-founding GreenBox with Walsh and Kensing in 2009.
The following year, the business exploded following a one word tweet from actor Ashton Kutcher that said, "smart" with a link to the GreenBox YouTube video.
Of course, not everything worked as easily or painlessly. In November 2011, GreenBox creator Walsh suddenly died at age 44. "It was a very difficult time for us," Wright-Laracy remembers. "That was definitely a hurdle that we had to overcome and we ultimately did because we knew that's what he would want."
Today, the company estimates that it's growing by about 40 percent every year and works through distributors to supply product or technology to thousands of stores, from places like Two Boots Pizza in New York to roughly 200 Whole Foods stores across the country and more than 550 Pizza Huts in the Middle East.
The boxes are made with 100 percent recycled corrugated cardboard and the company is working on other types of packaging
Though it was difficult to shake off the golden handcuffs of finance, Wright-Laracy said she's glad she did. "I can't imagine going back and working for someone else," she said.
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