Rick Fedrizzi Extends Leadership Role as Executive Chairman of International WELL Building Institute for Additional Term

NEW YORK – July 27, 2020 /3BL Media/ -- International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), the world’s leading certification body for healthy buildings, today announced that Rick Fedrizzi, who has been IWBI’s chairman and CEO since November 2016, is extending his full-time role for an additional term as IWBI’s executive chairman. Rachel Gutter, IWBI’s current president, will be elevated as the company’s  CEO, retaining the title of president. Prateek Khanna, IWBI’s current EVP of operations and technology, will become chief operating officer.  The leadership promotions of Gutter and Khanna are effective November 5, 2020.

“The three of us have been working together for more than a decade,” said Fedrizzi, “first at the U. S. Green Building Council (USGBC), where I was co-founder and CEO, and since 2016, when we came to IWBI. This is the perfect management structure for where IWBI is in its institutional maturity, and I’m very much looking forward to continuing to work with Rachel and Prateek to advance the organization’s long-term success.”

“Great planning helped us bring an All-Star management team to IWBI in 2016, and the results speak for themselves,” said Paul Scialla, IWBI’s founder and chairman and CEO of IWBI’s parent company, Delos. “Rick is a global sustainability icon, and we’re thrilled that he is extending his initial term and will continue to contribute his deep customer knowledge and broad market vision to our ongoing success.  

”We’re very excited to have Rachel pick up the additional reins as CEO,” Scialla said. “Her leadership as president has been exceptional and has been fundamental to IWBI’s exponential market growth and expanding global reputation. We’re excited to have her keen mind and strong management skills in this role.”

Since Fedrizzi assumed the roles of chairman and CEO in late 2016, IWBI’s WELL Building Standard (WELL) has grown to become the de facto global real estate leadership standard focused exclusively on the health and well-being of the people who live, work, play and learn in buildings and communities worldwide. WELL’s market adoption now stands at over 600 million square feet of registered and certified space in 62 countries across virtually every building type.  Fedrizzi has also championed the growth of IWBI’s WELL Accredited Professional (AP) community, which now stands at more than 12,000 WELL APs and registrants in more than 90 countries. 

“The timing for Rachel and Prateek’s leadership advancements wrote itself,” said Fedrizzi. “The first thing Rachel undertook when she got here was to lead the evolution of the WELL Building Standard to its next iteration, WELL v2, arguably the most important milestone in IWBI’s history to date. Our Governance Council formally graduated WELL v2 out of pilot at the end of June, and we’re working towards a full market launch in September.

“When Rachel was named president of IWBI in 2018,” Fedrizzi continued, “it was in recognition of her tremendous work in maturing the standard, along with the multitude of other programs she began developing to help support WELL’s market uptake. Her grasp of strategy and her unique skills in organizational development, especially during these unusual times, make her the obvious choice to  propel IWBI and our global team into the next decade.”

“Prateek’s leadership and influence on IWBI’s trajectory grow exponentially every day,” Fedrizzi noted. “His technology prowess and strong operations skills have built an unshakable infrastructure for the next phase of IWBI’s growth. Acknowledging this by naming him IWBI’s chief operating officer is a significant commitment to ensuring the company’s long-term success.”

Bios

Rick Fedrizzi joined IWBI as chairman and CEO in November 2016, bringing his global environmental track record and keen business insight to IWBI’s work to advance human health through better buildings and communities. With more than 600 million square feet of registered and certified space in 62 countries, IWBI’s evidence-based WELL Building Standard and WELL Community Standard are the premier systems for advancing, measuring and monitoring the key features that help people thrive, what Rick describes as the “second wave” of sustainability. 

Rick is also founding chair of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and former CEO of both USGBC and of Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), nonprofit organizations that promote high-performing buildings and communities. During his tenure, LEED became the world’s most widely used green building rating system. 

Rick co-founded USGBC while serving as the environmental marketing officer at UTC’s Carrier Corporation, where he served for more than 25 years. A native of Syracuse, N.Y., with an MBA from Syracuse University, he serves on numerous boards and advisory councils, including the Board of Trustees at the State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry. A sought-after speaker and thought leader, his book Greenthink:  How Profit Can Save the Planet won a prestigious EPPY Award for Public Affairs. 

Rachel Gutter came to IWBI after nearly a decade at the U.S. Green Building Council, where she served as senior vice president of knowledge and was founding director of the Center for Green Schools. Under her direction, the Center mobilized $275B+ investments in LEED certified educational facilities, deployed over 750,000 volunteers in 73 countries to transform schools on every continent, and published 1,000+ pages of technical guides and original research. At USGBC, her dynamic leadership helped convene international corporations, globally recognized institutions and government entities to achieve putting every student in a green school within this generation.

In 2016, as IWBI’s chief product officer, Rachel expanded the WELL Building Standard and launched the WELL Community Standard to address varied building types, as well as whole districts and communities. She was named IWBI’s president in 2018 and led the effort to bring a new version of WELL to market, shaped IWBI’s research and education platforms to accelerate market transformation and developed the WELL Portfolio program and IWBI membership platform. Rachel leads an incredibly talented team working with projects doing business in more than 60 countries that includes market development and salespeople, dedicated coaching contacts, researchers and subject matter experts who develop and evolve the WELL Building Standard.

A widely sought after expert and inspiring speaker, Rachel’s game-changing contributions to sustainable building have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, FOX News, and CNN, as well as in leading industry publications including Fast Company, Metropolis, Grist, and GreenBIZ. A graduate of Tufts University, Rachel joined the Garrison Institute’s Board of Directors in 2015, serving as co-chair 2018-2020 with founder Jonathan Rose. She is a member of Urban Land Institute’s Advisory for Health and Social Equity and the Walgreens CSR Advisory Council and is a frequent guest lecturer and instructor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, among others.

Prateek Khanna brings 15 years of successful multidisciplinary business, technology and organizational experience to his role as executive vice president, technology and operations at IWBI.  With experience spanning manufacturing, healthcare, sustainability, real estate and finance, Prateek enables organizations and companies large and small by translating executive vision into transformative, nimble and intuitive technology and operations solutions. Prateek’s deep expertise in various foundations of business including sales, marketing, customer service, outreach and advocacy, combined with his proven ability to design and build big-data focused large scale technology platforms, uniquely position executives to more effectively drive decisions and strategies.

Notable past accomplishments include his work at the U.S. Green Building Council, where he consolidated the organization’s credentialing program from multiple vendors to an integrated platform; streamlined education delivery from three different proprietary platforms to a holistic go-to place for everything education; established a responsive and content driven website; and provided a singular interface to the membership platform for customers and internal staff. Prateek has led several technology projects at IBM, University of North Carolina Healthcare and others. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from University of North Carolina.

About the International WELL Building Institute
The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is leading the global movement to transform our buildings, communities and organizations in ways that help people thrive. The WELL v2 pilot is the latest version of its popular WELL Building Standard (WELL), and the WELL Community Standard pilot is a district scale rating system that sets a new global benchmark for healthy communities. WELL is focused exclusively on the ways that buildings and communities, and everything in them, can improve our comfort, drive better choices, and generally enhance, not compromise, our health and wellness. IWBI mobilizes the wellness community through management of the WELL AP credential, the pursuit of applicable research, the development of educational resources, and advocacy for policies that promote health and wellness everywhere. IWBI is a participant of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative, and helps companies advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the use of WELL. More information on WELL can be found here.

International WELL Building Institute, IWBI, the WELL Building Standard, WELL v2, WELL Certified, WELL AP, WELL, WELL Portfolio, The WELL Conference, the WELL Community Standard, WELL Health-Safety Rating and others, and their related logos are trademarks or certification marks of International WELL Building Institute pbc in the United States and other countries.

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