Educator, researcher and social scientist, Andrea Hoffmeier is Co-Founder of the nonprofit SHERPA Institute and Series Editor for the UN SDG Corporate Guidebook Series.  With over three decades of experience in marketing, product development, innovation, training and organizational excellence, her personal mission is to engage professionals in every field, in all industries to advance the principles and subjects of social responsibility, sustainability and regenerative development.  In other words, Andrea seeks to engage private sector professionals to create A WORLD WE ALL WANT!

She has worked in factories on four continents, overseeing design, development, production, quality, and process improvement in a broad range of products, from apparel and footwear to appliances and furnishings.  This provides Andrea a realistic view of the industrialist mindset. Sustainable and regenerative develop must make business sense, to have any appeal in the private sector. This understanding began in her childhood.

Raised on sustainably operated cattle ranches in the state of Missouri, Andrea developed a deep appreciation for sustainable systems from an early age. Her SHERPA Institute students are all familiar with her story about bottle raising a Charolais bull calf, orphaned on the first of April, whom she named after that month. Always a champion for the underdog, Andrea saved April the bull from becoming a steer the following spring and went on to show him at the State Fair.  Food security, agricultural innovations and ethical animal husbandry remain key passions to this day. She completed her bachelor’s degree from Clemson University in Language and International Trade and earned her master’s degree in Sustainability at Harvard.

Her Master’s Thesis began research in the impacts of individual social responsibility (iSR) commitments. She found that the more dissatisfied someone is with their employer’s focus on social responsibility issues, the higher the likelihood they can morally disengage; that is, do bad things and live with themselves. Her thesis introduced the term iSR to the field and presents evidence that corporations should seek to understand and satisfy the social responsibility commitments of their employees.  She continues to pursue research in this area, and advocating alignment of iSR-CSR with corporate leaders.

Andrea is co-author of “A Six Sigma Approach to Sustainability: Continual Improvement for Social Responsibility”, with Dr. Holly Duckworth.  Published by CRC Press Taylor and Francis Group, this book introduced the CISR (sounds like scissor) Methodology, used in organizations of all sizes and types around the world to improve social responsibility performance. This seminal book provides guidance in how to use ISO 26000 International Standard for Social Responsibility; given that it was published without certification. Hoffmeier is also joining Duckworth and Moore in writing the second edition of “Social Responsibility Failure Modes Effects and Analysis” (SR-FMEA), also a CRC Press Taylor and Francis Group publication.

In her spare time, she raises backyard free-range chickens who are poorly guarded by her Great Pyrenees puppy, Jack. An advocate for extending remote working as we approach the “new-normal”, Andrea’s cat, Coco has been a Pandemic Zoom star. She listens mostly to singer-song-writers in the Outlaw Country music genre, and is an artist in various mediums, from sculpture to painting.  Andrea enjoys gardening, mindfulness and yoga practice; she believes grounding the body, raising consciousness and achieving self-realization are the big goals of our lives.