Astrid Scholz Shapes Platform to Spur Progress on Sustainable Development Goals

Dr. Astrid Scholz is managing partner and CEO (“chief everything officer”) of Sphaera, a system design and technology firm dedicated to co-creating global, distributed, democratic infrastructure for mobilizing data, innovations, and capital to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Scholz previously was president of Ecotrust, a conservation-based development organization with $150 million in assets under management where Sphaera was incubated.

Scholz is a founding director of the XXcelerate Fund, a revolving loan fund and mentorship program created for and by women entrepreneurs that is piloting in her home state of Oregon. She is also a founding director of Zebras Unite, a growing global community of founders, investors, and allies creating a more ethical, inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable approach to building businesses. She holds degrees from the University of St. Andrews, the University of Bristol, and the University of California, Berkeley.

LIFT Economy is part of the community of businesses that have used a third-party verification of their impact. Use the free B Impact Assessment to evaluate your company’s impact on all stakeholders, including the environment, your workers, your community and your customers.

Astrid Scholz (Photo by Adrian Hallauer)

Here are some highlights from the interview with Scholz:

  • The progression of her various roles at Ecotrust, a pioneering bioregionally focused organization, that led to incubating Sphaera, a company to help share and scale solutions and innovations across bioregions and other areas.
  • The past, present, and possible future of Sphaera, which developed a platform to help organizations find, share, and adapt existing solutions to new contexts and geographies.
  • How people can join a more ethical and inclusive global movement of companies to counter existing startup and venture capital culture through the Zebras Unite community. It was formed to offer a financial alternative to unicorns, which are privately held startups valued at more than $1 billion.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm with a mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.


Sharing, Adapting and Scaling Solutions as ‘Zebras Unite’ was originally published in B the Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.