Green Team
Your Partners in Sustainability
Our executive leadership team is impressive with over 150 years of cumulative experience. Because of our unique eco licensing approach to sustainable partnership, we are deeply committed to your success in the green marketplace and we have the people to make that success a reality.
Our Experience
The Green Team has experience in eco marketing, green consulting, eco licensing, branding, product and package design, waste management, recycling, sustainable product development, sustainable packaging, eco marketing & merchandising, creating operational efficiencies, energy resource management, lifecycle assessment, environmental health and safety, legislation and compliance and much more.
Our Leaders
Eric Weisman
Chairman
Over his 23-year career as an executive in retail, marketing, and the entertainment industry, Eric Weisman's trademark has been the consistent introduction of creativity and innovation into whatever business he's managed. He is the founder and managing partner of Laser Partners, an entrepreneurial investment firm and the lead investor in NextLife.
Prior to forming Laser in October 2005, Eric served as CEO of the Musicland Group. Because of Eric's leadership and vision, he was recruited to guide the company through a tough turnaround, given what he accomplished in his previous stop as president and CEO of Alliance Entertainment. Eric’s strategic and operational expertise helped transform Alliance from a struggling products distribution company in Chapter 11 into the leading solutions provider of business-to-business infrastructure services. From August 1998 to his departure in August 2003, annual gross sales grew from $275 million to more than $1 billion.
Now, Eric is applying his strategic and innovative thinking to the “new industrial revolution” – sustainability. Eric is a firm believer that “going green” not only means savings to the environment but savings to a company’s “bottom line.” And, he sees NextLife as the “pied piper” for doing good business and doing good.
Danny Schrager
Vice Chairman
Over the last 20 years, Danny Schrager has distinguished himself as an innovator in the plastics and recycling industries. His vision and passion is to “close the recycling loop” for consumers and businesses through the development of plastic recycling solutions and sustainable products.
In 2003, Danny founded Mountain Valley Recycling (MVR). The company’s proprietary recycling process and advanced technologies have quickly made MVR a national leader in the recycling of plastic waste especially the biggest “culprits” – bags, hangers and films - and the production of secondary, post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic resins.
From there, Danny realized the opportunity for MVR’s sourcing customers (primarily retailers) to turn their trash into “treasure.” Danny knew retailers, especially, would embrace the economic and public relations value created from giving their plastic waste its “NextLife” (Danny’s idea) in the form of quality plastic products for their operations and their shelves. Just as importantly, Danny knew he would be continuing his mission of helping the environment by reducing the amount of petroleum-based resins traditionally employed in the production of similar products. Danny recognized that by creating the NextLife brand, he gave organizations not only a green consulting and eco marketing firm, but also an eco licensing opportunity to leverage a brand that consumers can trust.
Danny and MVR were recently featured in a piece on plastic recycling, recycled resin and post-consumer product creation for Discovery’s new Planet Green channel.
Lonnie Chenkin
President
Lonnie Chenkin has been a senior executive operating within the entertainment, marketing and licensing industries for most of his 25 year professional career. Lonnie understands how to build brands, making sure that they deliver on their value proposition to the marketplace, while maximizing their value to stakeholders. At NextLife, Lonnie has been charged as the steward of growing of one of the most exciting eco-brands to enter the sustainability space in the last several years and has nurtured many key trading partner relationships critical to the company’s development and long-term growth.
Lonnie has held executive level positions at many diverse entertainment, media and licensing companies, including, most recently, Muze and before that, Alliance Entertainment, Premier Signatures International and Paramount Pictures, where he was intimately involved in Paramount’s expansion into home video, pay television and first run syndication. At each of his stops, Lonnie has been responsible for sales, marketing, strategic planning, and product development initiatives. Lonnie also held the position of COO for Burson-Marsteller’s west coast operation and was responsible for developing and managing the company’s entertainment and event marketing and corporate sponsorship capabilities.
Sean Kerrigan
SVP, Marketing & Corporate Development
Sean Kerrigan may be the only certified public accountant running the marketing and corporate development division of any company in America. But, the ability to use “both sides of his brain” makes Sean an incredible asset to NextLife and our clients.
Sean has spent that last 20 years honing his marketing, finance, business affairs and corporate development skills at both large, publicly-traded, Fortune 500 type companies as well as small, privately-held organizations. From his four-year initiation in business at public accounting giant, Deloitte & Touche, Sean embarked on a world-wind “tour” of many different industries including wholesale, retail, customer care, and consumer products.
Sean is the personification of sustainability. So who better to get the word out about NextLife and its leadership role in what will soon be known as the “Sustainability Age.”
Sean looks to combine tried-and-true marketing strategies with innovative and leading-edge eco marketing solutions. Sean also believes that it is important that he do his part to enhance the world he lives in and build a better society for future generations.
Jeffrey Rosenholtz
VP, NextLife Solutions
Jeffrey Rosenholtz brings to NextLife his five years of hands-on experience managing many of Office Depot’s sustainability initiatives in his role as Senior Manager of Capital Projects. Among his many financial and environmental saving efforts, Jeff was responsible for retrofitting the majority of Office Depot’s retail store locations to T-5 energy efficient lightings, upgrading the Energy Management Systems, installing lighting and HVAC sensors in the stores, and initiating a national cardboard and paper recycling program. As a result of these initiatives, Office Depot saved over $7 million per year as it reduced its carbon emissions by 10%, total company energy usage by nearly 20 percent and electricity costs by 10 percent – despite a growing store footprint.
Jeffrey’s ability to analyze and refine operational processes, while keeping the environmental impact foremost in mind, makes him the ideal individual to help businesses streamline their operations, become more sustainable and, most importantly, reduce inefficiencies and costs.
