David Katz is the Founder and CEO of Plastic Bank. Plastic Bank (PB) is a platform for the world to gather together to alleviate global poverty and ocean plastic through recycling.
On a high level, it is a convenience store for the world’s poor that accepts plastic waste as a currency. This global recycling system is sustained through the sale and use of Social Plastic® by some of the world’s largest organizations.
Salt Magazine’s list of The World’s Top 100 Compassionate Business Leaders recognized David Katz as #4 between Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Elon Musk.
David Katz Speaking Topics
- Social Entrepreneurship – From possibility to a first step
For founders and teams questioning inherited limits. Explore ownership and beginning before every answer is known.
- Leadership – Give People something to believe in
A vision becomes powerful when people see their place in it. For leaders who need more than agreement: they need people who choose to contribute.Plastic Bank required people with different needs and perspectives to take part in something larger than themselves. David draws on that experience to explore leadership as an invitation: making purpose personal, connecting contribution to a shared ambition and building belief through action.
- Unlearning Impossible – A different way to see Value
From waiting for certainty to taking a meaningful next step. For organizations whose ambition is being held back by familiar assumptions or a habit of waiting for direction. David Katz shares the thinking behind beginning an enterprise that seemed impossible. Through the experience of building Plastic Bank, he explores how people can question inherited limits, take ownership within a shared vision and begin creating before the whole path is clear.
- Plastic as Money
For audiences focused specifically on plastic, circularity and social enterprise, David Katz explores the model connecting collection with income, social benefits and recycled materials, and the people who make that exchange possible.
- The Prosperity Effect
For organizations looking for a different way to see an established problem. Plastic Bank began with a shift in perspective: discarded plastic had value, and the people gathering it could participate in an economy built around that value. David Katz uses that experience to explore how innovation begins with a better question, a human need and a model that gives people a reason to participate.
Help your people see what could be and decide what they will do about it. The most powerful conversations connect a bigger possibility to something deeply personal: the part each of us can play.
David Katz shapes each keynote around your audience’s ambitions, the assumptions holding them back and the decisions ahead. His stories bring the possibilities to life. His questions bring the responsibility home.
Social Plastic’s value is transferred into the hands of collectors, by assuring they receive a consistent, above-market rate for recycling plastics. By revealing the value in waste plastic, TPB help alleviate global poverty while preventing plastic from entering our oceans and waterways. The value of Social Plastic® goes beyond the commodity price of plastic. Corporations are paying for a genuine social impact. Social Plastic® is the fair trade of recycled plastic. It provides the highest possible positive social impact through the use of recycled plastic.
When the Vision is Clear, but the next step isn’t.
What could your People make possible? Your next breakthrough may begin with an assumption someone finally questions, an idea someone dares to voice or a responsibility someone chooses to own.
David Katz founded Plastic Bank by seeing possibility where others saw waste, then bringing people together to build what didn’t yet exist. He knows the distance between believing in an idea and getting people to believe enough to act. He brings that experience into your room, challenging people to think beyond the familiar, recognize the power of their contribution and take ownership of what comes next.
Plastic Bank has inspired a movement, resulting in features in Forbes, TIME, Fast Company, BBC and over 300 other articles from over 25 countries. Social Plastic® has over 1 million Facebook supporters and a collective 1 million Twitter fans between various company accounts, all contributing towards an immediate demand for PB’s globally trademarked Social Plastic® brand.
As a speaker, David Katz has been described some as “the best in the sustainability industry.” He is globally renowned for The Plastic Bank’s solution to make plastic waste a currency that transcends poverty while stopping the flow of plastic into our oceans. David has made appearances in the award-winning documentary A Plastic Ocean, the reality TV show Dragons Den and countless news interviews.
He performs globally, with frequent keynotes for Sustainable Brands, World Forum for Circular Economy, and the Entrepreneurs Organization. David has also spoken at various corporate events for organizations such as Unilever, Seventh Generation, Dow Chemical, and World Vision. David Katz delivers a genuine paradigm shift that inspires his audience to see opportunity, where others see problems.