Economic Development Council Lunch

Join us for an opportunity to hear from Thomas Vozzo, CEO, Homeboy Industries. Tom will share the stories behind the unique Homeboy social enterprises and newest verticals Homeboy is launching through the $12M Homeboy Venture and Jobs Fund. Time for Q & A will be held at the end of the session.

If you would like to register, please email Brittany at Ganson@beverlyhillschamber.com

Thomas Vozzo is an author, speaker, and Fortune 200 executive turned nonprofit CEO at Homeboy Industries, the largest and most successful gang rehabilitation and re-entry organization in the world. 
 
After 30 years holding top positions at the highest echelons of corporate America, Tom left his career, convinced there was another way to positively impact society. After being asked by inimitable founder Fr. Greg Boyle, he pivoted into the nonprofit sector as the first-ever, unpaid CEO of Homeboy Industries. 
 
Taking the helm at Homeboy Industries during a financial downturn, Tom utilized the skills he’d perfected in the corporate world to help steer Homeboy into an unprecedented phase of growth and success. He spearheaded thriving social enterprises, growing Homeboy’s footprint from a single bakery to fourteen new businesses, providing both a vital training ground for clients and revenue streams to support the mission.  The organization’s social enterprise portfolio spans multiple verticals and includes Homegirl Café, Homeboy Recycling, as well as its newest offerings, Homeboy Threads and Homeboy Pet Spot.
 
Under Tom’s leadership, Homeboy was awarded the 2020 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the world’s largest humanitarian prize presented to a nonprofit organization judged to have made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering. He also made it his goal to promote from within, and today, 70% of Homeboy’s management team is comprised of formerly incarcerated gang members who began their tenure at the organization as trainees.  Other accomplishments include developing and launching the $12M Homeboy Ventures & Jobs Fund and quadrupling the size of Homeboy, significantly increasing the impact. 
 
Prior to joining Homeboy in 2012, Tom was an executive leading highly successful businesses in the service, retail and distribution industries, exceeding earnings targets, even during challenging  economic times. His last corporate role was CEO of the $1.8B ARAMARK Uniform and Career Apparel Group.
 
In 2022, Tom shared his experience of transformation in an award-winning book, The Homeboy Way: A Radical Approach to Business and Life, published by Loyola Press. In it, he outlines practical ways to address some of our most vexing social issues and provides a unique path for personal and business leadership.
 
Today, Tom continues to lead the team at Homeboy, embracing and championing core values of kinship, empathy, and social justice. Focused on Homeboy’s 2030 Ambition, he strives each day “to change the way the world views, judges, and treats our most marginalized and demonized – the formerly incarcerated and gang involved.  By our daily work and commitment to the healing of the most demonized in a trusting, loving community, we will demonstrate to the world a new way forward.”