Advisory Board

Vicki Liao

Vicki has 10 years of business development, sales and strategy experience in the media and entertainment industry. She is passionate about sustainability and an advocate for environmental education. She currently serves on the Greener World Board at Sony Pictures studio, which is responsible for planning initiatives to educate employees on sustainability and environmental issues. Additionally, as the co-head of Sony’s employee garden, she launched a learning program in partnership with Sony’s Daycare and Employee Resource Groups to teach sustainable gardening.

In her free time, Vicki enjoys gardening, biking around downtown LA and reading sci-fi books. She holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley. 

Bonny Bentzin

Bonny is a key member of the leadership team for sustainability at UCLA, helping manage sustainability across the university and working to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments to create a world class living laboratory for sustainability. Bonny began her career in higher education sustainability as the Assistant Director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives and the Director of University Sustainability Practices at Arizona State University, where she was instrumental in designing the overarching sustainability vision and executing the campus sustainability strategy for the university. Her role as the founding Director of University Sustainability Practices included an expansive project portfolio spanning all area of operations for the University’s four campuses, as well as working on community engagement, organizational change management and the academic and research missions for the institution. She then served as the Director of Sustainability for GreenerU, a greater Boston area consulting firm focusing on the higher-ed sector in New England.

Prior to joining UCLA, Bonny was the Head of Sustainability and Project Integration for the Trust for Sustainable Development, working on Spirit Bay Developments, coordinating all sustainability aspects and planning key projects for a new town concept being developed in partnership with the Sc’ianew First Nation (Beecher Bay Band) near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Nurit Katz

UCLA’s first Chief Sustainability Officer, Nurit Katz is working to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments to facilitate creating a world class living laboratory for sustainability at UCLA. As Executive Officer for UCLA Facilities Management, Nurit also provides strategy support to make the university more operationally efficient and coordinates with Emergency Management on resilience planning. Nurit is also an Instructor for UCLA Extension’s Sustainability Certificate Program. In 2017 she received the Dean’s Award from UCLA Extension for outstanding instruction and contributions to the UCLA Extension community and her class was featured as one of the top 10 classes in LA in the 2012 LA Weekly’s Best of LA.

Nurit holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, a Masters in Public Policy from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and a BA in Environmental Education from Humboldt State University. Nurit was honored as one of 100 Inspirational Alumni for the 75th Anniversary of UCLA Anderson, Public Policy alumna of the year in 2015, and recently she was recognized as one of the top 100 business trailblazers in the Women Worth Watching in Profiles in Diversity Journal.

Zadra Rose Ibañez

Zadra Rose Ibañez began her career in the banking and pension industry before moving into non-profit administration. As Director of Operations for an educational non-profit, Ms. Ibañez has over a decade of experience in fundraising, operations, communication, and non-profit management and currently serves in an advisory capacity for several NPOs in California and New Mexico.
Zadra holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Colorado State University and a certification in Global Sustainability from UCLA. She remains a strong advocate for sustainable practices and is a member of USGBC.