Our Mission
To work with CEOs and leaders to design great company cultures on purpose.
Why Culture?
Let’s start with a simple truth: in your business, a culture exists. It seems obvious but it’s important to say it. In any organization, a culture will emerge by default without anyone doing anything other than being there. How would you describe your organization’s culture? Are you happy with it? Do you think you fully understand it? Do you know the risks and opportunities your company culture creates? Most important, have you done anything to shape or change that culture, by design? If you have, that’s a good start. If you haven’t, you must. It’s time to get intentional about organizational culture and to make it strong. Strong company cultures, deliberately shaped, are the difference between businesses that are great versus those that are just good enough. We’re here to do the work with you, and guide you how to intentionally design a culture that is resilient, inclusive, powerful, and effective.
Meet the Team
James D. White
Co-Founder and CEO
JAMES D. WHITE is a transformational leader with more than thirty years of experience as a CEO and operating executive. He has overseen the evolution and growth of some of the world’s most iconic brands in the consumer products, retail, and restaurant industries. As the former Chair, President, and CEO of Jamba Juice, White led the successful turnaround and transformation of the company from a smoothie shop to a leading global healthy- and active-lifestyle brand, and he has held senior executive roles at Safeway Stores, Gillette, Nestlé Purina PetCare, and Coca-Cola.
James has become a coveted board member over the last twenty years on over 20 public and private company boards. James currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors The Honest Company (Nasdaq: HNST), a member of the Board of Directors of CAVA Group, Inc (Nasdaq:CAVA), Schnuck’s Supermarkets (private), Simply Good (Nasdaq:SMPL) and Greenlight (private).
James co-founded JDWhite Design Labs in 2019, which works with CEOs and leaders to design high-performing, resilient company cultures and organizations on purpose. Throughout his entire career, James has demonstrated his commitment to designing culture and inclusive workplaces and is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Director’s Academy, a national not-for-profit with a mission to identify, develop and advance the next generation of corporate board leaders.
White has been recognized with numerous awards, including the American Heart Association’s Corporate Citizen Award and Junior Achievement of Northern California’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The San Francisco Business Times also named him the San Francisco Bay Area’s Most Admired CEO. White was inducted into the 2021 Alumni Hall of Fame at the University of Missouri. He received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Fontbonne University and was invited to be the commencement speaker for the class of 2017.
Krista White
Co-Founder, Partner and Head of Communications
Krista White is a published author who has co-written two books with her Dad, James. Her work at JDWhite Design Labs focuses on research, in-depth interviews, and harnessing her writing and storytelling skills to craft powerful narratives. She collaborates with James and Rhonda to weave their incredible combined experiences into digestible communications, reports, and publications for JDWhite Design Labs clients. In addition to her work with JDWhite Design Labs, Krista has consulted with individuals and companies on their strategies for intentional culture design, inclusion, and racial justice. She is also the founder and CEO of Kiki for the Future, a platform for LGBTQIA+ sex education, and a fiction writer completing her MFA in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. All of her work ultimately centers around her values of liberation, connection, and joy.
Rhonda White
Co-Founder and COO
Rhonda White is a 30 year marketer and CMO, a board advisor and director, business executive in consumer products, technology, financial and cybersecurity industries. Rhonda is currently an independent board member for Kiteworks, a secure content communications company. She is a customer-oriented leader with a track record of operationalizing strategy, and developing go-to-market growth strategies and category development for Fortune 500 and privately held companies including HP, Symantec, McAfee, Qualcomm, PeopleSoft, Centrify and MobileIron. Rhonda was also a partner and GM at Porter Novelli, an Omnicom company, for 10 years where she specialized in corporate and crisis communications, category design, and brand and product positioning. Rhonda has advised CEOs, created and executed C-level internal and external communication platforms, led and scaled global GTM growth strategies, deployed digital transformations for B2B and B2C companies and executed M&A. Throughout her career Rhonda has used her platform in marketing to build intentional cultures and brands.