John Matthews shares his journey in building AVRIO Footwear, a sustainable and transparent footwear brand that uses algae and other organic components. He discusses the need to build business communities that share ideas, technologies and innovations to build a more sustainable future.
John believes the future of sustainable fashion will depend upon cooperation and collaboration.  His team created the Avrio brand to showcase the entrepreneurs of our world who have a vision and a passion on how you can Make Tomorrow Beautiful.  
 If you would like a historical report of work & accomplishments, that’s a conversation you can have with John, but he did tell us this:
After serving in the military and graduating from college, he spent his professional career working within the manufacturing space, establishing factories and offices in the U.S. and around the globe.  Each country and culture brought their own challenges and opportunities, and all of them shared a similar desire to improve their operations. What John learned from these experiences is how improving operations could also result in broader positive social and eco-impacts.  John developed a passion for sustainability before it was considered cool. He believes that a company can improve its operations while it fulfills its responsibility to improve the workplace, the community and the environment.
After serving for several years in footwear manufacturing, John left his position as the Chief Operating Officer of an international company to start Avrio.  The question wasn’t whether the world needed another shoe company. The question was, how could Avrio make an impact and inspire the change we need.  In 2018, the concept of Avrio was born and built upon the following pillars:  Collaboration, Eco-Innovation & Transparency.
Learn more: LinkedIn | AVRIO Footwear | Kickstarter
Hosted by: Christopher Lacy, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design
Produced by: Joshua Williams, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design
Executive Producer: Fashion Consort
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