As President and CEO of ECOS®, Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks leads the strategy and production of environmentally friendly cleaning products, including the ECOS®, Baby ECOS®, ECOS® Pets, and ECOS® Pro product lines. She has been internationally recognized for her highly effective leadership and influential voice in the green movement and in corporate social responsibility.

Vlahakis-Hanks oversees four sustainable manufacturing facilities across the U.S. and a global sales team. She has implemented sustainable practices that have made ECOS® a model for green American business. Under her leadership, ECOS® became the first company to achieve the “trifecta” of sustainable manufacturing: carbon neutrality, water neutrality, and TRUE Zero Waste Platinum certification. As a primary manufacturer, ECOS® has received many awards for its innovations in safer green chemistry, including the U.S. EPA’s Safer Choice Partner of the Year. ECOS® makes its plant-powered products using 100% renewable energy and has reduced its waste by over 95% by working closely with its suppliers and extensively recycling and reusing materials.

Under Vlahakis-Hanks’ leadership, ECOS® instituted one of the strongest employee benefits programs in the industry, offering its employees a wide variety of benefits such as medical insurance, paid sick and family leave, disability coverage, and onsite wellness programs. The company also offers financial incentives to employees who make sustainable living choices such as purchasing a low-emissions vehicle or solar panels. To help support working families, Vlahakis-Hanks implemented a “living wage” policy in 2014 that raised the company’s minimum wage to $17 per hour, one of the highest in the industry. As a woman of African American and Greek heritage, she actively promotes a corporate culture of diversity and empowerment, and more than 50% of her C-Suite and top executives are women.

A graduate of UCLA and the Chapman University Argyros School of Business and Economics, Vlahakis-Hanks has been featured on CNN, ABC News, FOX News, NBC News, Bloomberg, and Marketwatch and in the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register. She has received many awards for her sustainable leadership, including Global Green’s Corporate Environmental Leadership Award and Green Building & Design’s Women in Sustainability Leadership Award. She was named one of Conscious Company’s World-Changing Women in Conscious Business and Orange Coast magazine’s Remarkable Women. She is an active member of several boards, including the Environmental Media Association and the American Sustainable Business Council, which awarded her its Sustainable Policymakers Award for championing public policies that promote sustainability.

By lending her voice to industry councils and policy advocacy, Vlahakis-Hanks works to promote higher standards for product manufacturing that protect consumer health and the environment. Vlahakis-Hanks has dedicated herself to the pursuit of green chemistry innovation, environmental protection, and social advocacy.

Vlahakis-Hanks resides in southern California with her husband, teenage daughter, and rescue dog Mina.