Chairman of the U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce and founder of Davos to Dallas. Steve speaks on trust, green capital and leadership to business, legal, investor and Rotary audiences on six continents.
Every talk can run as a 20 minute keynote, a 45 minute address or a moderated conversation, and each ends with projects the room can act on.
In the age of AI, credibility is the next competitive advantage. Markets, democracies and climate action all depend on shared facts, and leaders can choose to build them.
Best for: business forums, chambers, law and finance conferences
What history teaches about decline, why renewing leadership matters, and what we owe the children being born today. A values talk with a call to act.
Best for: Rotary and service clubs, universities, civic and faith groups
How to tell investable sustainability projects from greenwashing, where the strongest opportunities are in clean energy, oceans and rebuilding, and how local networks lower the risk.
Best for: investor summits, family offices, impact funds
What makes infrastructure bankable anywhere, from the estimated $588 billion rebuild of Ukraine to Latin America and the Davos to Dallas pipeline into Texas.
Best for: law firm networks, infrastructure and energy investors, development banks
Steve Bender is Chairman of the U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce, Chair of Rebuild Ukraine Green, and Director of the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group for Western North America. He founded Sea 2 Sky Solutions, the Environmental Xperience at EarthX and Davos to Dallas, and created the 4-7-8-17 Global Success Program.
He designed Doc in a Box, a shipping container clinic for AIDS orphans in South Africa, co-founded California Inclusive Sailing for Special Olympics athletes and veterans, and helped launch the 7 Seas Initiative, whose flagship is The Panama Project in Bocas del Toro.
Hosts often open with one of these. Steve is happy to tell the rest.
Steve swam from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco to fund Doc in a Box clinics for AIDS orphans in Nkandla, South Africa. The Orange County Register covered the swim in June 2011.
After asking to be left out of district awards so first year club presidents could win, Steve received a one of a kind award from Past District Governor Ray Sanford. The nickname stuck.
At San Diego Climate Week, the La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club introduced Steve with its own take on a famous ad campaign. Steve called it hilarious, clever and touching.
Steve created the Newport Beach BBQ Competition and the Newport Beach Party, which KCAL 9 Los Angeles featured in June 2016, and used them to thank Special Olympics volunteers and families.
Honors include recognition at the Global CleanTech Gala in Davos (2026), the Daily Pilot Community Hall of Fame (2014) and two Rotary Presidential Citations.
You provided example after example of how to move from concern about an issue to positive action.
Steve Bender you are a force of nature.
A Rotarian’s Rotarian!
Tell us about your event. Rotary and nonprofit requests are welcome, and corporate and conference fees are quoted on request.
Use our contact form to tell us the talk, the date and your audience size. Requests go straight to Steve.