Our Team

Essential Living Foods is extremely proud of its team members. We feel that our excellent business performance comes from only one place – our employees and all of their hard work, dedication and devotion. We strive for a positive and uplifting work environment where people are relaxed yet hard working, passionate about healthy foods and healing the planet, professional and driven to high performance and results.

Our executive team has diverse backgrounds and skill sets, creating a well balance team to drive our mission of sustainable business – profitable, with positive social impact, and ecological sensitivity.

Amrit Khalsa, CEO

Amrit earned his PhD in Aeronautical Engineering from MIT, and has spent the last 11 years working in socially responsible businesses and non-profits. He has had several C-level and board-level positions, including chairman of the board of several non-profits, CEO of both a computer consulting company and a non-profit, and COO of a diverse $600 million conglomerate. He has extensive experience in organizational systems, strategic planning, financial controls and analysis, cross-sector partnerships, and executive leadership.

Mr. Khalsa worked for nearly a decade with Golden Temple Natural Products, the manufacturer of Peace Cereals and Yogi Teas, as both an employee and a board member. Golden Temple’s sales grew from $23M to $90M in the 11 years Mr. Khalsa worked with the company.

As the COO of the Unto Infinity conglomerate, Mr. Khalsa was responsible for managing the executive corporate team, overseeing all of the shared services (such as HR, IT, legal, and finance), and strategic planning of all 7 for-profit companies and five non-profit organizations. The executive corporate team that Mr. Khalsa was part of approved annual business plans, reviewed monthly financials and business progress reports, and authorized discretionary and out-of-budget expenditures for all of the conglomerate’s subsidiaries. He also took on various operational roles in subsidiary companies on a short-term, as needed basis. During his tenure, Mr. Khalsa was intimately involved with several acquisitions made by the conglomerate’s subsidiary companies.

Mr. Khalsa is committed to the idea and the practice of conscious capitalism: doing good in the world, providing excellent jobs for employees, and growing a healthy bottom line all at the same time.

Kipp Stroden, VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Prior to joining Essential Living Foods in 2006, Mr. Stroden spent 20 years as a highly successful entrepreneur and international production and artist manager. During this time, Mr. Stroden launched a number of profitable companies including Innerspace Design, a commercial and residential design and construction company where he acted as chief designer and project manager. Mr. Stroden also launched Cool Therapy Records & Management where he created and implemented grassroots marketing strategies for its independent artists and took a number of them from anonymity to national touring acts and placement in major movie soundtracks. Mr. Stroden also produced major music festivals with artists such as: James Taylor, Widespread Panic, Carly Simon, James Brown, Blues Traveler, Willie Nelson, Stephen Stills, Robert Cray, Primus, Ziggy Marley.

Due to securing natural products companies as corporate sponsors for his events he developed relationships with many CEO’s in the industry which ultimately led to his relationship with BeON Holdings. Mr. Stroden also founded Iris Records, home of Ben Taylor (Son of James Taylor and Carly Simon) and simultaneously Force of Nature Enterprises was started and served as the management firm that handled all aspects of Ben Taylor’s career. The Company evolved into fundraising, marketing, strategic partnerships and business development for entertainment, alternative energy, natural products and media companies.

On behalf of the United Nations, the State of California and the City of San Francisco, Mr. Stroden’s company was hired to produce the opening ceremonies for United Nations World Environment Day featuring over 50 clean tech companies displaying the newest innovations in cutting edge green technology culminating in the gala event for Governor Schwarzenegger’s signing of Executive Order S-3-05 which established greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets for the state of California.

Mr. Stroden will mobilize his extensive network of business associates in the natural products industry, entertainment and finance to continually drive capital, strategic relationships and new business into the pipeline for BeON Holdings. His experience in building teams to execute the Company’s strategies, raising equity financing, grass roots marketing and establishing strategic partnerships will be instrumental in the Company’s growth and executing on its mergers & acquisitions strategy. Mr. Stroden has a strong passion for improving the quality of life on earth for all living things, healthy living and protecting the planet’s ecosystem. Mr. Stroden graduated with a BA in Economics from Skidmore College.

Michael Harleman, CFO

Mr. Harleman began working at Essential Living Foods in February 2006 as ELF’s controller, as well as overseeing its day-to-day operations. Before joining Essential Living Foods, Mr. Harleman was manager of financial operations for Anthem San Francisco, a subsidiary of Anthem Worldwide (a branding and design company for consumer packaging), a subdivision of Schawk, Inc. (NYSE: SGK). Before working at Anthem Worldwide, Mr. Harleman was director of operations for CPC, a large transportation and parking company in Northern California. At CPC, Mr. Harleman managed operations for all company accounts which included top hotels, five-star restaurants, large special events and festivals. Mr. Harleman also managed the personnel of the Company, which included over 200 employees and ten managers.