Horst M. Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda, a plant-based line of salon products, which he sold to Estee Lauder, is an active environmentalist, innovative business leader, author, artist, yoga practitioner and the founder and chief executive of the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company, ‘Intelligent Nutrients’.

He was born in Austria, and at age fourteen Horst began a three-year apprenticeship in the beauty and salon industry by doing cleaning work at the beauty salon across the street from his home. At seventeen, he went to work in a fashionable salon in Italy. He won numerous European hairstyling competitions and eventually came to the USA, making Minneapolis, Minnesota his home.

Aveda was created by Horst in 1978 after several trips to India. Further study earned him two doctorates in ayurvedic medicine, which means “all knowledge” or “knowledge of nature” in Sanskrit. He has collaborated with noted physicians and chemists as well as experts and traditional healers throughout the world -especially in India and Asia - and with tribes in the Brazilian Rainforest. One of the three original founders of BSR, (Business for Social Responsibility), Horst supports his belief that businesses have not only the responsibility, but the opportunity, to provide sustainability to all living species.

He is now building his new business, ‘Intelligent Nutrients’, which exclusively utilizes certified organic 100% food-based sources for both topical and ingestible products for health and beauty. Horst’s products are being primarily distributed through Regis Corp. and its 1,200+ salons across the United States.

”We want to contribute to greening the planet. And to avoid using petrochemical chemistry, which is not sustainable. I obviously feel we can do this through education.”

Business, Health, Environmental Policy, Environment, Entrepreneurship, CEO, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sustainability,